Psalms 132:9

Psalms 132:9

What did these words "priests" and "saints" mean to a Jew? Why does the Psalmist perceive such a close connection between the righteousness of the one and the joy of the other?

I. A whole book of the Pentateuch is written to tell us what the Jewish priest was and what work he did. He could appoint nothing, devise nothing. He was told what he had to do. He was called out, as every other officer of the commonwealth was called out, to be a witness of the Lord God of Israel, of Him who was revealing Himself to the nation, delivering them, governing them, feeding them, judging them. The atonement day testified that the priest was holy, just as every man in the nation was holy, because God had chosen him to be His servant, to do His work; and that he was bound to consider himself holy upon that ground, and upon no other.

II. We have learnt, in speaking of the Jewish priests, what the Jewish saints were. Were they the good men, the choice men of the land, those who stand out in such broad and startling contrast to the stiff-necked race about them? Surely they were these, but then only because they were Israelites, and believed themselves to be Israelites, and claimed the rights of Israelites.

III. The prophets trace many of the nation's worst corruptions to the priests. They represented the holiness of the nation; if they ever began to fancy that the holiness was their own, that it belonged to them as members of a caste by hereditary right, one can fancy how soon security would take the place of vigilance, how easily they would learn to look in other men for the evils that were getting full possession of their own hearts, how gladly they would escape from the dreary routine of duties that had no meaning for them to coarse animal indulgence. The effect of such spectacles in lowering the tone of the people at large would be gradual and certain. A joyless, thankless spirit would be diffused through all hearts, visible on all countenances. Everywhere there would be a sense of death and dread of it, a glow of life scarcely anywhere. That such a state of things might not overtake his land, the Psalmist prayed, "Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness; let Thy saints shout for joy."

IV. There is the same connection as in former days between the unrighteousness of the priests and the joylessness of the saints or the Church. The prayer of the Psalmist is still the one which we have most need to offer. Throughout the history of modern Europe this truth, I think, is written in sunbeams: that the degeneracy of the priesthood is the main cause of the degeneracy of the nations; and this other: that the degeneracy of the priesthood is always connected with unbelief in the righteousness of God.

F. D. Maurice, Sermons,vol. vi., p. 237.

References: Psalms 132:13; Psalms 132:16. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 248. Psalms 132:15. J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 57.