Song of Ascents - Psalm 120, Verse 7

I think of how with love and longing You said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling." You spoke the truth in love but only a few received it.

The Apostles faced the same kind of opposition. Like You, they too appealed in love to listen to the truth but were met instead with plots and traps. This was not from the heathen but from the brethren.

Who was it that stoned and killed the prophets? Was it not the brethren to whom they tried to speak the truth of God? I see similar opposition today where the brethren are just not willing to receive the truth and leave the traditions of men. Have mercy Adonai, just as You have had mercy on me, and draw those who are willing to hear.

Song of Ascents comprises of a collection of 15 psalms from Psalm 120 to 134. While there are a number of suggestions as to what the phrase, “Song of Ascents” could mean, one thought is that these psalms were sung by Israel as they went up to Jerusalem to celebrate the three annual feasts that the Lord had commanded (Lev. 23; Ex. 23:14).

We have just concluded the Feast of Unleavened Bread which started on the 15^th day of the first month of the Biblical calendar (or on the evening of March 30, 2018). During this seven day feast, Israel went up to Jerusalem singing these Songs of Ascent. We are now on the 7^th day of counting up to the fifty days to Shavuot (Lev. 23:15-16).

My purpose of posting a verse from these psalms each day (during these days between the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) which in Greek is called Pentecost) is so that we too—if you are a son (or daughter) of Israel, even though you once may have been a Gentile but now through the great grace shown to us by the Father and through the blood of the Messiah Yeshua—can pilgrim into the presence of the Most High God (for we are the temple of God and the Holy Spirit dwells in us) singing these psalms to Him who sits on the throne (in heaven and in our hearts).

Join with me then O son of Israel and let us exalt the name of our God together as we pilgrim on His appointed feast days just as He commanded.