Psalm 124

The 124th psalm (according to Greek counting the 123rd) is a psalm of David and belongs to the series of thanksgiving songs of Israel.

structure

The Old Testament scholar Hermann Gunkel structured the psalm as follows:

1. Verses 1-5: Part 1 : Asking Israel to imagine what it would be without YHWH
   1. Verse 1f: entrance
   2. Verse 3: Comparison of the enemy with mighty monsters ...
   3. Verse 4f: ... with wild water
2. Verse 6f: Part 2 : Thanks for the help
   1. Verse 6: Continuing the parable of the wild animals: They were unsuccessful
   2. Verse 7: Compare Israel to birds that escaped the web
3. Verse 8: Conclusion : Confession

Dating

Justus Olshausen suspects that the psalm is a song of thanksgiving for the restoration of independence through the Maccabean battles.

rating

Hermann Gunkel rates the psalm negatively. So he writes in his commentary on the Psalms:

"[...] But the song offers so little specific material - it is enough to speak of" people "who threatened Israel - that we are unable to say whether it [...] is only an imitation of such public thanksgiving songs"

Impact history

Some song texts (so-called psalm songs) were composed about this psalm:

• Where the Lord God does not stop with us by Justus Jonas
• If God were not with us this time of Martin Luther

• In his church cantata for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany, if God weren't with us this time, BWV 14 , Johann Sebastian Bach used the text by Martin Luther.
• The text of the song Where God the Lord does not hold with us is based on the church cantata of the same name by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 178) for the 8th Sunday after Trinity.

Web links

Commons : Psalm 124  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Psalm 124 in the [1] Psalm + 124 standard translation of the [2] Psalm + 124 Luther Bible and other translations from bibleserver.com
• Psalm 124 in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) on [3] Psalm + 124 bibelwissenschaft.de
• Sheet music in the public domain of settings for Psalm 124 in the Choral Public Domain Library - ChoralWiki (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Hermann Gunkel, Die Psalmen ( ⁶ 1986), 546f.
2. ^ Justus Olshausen, The Psalms (1853), 456