Arise, Jehovah, into thy rest, thou and the ark of thy strength.
Psalm 132 follows David's search for a dwelling place for God, and verse 8 is the prayer that crowns it. Two questions sit inside it. What is the "rest" God enters? And what is the "ark" that goes in with Him?
The wording echoes an older cry from the wilderness, but turns it around:
The point to notice in our Psalm is the contrast. In the wilderness it was, "Arise, O LORD, and let your enemies be scattered." Here it is, "Arise, O Lord, into Your rest; You, and the ark of Your strength." To faith the goal was reached as soon as the ark reached Zion, and all the enemies were scattered. This will indeed be the case before Messiah, as the Priest upon His throne, builds His temple and bears the glory (Zechariah 6:12-13).
(The writers quote an older translation of the verse: "into Your rest ... the ark of Your strength." The ESV reads "go to your resting place ... the ark of your might.")
This prayer follows a disaster. The Philistines had captured the ark, and the usual way of approach to God stopped with it.
First of all, David's sufferings are the basis of everything, that is, Christ. Next comes sovereign grace. Even responsibility, under the mercy declared through Moses, came to an end when the Philistines captured the ark. There could be no day of atonement, no blood on the mercy-seat. Ichabod was written on everything — God had "delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the enemy's hands." Sovereign grace raised up Samuel the prophet, and then David. David brought the ark, not into the tabernacle at all, but to Mount Zion. Zion was in this way the seat of sovereign grace in power, in contrast with Sinai. God is called on to "arise into his rest," for He will rest in His love.
("Ichabod" means the glory has departed — the name given when the ark was lost.)
David prepared for the house but never built it. His son Solomon spoke the words of this verse, and they still point past that day:
Though David could say, "I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God" (1 Chronicles 29:2-3), he was not allowed to build the temple. He did find "a place for the Lord" in Jerusalem and pitched a tent for it there. But that was only temporary, a preparation for the building of the temple. It was the lips of Solomon that spoke the words of Psalm 132:8-9, as recorded in 2 Chronicles 6:41. In the same way we wait for the moment when Jehovah and His Christ — who is the true "ark of His strength" — shall enter into their permanent rest.
The ark travelled on carrying poles. One writer weighs the day those poles come out for good:
The longing of David, "the man after God's heart," is now fulfilled. After all his afflictions, he is given the thing he would "not give sleep to his eyes" for. In the fullness of his joy he looks ahead and says, "Arise, O Lord, into Your rest; You, and the ark of Your strength" (Psalm 132:8). God cannot enter His rest until He brings His people into it too. So everything waits until the conflict with sin is over forever — all settled by God, and settled forever. The carrying poles will be drawn out then, and not before, when our Lord's journey with His blood-bought people through the wilderness is over: "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9). Even then the poles will still be visible. They will keep the past in memory, and stir fresh and endless praise.
This prayer rests on the sufferings of David.
In Psalm 132, Solomon pleads with Jehovah to arise into the rest he had prepared for Him, and to fill it with glory and blessing. The ground of his plea is his father's afflictions... So the afflictions of David were remembered amid the glories of Solomon. In the same way the Lamb that was slain shall be in the midst of the throne. As our fallen earth bears everywhere the trail of the serpent, so will the kingdom wear the traces of the blood of the Lamb.
The psalm does not end with the petition. God replies later in the same psalm, and the reply is larger than what was asked.
In Psalm 132, David seeks a home for God in verse 5, and in verse 13 God answers by choosing Zion. In verse 8, David says, "Arise, O LORD, into Your rest; You, and the ark of Your strength." In verse 14, God answers, "This is My rest forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it."
- Ground — the prayer stands on David's afflictions, and so on Christ. The kingdom to come will still carry the marks of the Lamb who was slain.
- Grace — the ark's capture wrote "the glory has departed" over everything. Only sovereign grace could raise up David and set the ark on Zion.
- Gift — the ark of His strength is Christ Himself. Solomon spoke these words, but the full answer is still ahead.
- Gathering — God will not enter His rest without His people. The carrying poles come out only when the wilderness journey ends.
- Greater — God answers the prayer Himself. This is His rest forever, a place He chose because He desired it.
Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout for joy.
Psalm 132 pleads with the Lord to come into His resting place with the ark, and verse 9 names what should follow: priests clothed as they should be, and a people shouting for joy. Two questions sit inside it: what is it for a priest to be "clothed with righteousness," and what does God do with a prayer like this?
Verse 9 was not only written; it was prayed aloud. One writer traces it to the day Solomon dedicated the temple, and then on to a rest still to come.
David could say, "I have set my affection to the house of my God," and so, "I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God" (1 Chron. 29:2-3). Yet he was not allowed to build the temple. He did find "a place for the Lord" in Jerusalem and pitched a tabernacle for it there. But that was only temporary, a preparation for building the temple. It was the lips of Solomon that spoke the words of Psalm 132:8-9, as recorded in 2 Chr. 6:41. In the same way we wait for the moment when Jehovah and His Christ — who is the true "ark of His strength" — shall enter into their permanent rest.
Verse 9 sits inside a short run of requests, and each request asks for something different.
Verses 8 to 10 present the prayer of the godly to the Lord. First, they pray that the Lord would come among them. He would find His rest in His tabernacle, and His righteous power to bless His people in the ark of His strength. The ark, we know, speaks of Christ. Then they pray that the priests may be clothed with righteousness — that their practical ways may be in accord with their holy office. Third, they pray that the Lord's people may shout for joy. Finally they pray that the King may be established in the favour of the Lord.
One writer sets this clothing against the first man and woman, who had no covering before God.
We are not now like Adam and Eve. They hid away from God's presence because they knew they were guilty and had no covering before Him. Our guilt has been purged away. We are clothed with righteousness and salvation (Ps. 132:9, 16), just as the sons of Aaron were clothed in linen garments when they were set apart as priests. For we are God's priests.
Verse 16 answers this prayer, but not in the same words.
So the desire (v. 9) is that Jehovah's priests be clothed with righteousness, as John the Baptist's father was. The answer (v. 16) is, "I will also clothe her priests with salvation" — the full and final deliverance of God. The desire is right: righteousness becomes them. The answer is from God, and becomes Him in the power of His grace. The desire again (v. 9) is that His saints may shout for joy. All right: the renewed heart must desire the prosperity and joy of God's chosen. And God will give it abundantly (v. 16): "her saints shall shout aloud for joy."
The prayer says "Your priests." God's reply uses a different word, and the change matters.
Faith had said "Your priests" and "Your saints," and they truly were Jehovah's. But in His reply He says "her" (Zion's) priests and "her" saints. So Jehovah identifies Himself with Zion, and credits to her what belonged to Him. It is the blessed association of Zion and the priests and saints with Himself. The Christian will understand this, knowing how completely he is associated with Christ in every aspect and relationship, and how the Lord shares with His own all that He Himself has acquired in virtue of redemption, so that they can be described as "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ."
The word behind "saints" here does not point first to being separate from evil.
"And her pious ones" — not holy ones, in the sense of separate from evil, but godly, with a heart for God.
- Place first. Verse 9 follows verse 8. The Lord takes His resting place first; then come clothed priests and singing people.
- Prayer. Three requests follow that rest: right ways in the priests, joy in the people, favour on the king.
- Garment. Righteousness is a priest's clothing. Those who wear it draw near, instead of hiding as Adam and Eve did.
- Answer. God gives more than they ask. They ask for righteousness; He promises salvation — His full and final deliverance.
- Ownership. In the reply they are no longer only "Your priests" but Zion's — God credits His own people to the place He has chosen.
For thy servant David's sake, turn not away the face of thine anointed.
Psalm 132 looks back to David's afflictions and his longing to find a dwelling place for God. Verse 10 asks God not to refuse His anointed king — and the reason given is David, not the king himself.
One commentator explains the event behind the psalm, and where it points:
It is founded on David bringing the ark of the covenant up to Zion. That was grace acting by power. Israel had failed so completely that the bond between the people and God was wholly broken, and the ark had gone into captivity. But now a home was found for the mighty God of Jacob. The fruit of David's body, the Messiah of Jehovah, was to sit on His throne for evermore.
One commentator points out whose trouble the psalm is naming here:
The psalm speaks of David's trouble, not of the nation's affliction. To him God had made promises. As God's anointed he had suffered much. But this language, so suited to him, will suit the faithful remnant of Israel in the same way. They with their fathers have failed, but God had made promises to David. Where they could not speak of themselves, they could tell of the promises. David had died, but the promises held good: his children had failed, but God's words could not.
Solomon closed his own prayer with these words. One writer points out what Solomon's request admits:
These words are taken from Psalm 132. In this song, the object of David's afflictions was to find a habitation for the Mighty One of Jacob. This habitation had now been found, but in the imperfection which Solomon's request reveals. God in that Psalm then responds to the king's desire expressed in Chronicles. He shows him Zion, His house, His priesthood, His Anointed, as He sees them in their eternal perfection in answer to sufferings of Christ, the true David.
The verse therefore has two figures in it, and both point the same way:
Of course, in this David is a type of Christ, for whose sake God cannot in the least turn away His face from His Anointed, who is clearly Christ also.
One commentator reads the two names as two pleas held together, and notes what the verse leaves unsaid:
I think the plea here is a double one, complete in its two parts. Christ in His Person and work is represented in "David" and in Jehovah's "Anointed." But the prayer does not name the work itself. What it asks Jehovah to remember is Christ's own appointment to that work, and the testimony given of His delight in that appointment. He had made no mistake.
This kind of prayer — asking on the strength of someone else — carries straight into Christian prayer:
Notice again that the ground of the plea is still David: "For the sake of your servant David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one." The believer will enter into this, because he knows that God hears all his prayers only as they come in and through the One whom David pictures. What power and what perseverance in prayer this should give to the Lord's people, as they remember that they can plead all the infinite acceptability of Christ Himself before God!
In the second half of the psalm God replies, and He answers the petitions one by one:
Verse 13 shows God's sovereign choice. Then notice this: each time, God's promise in answer goes beyond what was asked (compare verses 14-15 with 8, 16 with 9, and 17-18 with 10). This is of the highest interest, because it shows the grace of the Lord, and how His love goes beyond all the hopes of His people.
Verse 10 asked only that God would not turn His face away. Verses 17-18 answer with power, light and a crown:
In verse 17 the horn of David stands for power, and that power will grow in a wonderful way, for it speaks of the power of the Messiah, the Son of David. God's Anointed, the Lord Jesus, will show a lamp of renewed light in Israel, while His enemies will be clothed with shame. On the Messiah the crown of glory will flourish.
- Ground. The prayer names no merit of its own; it pleads David — his vow, his afflictions, and the promises God attached to him.
- Gift. Those promises outlived the man. David died and his sons failed, yet God's word to him still stood as something a later generation could hold.
- Reach. The "anointed" reaches past Solomon to Christ. God will not turn His face away from Him.
- Access. Christian prayer follows the same pattern. God hears us on Christ's acceptability, not our own.
- Result. God's answer always goes past the asking. A face not turned away becomes power, a lamp of light, and a crown of glory.