Gustave Doré’s engraving of David standing crowned and bowed as he mourns Absalom

Psalm 122

One of the fifteen Songs of Ascents, which St Athanasius said to pray when you can feel yourself climbing higher.

  • 9Verses
  • 1Situation

St Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus

When to pray it

In the 300s, St Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a letter to his friend Marcellinus about praying the Psalms. In it he matched psalms to what people go through. This is what he gave this one for.

You can feel yourself climbing: forgetting what's behind you and straining toward what's ahead.

When you sense yourself climbing higher in how you live, so that you can say with Paul, "forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead", you have the fifteen Songs of Ascents to say at every step forward.

Letter to Marcellinus

He gave all fifteen Songs of Ascents for this, Psalms 120 to 134.

9 verses, Berean Standard Bible

The whole psalm

Psalm 122

Its own heading A song of ascents. Of David.

  1. 1I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD.”
  2. 2Our feet are standing in your gates, O Jerusalem.
  3. 3Jerusalem is built up as a city united together,
  4. 4where the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as a testimony for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
  5. 5For there the thrones of judgment stand, the thrones of the house of David.
  6. 6Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May those who love you prosper.
  7. 7May there be peace within your walls, and prosperity inside your fortresses.”
  8. 8For the sake of my brothers and friends, I will say, “Peace be within you.”
  9. 9For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your prosperity.

Psalm 122 is 121 in the Greek numbering Athanasius used, which Orthodox Bibles and some older Catholic ones still follow.

When life is good, and you want to thank Him and grow

Close to this

All 53 situations, in one guide.

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Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Athanasius’s advice is paraphrased from his Greek.