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

Psalm 133

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

  • 3Verses
  • 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.

3 verses, Berean Standard Bible

The whole psalm

Psalm 133

Its own heading A song of ascents. Of David.

  1. 1Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!
  2. 2It is like fine oil on the head, running down on the beard, running down Aaron’s beard over the collar of his robes.
  3. 3It is like the dew of Hermon falling on the mountains of Zion. For there the LORD has bestowed the blessing of life forevermore.

Psalm 133 is 132 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.