Today’s Passage: Psalm 134
This is a song of the road, and the last of the fifteen. One sentence is really all it is. It calls out to the servants who serve by night, come and bless the LORD, and it tells them to lift up their hands. Then the blessing turns and comes back the other way, for the song asks that the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth, would bless them from Zion.
As you read, hold this: Bless the LORD, all you servants who serve by night.
Context Who serve by night
This last song is not aimed at the travelers at all. It is aimed at the ones who stayed behind, the temple servants who kept the night watch while everyone else went home.
"Those who were musicians, the heads of Levite families, stayed in the temple chambers and were exempt from other duties because they were on duty day and night." 1 Chronicles 9:33 (BSB)
They were on duty day and night. The pilgrims have all gone home now, and yet the house of the LORD is still to be blessed, and these are the ones left to bless it.
Psalm 134:1-2 (BSB)
A song of ascents. ¹ Come, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD who serve by night in the house of the LORD! ² Lift up your hands to the sanctuary and bless the LORD!
Come, the song says, and bless the LORD, all you servants who serve by night in the house of the LORD. Lift up your hands toward the sanctuary and bless Him. Worship does not pause simply because the hour has grown late.
Word study "Lift up" — seu (Psalm 134:2)
Hebrew: שְׂאוּ (seu), from nasa, pronounced nah-SAH. Strong’s H5375.
The picture is of hands raised toward the sanctuary and held open. The same root can mean to carry in another psalm, but here it is simply the servants’ hands, lifted in the night and still lifted.
Psalm 134:3 (BSB)
³ May the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.
Study notes The Maker blesses from Zion
The last line reaches for a title that another song of the road had already used when it spoke of help.
"My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121:2 (BSB)
Help comes from the Maker, and now blessing comes from the Maker too, spoken from Zion over the very ones who kept the house while everyone else slept. Bless the LORD, all you servants who serve by night.
Bless the LORD, all you servants who serve by night.