This is a Psalm of consolation, wherein the Psalmist, from his own experience, exhorts the godly to a constancy of faith, and to an expectation of help and defence from God. For although in the hour of temptation God puts off his help, and all things appear as if he were asleep, or had forgotten us altogether, and had left us to be scorched by the heat of the sun by day, and by the beams of the moon by night; that is, as though he had given us up to be afflicted and destroyed by all manner of temptations, by Satan, by the world, and by sin, day and night: yet it is not so;—he has not given us up, as we, according to the weakness of our flesh, imagine and feel. He sees and regards us, and watches over us; nor does he suffer us to be so burnt as to be destroyed, nor so tempted or distressed, as to be swallowed up of over-much sorrow: and this all blessedly experience, who call upon him for his help and patiently wait for it. PSALM CXXII. _David professeth his joy for the church, and prayeth for the peace thereof._ A Song of degrees of David. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together: Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the LORD. For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, _and_ prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace _be_ within thee. Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good. This is a Psalm of thanksgiving, it contains the feelings of a glad, a rejoicing, and a thankful heart, for that unspeakable gift of God,—the ministry of his word. This Psalm in the person of the Jews, rejoices that God had appointed a certain place, namely Jerusalem, in the midst of that people, where the name and the word of God had a certain dwelling-place and could there be found: and where it was administered by certain persons, the Levites and the priests, to certain disciples; namely, to the tribes of Israel. For what calamity or misery can be greater than to seek the word of God anxiously, and not be able to find it? This calamity and misery the children of Israel experienced in the times of God’s anger, when, being forsaken by him, and left to their own inventions, they sought and worshipped idols. And in these our times of monkery also, the masses and the travellings about to so many Marys have given abundant proofs of what it is to seek the word of God and not to find it.