Songs of the Road

The road is steep, the sun is hot, and the hills ahead seem to go on for ever. Somewhere in the line of travellers, someone starts to sing. And one by one, the others join in.

In ancient Israel, the law of Moses asked God's people to come to Jerusalem for the great festivals: Passover in spring, the Feast of Weeks in early summer, and the Feast of Tabernacles in autumn. Whole villages set out together, families and neighbours, walking for days. Jerusalem sits high in the hills, so every road to it climbs. Tucked into the book of Psalms is a little collection of fifteen songs, Psalms one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty-four. Each one has the same heading: a Song of Degrees, or a Song of Ascents. Songs for going up. Many believe these are the songs pilgrims sang on that climb. Let's walk with them.

Imagine a family on the road. The donkey is loaded with food and blankets. The children's feet are sore. The path winds through rocky hills, the kind of place where bandits might hide, where a foot could slip on loose stones. And a father lifts his head and sings: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” It is a real question. Where does help come from, out here? And the answer comes back, maybe from the whole group: “My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.” Not from the hills. From the one who made the hills.

The song goes on, and it sounds like a blessing spoken over a traveller. He will not let your foot slip. The one who watches over you will not fall asleep. In fact, the one who keeps Israel never slumbers and never sleeps. At night, when the family lies down by the fire and someone keeps watch, they can remember that God is the real watchman. The LORD is your shade at your right hand, the song says. The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. Then the last lines, like a hand on the shoulder: the LORD will keep your going out and your coming in, from now on and for evermore. Every step of the journey, and every journey after it.

And then, after days of walking, they come over the last ridge, and there it is. Jerusalem. The walls, the gates, the temple shining on its hill. Now the song changes. Psalm one hundred and twenty-two, a song of David, bursts out: “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.” Our feet are standing inside your gates, Jerusalem! The tribes of Israel come up here together to give thanks to the name of the Lord. And the pilgrims finish with a prayer for the city itself: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” May there be peace within your walls. For the sake of my family and my friends, I will say, peace be with you. Strangers from every corner of the land, arriving as one people, praying for peace.

There is an old Jewish tradition about these songs. The Mishnah, a collection of Jewish teaching written down around the year two hundred, describes the temple in Jerusalem. It says there were fifteen steps leading up from the Court of the Women to the inner court, and that they matched the fifteen Songs of Ascents in the Psalms. On those steps, it says, the Levites stood and sang. Fifteen steps, fifteen songs of going up.

You'll find these two songs in Psalms one hundred and twenty-one and one hundred and twenty-two. Songs for tired feet on a long road, and a glad shout at the end of it. So here is a question to carry with you. When the road ahead of you looks long or hard, where do you look for help?