Come, let us go up! The Songs of Ascent

On December 1, 2024 I started a daily series of looking at the Songs of Ascent, Psalms 120 through 134. In the last week of November I learned from Chaim Malespin of the Aliyah Return Center that "In Hebrew, the word Aliyah means to “go up higher”. Also this is the word that the Jewish people use to mean immigrating to their ancestral homeland, Israel. This return of the Jewish people to Israel has been written and prophesied throughout the Bible." 

That is a critical understanding of the days we are in, but right alongside that, it is critical to understand that the Christian Church has GOT TO "Go Up Higher" too. As the Jewish people are en route to spiritual restoration to God by faith in Yeshua/Jesus, the CHURCH MUST spiritually go up higher to understanding God's heart plan, so we do not see Israel as our "rival" but as our family.      Mostly the Jewish people, Israel, are the family we love, but who do not yet really know Yeshua was sent to gather them into restored relationship with God.

The majority of Jews still have no clue what they are missing and are holding Jesus back at arm's length or even farther if possible! But the Church MUST come alongside cooperatively with the Messianic Jews who DO KNOW YESHUA is Israel's Messiah. The Israeli "remnant of faith" in Yeshua are the ones charged by God to carry the Gospel of the Kingdom into "all Israel."  That is why the epicenter of spiritual battles in our time revolves around Israel. Christians will ONLY be able to aid in the declaration of Jesus in Israel if we set ourselves to that "go up higher" to God's call and purposes. 

That's why I am looking again at the Psalms 120-134 called the songs of ascent. These must hold keys for spiritually maturing the Church, not the Jewish people only.

Psalm 120 Plea for Relief from Bitter Foes
1 In my distress I cried to the LORD, and He answered me.
2 Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.
3. What will He do to you, and what will be added to you, O deceitful tongue?
4 Sharp arrows will come from the warrior, with burning coals of the broom tree!
5 Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar!
6 Too long have I dwelt among those who hate peace.
7 I am in favor of peace; but when I speak, they want war.

The first thing I see is the psalmist prays for his own deliverance first from lying lips and a deceitful tongue. I have always seen it as a plea to God to be delivered from those lying ABOUT us and being deceitful in speaking against us, but "Deliver my soul" is about first being delivered from telling lies and being deceitful ourselves. Removing the log from our own eye first.

This psalm is primarily a prayer as we are "ascending" closer to God, for His help from our enemies. That is clear in the final 2 verses, "Too long have I dwelt among those who hate peace. I am in favor of peace, but when I speak, they want war."

In verse 3 the psalmist asks those who lie about him, who are deceitful regarding their animus toward him asking, What will the LORD do to you for lying, what do you think you will profit from being deceitful against me?

In verse 4 I am of the mind that the psalmist is answering his own question: "Sharp arrows will come from the warrior, with burning coals of the broom tree!" When I looked the key words in this today, "Sharp arrows" was said to be figurative, words-like-arrows; "from the warrior" valiant man.'

And this especially caught my eye to understand, what broom tree? "with burning coals of the broom tree" - the "burning coals" indicating divine judgment. The broom tree is a Juniper shrub, "growing in the deserts of Arabia, with yellowish flowers and a bitter root, which the poor were accustomed to eat." It is called a broom tree because of being bound together to make a broom to sweep. Being poor is its own bitter root.

The psalmist is speaking of living in Meshech and among the tents of Kedar: Meshech is a son of Japheth, grandson of Noah, the people north of Israel and described as a "barbarous people." Kedar is a son of Ishmael, the Bedouin. There is great poverty among the Bedouin, it is a bitter root they have been eating on. I know of a Messianic Jewish woman in Arad, Israel who ministers to the extremely impoverished Bedouin women. They are lowly even to their lowly Bedouin people but the hope of Yeshua is touching them in their great poverty.

"Too long have I dwelt among those who hate peace. I am in favor of peace; but when I speak, they want war." It is important that we pray for salvation by faith in Yeshua for Israel's enemies. Not all will be saved, but those whose hearts are reached are a miracle, living testimony to the power of God through faith in Israel's Messiah.