A song of ascents. Of David.
1 How good and pleasant it is
when God’s people live together in unity!
2 It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down on the collar of his robe.
3 It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore.
AS SUGGESTED ABOVE, PSALM 133 begins with a wisdom saying that clearly could stand alone and perhaps did at some point in its history. The saying commends a particular way of life, namely, that of familial unity. Because the term ’ahim, literally “brothers,” can connote a variety of relationships, the precise meaning of the opening aphorism has received considerable treatment and demands our attention prior to addressing the similes that follow.
How good and pleasant it is. The NIV does not translate the Hebrew term that begins verse 1a: hinneh, “behold, look.” The NASB, NRSV, and JPS translate the opening line, “Behold, how good.” The addition of the word to the English translation does not fundamentally alter the meaning, but its presence in the Hebrew text is suggestive of the type of saying found in verse 1. William Bellinger has rightly noted that, while the saying begins with hinneh rather than ’ashre (“blessed”), the opening line of Psalm 133 has the feel of a beatitude similar to that found in Psalms 1 and 128, which are both considered wisdom texts.6 The subsequent terms in the opening line, “good” and “pleasant,” appear repeatedly in wisdom texts and contribute to the verse’s beatific sense.7 The word “pleasant,” na‘im, refers to something that is attractive or desirable; fraternal unity was something to be valued, prized, and pursued. As a beatitude of sorts, the opening verse commends a certain understanding of life.
When God’s people live together in unity. Although the NIV mentions “God’s people” in Psalm 133:1b, the Hebrew term is ’ahim, which literally means “brothers.” Rendered literally, the line reads, “when brothers live together in unity.” The precise identity of the ’ahim and the meaning of their unity have received considerable discussion, but the options can be reduced to three. The first one is familial. Some interpreters note the similarities in language between Psalm 133:1b and Deuteronomy 25:5. In the latter text, the situation involves brothers who have reached manhood and have married, yet they have remained part of the larger family household and choosen to live on the ancestral land. Thus, the phrase “when brothers live together in unity” may have its origin as a wisdom saying that extols “the value of fraternal harmony and extended family life.”8
Other interpreters have noted that while verse 1b may have had its origin in a familial context, it has been appropriated differently in Psalm 133. Given that this psalm mentions both Zion and blessing and, further still, that it appears in a pilgrimage collection suggests the poem has in view a festal gathering in Jerusalem. The reference to ’ahim, “brothers,” no longer applies solely to a familial context but instead refers to a “festal fraternity,” the kind experienced amid jubilant festal celebrations.9 The NIV’s translation of ’ahim as “God’s people” no doubt reflects this interpretive option.
The third option, posited by Adele Berlin, is that the image of unified brothers has in view the unification of the entire country, the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.10 Although the two kingdoms split many centuries earlier (922 BCE), later writers indeed envisioned the possibility of a United Kingdom once more (cf. Ezek 37:15–28). Berlin contends that the imagery of oil flowing down or flowing together likely suggests such a reunification. In addition, she explains that the mention of Hermon in the North and Zion in the South provides overt references to both kingdoms. Although this thesis is appealing, a simpler interpretive explanation seems preferable. Likely the saying, or something similar, had its origin in the family setting but was later adapted for use in the postexilic community to highlight the importance of communal unity.11
IMMEDIATE FAMILY AND CONFLICT. In one sense, Psalm 133:1 can be read at the level of the immediate family. In modern parlance, we might think of the “immediate family” in terms of the “nuclear family,” but that concept would be too restrictive in relation to Psalm 133. The idea of the family in the Old Testament is embodied best in the concept of the “father’s house” (cf. Gen 24:38; 47:12; Num 1:4; Judg 19:3). This familial unit included the patriarch and his wife, unmarried children, married sons and grandsons with their families, as well as slaves and their families, and sojourners. This extended family could easily approach well over seventy-five members. Given the complexity of such a family arrangement, the threat of conflict was not only possible but likely. Scripture recounts numerous familial conflicts, particularly those between brothers (’ahim). The first brothers, Cain and Abel, demonstrated from the outset that family unity would always be tenuous at best in the narrative of Scripture. The patriarchal stories of Jacob and Esau as well as Joseph and his brothers confirm this claim. And such tensions did not subside with the rise of the monarchy, as the sons of David demonstrated well. In their book, Flawed Families of the Bible, Drs. David and Diana Garland remind the reader that family life in the ancient world was anything but serene and copacetic. As they note, the “stories of the families in the Bible are raw and uncensored, bitter reminders of how awful family life can become.”16 As suggested above, the wisdom saying in Psalm 133:1 may have had its origin in the midst of the type of family life described by the Garlands. The unity of the larger family, the father’s household, was indeed something to be valued as “good and pleasant.”
Family and identity. In agricultural and nomadic cultures, the immediate family played a critical role in matters related to economics, as one might expect; but the immediate family was also critical in establishing and cultivating religious identity. In Deuteronomy 6, most notably, the family is instructed to recite the teachings of the torah to their children (v. 7) and to explain the primary narratives of their faith to them (v. 20). This admonition had two purposes: (1) to shape the faith of the family members; and (2) to connect the faith of the family members with the larger identity of God’s people. In Psalm 133 the poet appears focused on the second of these two purposes. In the light of the entire psalm and its inclusion in the Songs of Ascent, the focus appears to be on God’s people and the blessings bestowed on them by the God of Zion. While the psalmist is not attempting to discount the immediate family, the “father’s house,” he is reframing the discussion. The “brothers” (’ahim) mentioned in verse 1 must now be understood as all those gathering in Jerusalem for festal celebration—the very same ones who together will enjoy the blessings of God.
Similarly, the New Testament reconfigures the notion of family in the light of God and God’s people. When Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are outside looking for him, he responds, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then he answers his own question: “Here are my mother and brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:31–35). The importance of the immediate family is not discredited by Jesus, but its meaning is transformed. The place of identity is now understood in the light of the larger community of faith. This understanding is made even clearer in Jesus’ prayer in John 17, where Jesus prays for “those who will believe in me . . ., that all may be one.” This prayer for unity does not result from Jesus’ presumed aversion to conflict (cf. John 2). Instead, this desire for unity is rooted in a deep theological claim. Jesus prays,
that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me . . . . I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:21, 23)
Jesus prays for their unity so that, just as God is in him, Jesus would be in us. And out of that unity—each of us with one another, and all of us together with Jesus—the world will know that God sent Jesus. That thought is a particularly stunning one—that out of our unity in Christ Jesus, the world will indeed know the content of the gospel. Just as God’s people gathered around Zion and looked to the God from whom all blessings flow, so also do Christians gather as a unified body around Jesus so that the blessing may pour forth and the world may come to know of the one who has been sent.
A SIMPLISTIC (and entirely unsatisfactory) understanding of Psalm 133:1 would be that the psalmist simply calls for everyone to get along and that unity is the chief end. Granted, the oft-repeated stories of church conflict and congregational division reinforce our need to reconsider our unity. But as I have attempted to suggest above, the entirety of the psalm invites us to think deeper about the nature of such of unity and its implications for all God’s people.
In his classic work Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins by citing Psalm 133:1.17 Bonhoeffer’s slender volume recounts his experience in Finkenwalde living in community with twenty-five vicars even as Hitler and the Third Reich advanced their cause by crushing all those in their way, including the Confessing Church in Germany. In such a destructive environment, one could have been forgiven if he or she gave little attention to matters such as common worship, personal prayer, Christian service, and confession to one another, to name but a few of the practices addressed by Bonhoeffer. Yet he understood well that it was not the practices themselves that created the community’s bond of unity; rather, it was the community’s life lived together in the presence of Christ. Bonhoeffer writes, “Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. . . . We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.”18 Those ministers of the Confessing Church who gathered in Finkenwalde were unified in their belief in Jesus, and their common belief in him created their unity.
The Songs of Ascent witness to the throngs of pilgrims who made their way to Jerusalem. As sisters and brothers, as God’s people, they recounted the threats existing in the world around them and longed for the blessings that can come from God alone. Amid real threats and anticipated hopes, the pilgrims leaned into their identity as the people of God. And we are invited to do the same. In doing so, we will confess with Bonhoeffer that “we belong to one another through and in Jesus Christ.”
1. William H. Bellinger, Jr., “Poetry and Theology: Psalm 133,” in The Psalter as Witness: Poetry, Theology and Genre, ed. W. Dennis Tucker, Jr. and William H. Bellinger, Jr. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017), 3–14.
2. Ziony Zevit, “Psalms at the Poetic Precipice,” HAR 19 (1987): 351–66; see p. 356.
3. Author’s translation.
4. See, for example, deClaissé-Walford, Jacobson, and LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, 937.
5. Goldingay, Psalms 3, 564.
6. Bellinger, “Poetry and Theology: Psalm 133,” 6. See also Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2 and Lamentations, 371. He proposes that the exclamatory opening suggests there is some form of “educational quality” associated with the saying in verse 1b–c.
7. For additional uses of tov, “good,” in wisdom texts, see Prov 15:23; 16:16; Job 34:4; Eccl 6:12. For the use of na‘im see Prov 2:10; 24:25; Job 36:11.
8. Brian Doyle, “Metaphora Interrupta: Psalm 133,” ETL 77 (2001): 5–22; see p. 6. Hans-Joachim Kraus further explains that “it is probably correct to think of family order and family law in Israel and the ancient Near East. In many instances, the family estate remains undivided in the possession of the sons after the death of the father. Grazing rights too in the area of transhumance are often willed to the descendants without dividing them. So it happens that brothers must live together and dwell together” (Kraus, Psalms 60–150, 485).
9. On “festal fraternity” see Doyle, “Metaphora Interrupta,” 7.
10. Adele Berlin, “On the Interpretation of Psalm 133,” in Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry, JSOTSup 40, ed. E. R. Follis (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 141–48.
11. For a similar assessment see, among others, Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2, 372–73.
12. Wilfred G. E. Watson contends that these lines represent yet another simile entirely (Wildred G. E. Watson, “The Hidden Simile in Psalm 133,” Bib 60 [1979]: 108–109). Rather than functioning as another simile, the reference to Aaron’s beard appears to extend the meaning of the “oil simile” in verse 2a–b in moving the focus from the individual person at the banquet to the community as a whole. Verses 2a and 3a each begin with particle ke, “like,” but the line that refer to Aaron’s beard does not include a comparative particle, thus suggesting that the reference to Aaron’s beard remains part of the first comparison (v. 2a).
13. The reference to Aaron, and by extension the priesthood, suggests his role as a “key figure” in the cultic life of the entire Israelite community (Goldingay, Psalms 3, 567).
14. For a more extensive discussion of the proposals offered in the history of scholarship see Crow, The Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120–134), 114–16, esp. n. 170.
15. Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 3, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 481.
16. David Garland and Diana Garland, Flawed Families of the Bible: How God’s Grace Works through the Imperfect (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2007), 13.
17. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: HarperCollins, 1954), 17.
18. Ibid., 21.
IN THE SECOND STROPHE OF THE PSALM 133 the poet employs two similes to illustrate the claim articulated in verse 1: oil and dew. The first simile, that of the pouring of oil on the head, suggests a festal setting, while the second simile concludes with a reference to the mountains of Zion. Both images, the festal event and mountains of Zion, shift the setting of the psalm from the familial in verse 1 to the festal—the type envisioned for a group of pilgrims en route to Jerusalem for a sacred celebration.
Like precious oil poured on the head. With the first comparison, the psalmist likens the unity of God’s people to the pouring of oil on the head of a person at a banquet. The application of oil to the head was not medicinal, in this instance, but suggestive of the celebratory nature of the banqueting event. In Ecclesiastes 9:7–8 the sage commends the reader, “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart. . . . Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil.” In such settings the oil would have been mixed with spices to add a pleasurable smell to the experience. The Septuagint translates “precious oil” as muron, “perfume,” thereby making clear that a central feature of this oil would have been its aromatic qualities. The psalmist explains further that this oil would run down onto the beard of the banqueting guest. The beard itself has no particular significance other than to suggest the abundance of oil being poured out.
Running down on Aaron’s beard. The psalmist focuses the comparison more narrowly in the second half of Psalm 133:2. The image of oil being poured upon the head and running down onto the beard is extended in verse 2c–d with the focus placed on Aaron and the high priesthood.12 Given that this psalm celebrates the unity of brothers who live well together, perhaps the psalmist had in mind Leviticus 8. In that text, Moses anoints his own brother Aaron to consecrate him as a priest for the people: “Then Moses took the anointing oil and anointed the tabernacle and everything in it. . . . He poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron’s head and anointed him to consecrate him” (Lev 8:10, 12).
In Psalm 133:2 the reference to Aaron’s beard brings the cultic life of Israel into sharp focus. Several texts in the Pentateuch refer to the anointing of Aaron or the high priest (Exod 29:7; 30:30–32; Lev 8:12, 30), and central to this anointing of the high priest was the power to bless the people (Lev 9:22). According to Psalm 133:2d, the oil of blessing that is poured out on the head of “Aaron” drips down across his beard and onto his robe. Continuing with this imagery, the oil would have then spilled down on the high priest’s ephod and breastplate, where the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were inscribed. The image is suggestive: the oil of blessing poured out on the high priest in worship at the temple symbolically extends to the entire community. Together they embody the unity referenced in verse 1.13
As if the dew of Hermon. The first and second similes are bound together by the phrase “running down on” (yored ‘al). The first simile refers to the oil “running down on” the beard, and the second one refers to the dew that “goes down upon Mount Zion.” As noted above, the NIV translates this phrase (yored ‘al) differently in verse 3a (“falling on”). As a result, the interpreter might be led to miss the lexical connection between the two images in the psalm. In verse 3a the Hebrew reads, “It is like the dew of Hermon which falls on the mountains of Zion.” Mount Hermon, located in the northern region of ancient Israel (northeast of Dan), towers some 9,100 feet above sea level and receives more than 60 inches of precipitation annually. The interpretive challenge concerns the dew of Hermon and its relation to Mount Zion, given that Zion is more than 200 miles south of Mount Hermon. In the critical apparatus to the BHS, the editors attempt to remedy this geographical conundrum by proposing that “Zion” should be read as “Ijon,” located at the foot of Mount Hermon (1 Kgs 15:20; 2 Kgs 15:29).14 Obviously, this change would overcome the geographical challenge to understanding this verse, but that reason alone is not sufficient grounds for such an emendation. Given the complete lack of manuscript evidence to suggest that the Hebrew name should be altered to “Ijon,” the text as it stands should be retained and the meaning of the image reevaluated.
Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger have argued that the meaning of this image is not rooted in geography but, instead, in “theological topography.”15 As noted above, Hermon was blessed with considerable precipitation, but the emphasis in Psalm 133:3a is not on Hermon but on the abundance of the dew there. Repeatedly in the Old Testament the writers refer to the life-giving capacity of dew. In Genesis 27:28 the giving of dew is mentioned alongside “earth’s richness” as well as grain and wine (cf. Deut 33:28; Hos 14:5). The prophet Haggai notes that the earth has withheld its produce because the heavens have withheld their dew (Hag 1:10). In Isaiah 26:19 the idea of dew takes on a much deeper metaphorical meaning related to the resurrection of life. There the prophet announces that the dew of God will come in the morning and “the earth will give birth to her dead.” In these texts and others, the arrival of “divine dew” (i.e., dew from the heavens) suggests divine blessing and the fructification of all life.
The metaphor of abundant dew must then be applied to the wisdom saying that begins Psalm 133. The association seems clear: the unity of God’s people is as life giving as the abundance of fructifying dew. But even more, the psalmist stresses, the life-giving unity found among God’s people is understood most fully as emanating from Zion.
THE FINAL LINE IN PSALM 133 REINFORCES two themes that appear repeatedly in the last poems (Pss 132–34) in the Songs of Ascent: blessing and Zion. Psalm 133:3b does not actually mention Zion by name but simply states “for there” God will pour forth his blessings. The word “there” can be classified as deictic, meaning that we cannot know the word’s definition apart from the larger context. Given the centrality of Zion in the final three poems in the Songs of Ascent, clearly Zion is in view. The blessings of God pour forth from Zion because that is the place where he has chosen to dwell (Ps 132:13–14). But these blessings are best received and best realized when God’s people gather in unity in festive celebration before the God of Zion—the source of all blessed life.
IMMEDIATE FAMILY AND CONFLICT. In one sense, Psalm 133:1 can be read at the level of the immediate family. In modern parlance, we might think of the “immediate family” in terms of the “nuclear family,” but that concept would be too restrictive in relation to Psalm 133. The idea of the family in the Old Testament is embodied best in the concept of the “father’s house” (cf. Gen 24:38; 47:12; Num 1:4; Judg 19:3). This familial unit included the patriarch and his wife, unmarried children, married sons and grandsons with their families, as well as slaves and their families, and sojourners. This extended family could easily approach well over seventy-five members. Given the complexity of such a family arrangement, the threat of conflict was not only possible but likely. Scripture recounts numerous familial conflicts, particularly those between brothers (’ahim). The first brothers, Cain and Abel, demonstrated from the outset that family unity would always be tenuous at best in the narrative of Scripture. The patriarchal stories of Jacob and Esau as well as Joseph and his brothers confirm this claim. And such tensions did not subside with the rise of the monarchy, as the sons of David demonstrated well. In their book, Flawed Families of the Bible, Drs. David and Diana Garland remind the reader that family life in the ancient world was anything but serene and copacetic. As they note, the “stories of the families in the Bible are raw and uncensored, bitter reminders of how awful family life can become.”16 As suggested above, the wisdom saying in Psalm 133:1 may have had its origin in the midst of the type of family life described by the Garlands. The unity of the larger family, the father’s household, was indeed something to be valued as “good and pleasant.”
Family and identity. In agricultural and nomadic cultures, the immediate family played a critical role in matters related to economics, as one might expect; but the immediate family was also critical in establishing and cultivating religious identity. In Deuteronomy 6, most notably, the family is instructed to recite the teachings of the torah to their children (v. 7) and to explain the primary narratives of their faith to them (v. 20). This admonition had two purposes: (1) to shape the faith of the family members; and (2) to connect the faith of the family members with the larger identity of God’s people. In Psalm 133 the poet appears focused on the second of these two purposes. In the light of the entire psalm and its inclusion in the Songs of Ascent, the focus appears to be on God’s people and the blessings bestowed on them by the God of Zion. While the psalmist is not attempting to discount the immediate family, the “father’s house,” he is reframing the discussion. The “brothers” (’ahim) mentioned in verse 1 must now be understood as all those gathering in Jerusalem for festal celebration—the very same ones who together will enjoy the blessings of God.
Similarly, the New Testament reconfigures the notion of family in the light of God and God’s people. When Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are outside looking for him, he responds, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then he answers his own question: “Here are my mother and brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:31–35). The importance of the immediate family is not discredited by Jesus, but its meaning is transformed. The place of identity is now understood in the light of the larger community of faith. This understanding is made even clearer in Jesus’ prayer in John 17, where Jesus prays for “those who will believe in me . . ., that all may be one.” This prayer for unity does not result from Jesus’ presumed aversion to conflict (cf. John 2). Instead, this desire for unity is rooted in a deep theological claim. Jesus prays,
that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me . . . . I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:21, 23)
Jesus prays for their unity so that, just as God is in him, Jesus would be in us. And out of that unity—each of us with one another, and all of us together with Jesus—the world will know that God sent Jesus. That thought is a particularly stunning one—that out of our unity in Christ Jesus, the world will indeed know the content of the gospel. Just as God’s people gathered around Zion and looked to the God from whom all blessings flow, so also do Christians gather as a unified body around Jesus so that the blessing may pour forth and the world may come to know of the one who has been sent.
A SIMPLISTIC (and entirely unsatisfactory) understanding of Psalm 133:1 would be that the psalmist simply calls for everyone to get along and that unity is the chief end. Granted, the oft-repeated stories of church conflict and congregational division reinforce our need to reconsider our unity. But as I have attempted to suggest above, the entirety of the psalm invites us to think deeper about the nature of such of unity and its implications for all God’s people.
In his classic work Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins by citing Psalm 133:1.17 Bonhoeffer’s slender volume recounts his experience in Finkenwalde living in community with twenty-five vicars even as Hitler and the Third Reich advanced their cause by crushing all those in their way, including the Confessing Church in Germany. In such a destructive environment, one could have been forgiven if he or she gave little attention to matters such as common worship, personal prayer, Christian service, and confession to one another, to name but a few of the practices addressed by Bonhoeffer. Yet he understood well that it was not the practices themselves that created the community’s bond of unity; rather, it was the community’s life lived together in the presence of Christ. Bonhoeffer writes, “Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. . . . We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.”18 Those ministers of the Confessing Church who gathered in Finkenwalde were unified in their belief in Jesus, and their common belief in him created their unity.
The Songs of Ascent witness to the throngs of pilgrims who made their way to Jerusalem. As sisters and brothers, as God’s people, they recounted the threats existing in the world around them and longed for the blessings that can come from God alone. Amid real threats and anticipated hopes, the pilgrims leaned into their identity as the people of God. And we are invited to do the same. In doing so, we will confess with Bonhoeffer that “we belong to one another through and in Jesus Christ.”
1. William H. Bellinger, Jr., “Poetry and Theology: Psalm 133,” in The Psalter as Witness: Poetry, Theology and Genre, ed. W. Dennis Tucker, Jr. and William H. Bellinger, Jr. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017), 3–14.
2. Ziony Zevit, “Psalms at the Poetic Precipice,” HAR 19 (1987): 351–66; see p. 356.
3. Author’s translation.
4. See, for example, deClaissé-Walford, Jacobson, and LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, 937.
5. Goldingay, Psalms 3, 564.
6. Bellinger, “Poetry and Theology: Psalm 133,” 6. See also Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2 and Lamentations, 371. He proposes that the exclamatory opening suggests there is some form of “educational quality” associated with the saying in verse 1b–c.
7. For additional uses of tov, “good,” in wisdom texts, see Prov 15:23; 16:16; Job 34:4; Eccl 6:12. For the use of na‘im see Prov 2:10; 24:25; Job 36:11.
8. Brian Doyle, “Metaphora Interrupta: Psalm 133,” ETL 77 (2001): 5–22; see p. 6. Hans-Joachim Kraus further explains that “it is probably correct to think of family order and family law in Israel and the ancient Near East. In many instances, the family estate remains undivided in the possession of the sons after the death of the father. Grazing rights too in the area of transhumance are often willed to the descendants without dividing them. So it happens that brothers must live together and dwell together” (Kraus, Psalms 60–150, 485).
9. On “festal fraternity” see Doyle, “Metaphora Interrupta,” 7.
10. Adele Berlin, “On the Interpretation of Psalm 133,” in Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry, JSOTSup 40, ed. E. R. Follis (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 141–48.
11. For a similar assessment see, among others, Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 2, 372–73.
12. Wilfred G. E. Watson contends that these lines represent yet another simile entirely (Wildred G. E. Watson, “The Hidden Simile in Psalm 133,” Bib 60 [1979]: 108–109). Rather than functioning as another simile, the reference to Aaron’s beard appears to extend the meaning of the “oil simile” in verse 2a–b in moving the focus from the individual person at the banquet to the community as a whole. Verses 2a and 3a each begin with particle ke, “like,” but the line that refer to Aaron’s beard does not include a comparative particle, thus suggesting that the reference to Aaron’s beard remains part of the first comparison (v. 2a).
13. The reference to Aaron, and by extension the priesthood, suggests his role as a “key figure” in the cultic life of the entire Israelite community (Goldingay, Psalms 3, 567).
14. For a more extensive discussion of the proposals offered in the history of scholarship see Crow, The Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120–134), 114–16, esp. n. 170.
15. Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 3, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 481.
16. David Garland and Diana Garland, Flawed Families of the Bible: How God’s Grace Works through the Imperfect (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2007), 13.
17. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: HarperCollins, 1954), 17.
18. Ibid., 21.