Bless the Lord, All You Servants

Log in to take the quiz and save your progress.

1. Observe

   Who is addressed in vv. 1-2, and what are they doing when?

   • All Israel during the day
   • Servants of Yahweh who stand by night in Yahweh's house — the nighttime priests/Levites maintaining temple worship through the dark hours
   • Pilgrims arriving
   • Foreign rulers

2. Observe

   Who speaks in v. 3, and what is the basis?

   • The pilgrims, blessing themselves
   • The priestly response blessing the pilgrims: "May Yahweh bless you from Zion, even he who made heaven and earth" — the basis is the cosmic Creator who chooses Zion as his dwelling place
   • Foreign kings
   • No one

3. Interpret

   What does nighttime worship suggest about service to God?

   • That visibility determines value
   • That nighttime work is inferior
   • That worship done when no audience is present is fully valuable — perhaps more revealing of true devotion than visible service, because there is no performance incentive; God's people serve through the hours when no one notices, maintaining the worship that the rest of the world depends on without knowing; this dignifies hidden faithfulness as the substance of much real ministry
   • That visible worship is forbidden

4. Interpret

   What does the arc from alienation to blessing suggest?

   • That blessing is unrelated to journey
   • That alienation is permanent
   • That the Christian life is fundamentally a pilgrimage — beginning in distance from God's presence and ending in blessing from God's dwelling; the gap is real, but the destination is sure; this gives the journey its meaning and its end; believers currently at any point in the arc can take comfort that the destination is blessing, and the journey itself is held by the God who brings pilgrims home
   • The journey is meaningless

5. Apply

   Where is one on the Psalms of Ascent journey?

   • Such tracking is impossible
   • The journey is irrelevant
   • Most believers can locate themselves at one or several stages — perhaps in alienation among war-loving people (120), in need of help (121), in dependence on God's mercy (123), in the depths needing forgiveness (130), in cultivated quietness (131), in unity with brothers (133), or receiving the blessing (134); identifying one's location both names the present reality and locates it within the larger arc whose end is blessing
   • Stages don't apply

6. Apply

   What physical postures engage the whole person in worship?

   • Physical posture is irrelevant
   • Only sitting still
   • Different postures engage different dimensions — lifted hands (openness, surrender, praise), kneeling (humility, reverence, repentance), standing (alertness, honor, declaration), bowing (worship, submission), prostration (utter humility), dancing (joy embodied); the body in worship integrates the whole person and prevents worship from becoming purely mental; engaging the body in deliberate worship postures helps the soul follow what the body declares
   • Bodies should be ignored

Your journal

Write your own answers — they save automatically, and only you can see them.

Log in to write and save journal answers.