Psalm 122 · a question people ask
What "ordinance" does 122:4 mean?
The tribes go up "according to an ordinance for Israel" (122:4). The Hebrew word is edut, which Brown-Driver-Briggs and Strong's both give as "testimony" (tap ordinance). Psalm 81 has it of a feast day: "Blow the trumpet at the New Moon, at the full moon, on our feast day" (Psalm 81:3), and "He appointed it in Joseph for a covenant" (Psalm 81:5), where the WEB's covenant is edut. The WEB's ordinance in the verse between, "an ordinance of the God of Jacob" (Psalm 81:4), is another word, mishpat, the word of Psalm 122:5's judgment. The Law commands appearing before the LORD three times a year: "Three times in a year all of your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which he chooses" (Deuteronomy 16:16). Psalm 122 doesn't name a feast or say which command it means, and these notes don't name one for it.
The verses
“where the tribes go up, even the LORD’s tribes, according to an ordinance for Israel, to give thanks to the LORD’s name.”
“Blow the trumpet at the New Moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. He appointed it in Joseph for a covenant, when he went out over the land of Egypt, I heard a language that I didn’t know.”
“Three times in a year all of your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which he chooses: in the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty.”