Psalm 125 A Song of Ascents.
1 Those who trust in Yahweh are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. 2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so Yahweh surrounds His people from this time forth and forever. 3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest in the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous reach out their hands to iniquity. 4 Do good, O Yahweh, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts. 5 As for such as turn aside to their crooked ways, Yahweh shall lead them away with the workers of iniquity. Peace be upon Israel!
Ascent- “This psalm may be summed up in those words of the prophet (Isa 3:10-11), ‘Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him.’” (Matthew Henry) “You will leave your name for a curse to My chosen ones, and the Lord GOD will slay you. But My servants will be called by another name.” (Isaiah 65:15)
“’Those who trust in Yahweh are like Mount Zion,’ Some persons are like the sand—ever shifting and treacherous. See Mat 7:26. Some are like the sea—restless and unsettled. See Isa 57:20; Jas 1:6. Some are like the wind—uncertain and inconstant. See Eph 4:14. Believers are like Mount Zion—strong, stable, and secure. To every soul that trusts Him the Lord says, ‘Thou art Peter—’ [the rock on which He shall build His church]. (W. H. J. Page, of Chelsea)— “‘which cannot be moved, but abides forever.’ This is very true; for, while man can destroy what man has made, the everlasting hills smile at his rage. Yet who can hear of it without perceiving the force and sublimity of that glorious description of the immobility of believers.” (James Neil) “Even though Mt. Zion should be laid waste ( Micah 3:12) it does not lose thereby its continued existence or its destiny ( Micah 4:1). The interpretation which understands the heavenly Zion... transfers the stand-point, and mistakes the fundamental conception, which is that of the firmness, immovableness, indestructibleness of mountains generally, and of Mt. Zion in particular.” (Lange's Commentary) We will have new spiritual bodies and a new heaven and earth with a New Jerusalem, complete with its mountains.
“As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so Yahweh surrounds His people from this time forth and forever.’ (2) “The thought here is simply that the love and protection of God for Israel is just as sure to continue forever as the mountains that surround the holy city are immovable.
This, of course, is gloriously true. God loves the true Israel of God, identified in the New Testament as Jesus Christ (John 15:1). The racial element in the identification of God's Israel disappeared when Zechariah broke ‘Beauty’ and ‘Bands’; but the marvelous thing about this is that even racial Jews who choose to be within the ranks of God's only Israel today are not merely welcome, they are admitted upon the same terms as any other races, there being ‘no distinction’ whatever between racial Jews and Gentiles...” (Coffman Commentary)
“"For the scepter’— rod— ‘of the wicked,’ etc. According to Gussetius, this is to be understood of a measuring rod; laid not on persons, but on lands and estates; and best agrees with the lot, inheritance, and estate of the righteous; and may signify that though wicked men unjustly seize upon and retain the farms, possessions, and estates of good men, as if they were assigned to them by the measuring line; yet they shall not hold them long, or always.” (John Gill) “No tyranny, although it appear firm and stable, is of long continuance: inasmuch as God does not relinquish the sceptre. This is manifest from the example of Pharaoh, of Saul, of Sennacherib, of Herod, and of others.” (Solomon Gesner)
“Do good, O Yahweh, to those who are good, and ‘to those who are upright in their hearts.’ (4) It is not the good action which makes the good man: it is the good man who does the good action. The merit of an action depends entirely upon the motives which have prompted its performance; and, tried by this simple test, how many deeds, which have wrung from the world its admiration and its glory, might well be described in old words, as nothing better than splendid sins. When the heart is wrong, all is wrong. When the heart is right, all is right.” (N. McMichael) “The inwardness makes the outwardness, the godliness the beauty. It is indisputable that it is Christ in us that makes all our Christianity. Oh, Christians who have no Christ in them—such Christians are poor, cheap imitations, and hollow shams—and Christ will, with infinite impatience, even infinite love, fling them away.” (Charles Stanord)
“’As for such as turn aside to their crooked ways,’ (5) who are not faithful, “The implication here is that not all of Israel are ‘good.’ McCullough has this comment. ‘In this psalm there are two groups of people. On the one hand, there are those who trust in the Lord, those who put their trust in the Lord, and who call themselves `the righteous,' `those who are good' and `those who are upright in their hearts.' On the other hand, there are those who are connoted by scepter of wickedness, and along with these, there are, `those who turn aside unto their crooked ways.' Apparently these latter are renegade Jews who have associated themselves with some kind of godlessness.’” (Coffman Commentary)
“’Yahweh shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity’- They shall be dealt with as sinners. They shall be punished [destroyed]. The allusion is to backsliders; to those who forsake the worship of God; who cease to do ‘good;’ who, though among the professed people of God, wander from him in by-paths and forbidden ways. The idea is, that their profession of religion will not save them; that they will not obtain the divine blessing merely because they are avowedly the people of God, or are numbered among them, but that they will be treated as all other sinners are: they will be led forth with all the wicked, and will be treated like them. (Cp Ezekiel 33:12-13; Matthew 7:22-23; 25:11-12).” (Albert Barnes) “The words... may have regard unto the latter day, when all the enemies of Christ and His church shall be destroyed.” (John Gill)
“’But peace shall be upon Israel’ - Upon the real Israel; upon the true people of God. Galatians 6:16; Isaiah 54:13; Isaiah 55:12; Isaiah 57:2; Isaiah 66:12; John 14:27; John 16:33; Ephesians 2:17; Philemon 4:7.” (Albert Barnes) Thus, as a result of Thy Judgment, “thy Church will be purified, and thy peace rest upon thy true Israel. Let him that readeth understand.” (Adam Clarke) “The peace of the Church springs from this — that; God, while executing His just vengeance upon reigned and counterfeit Israelites, who rend and tear in pieces her bowels, gathers together the upright in heart, and openly shows by His blessing the fatherly love which He bears towards them.” (John Calvin)