Psalm 125: An unfinished Journey to Utopia

1 Those who trust in the Lord
Are like Mount Zion,
Which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
So the Lord surrounds His people
From this time forth and forever.

3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest
On the land allotted to the righteous,
Lest the righteous reach out their hands to iniquity.

4 Do good, O Lord, 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,
The Lord shall lead them away
With the workers of iniquity.

Peace be upon Israel! 

From a human perspective, mountains stand stoic and still, massive symbols of quiet endurance and immovability.  But modern research reveals that mountains are, in fact, moving all the time, swaying gently from the seismic rhythms coursing through the earth upon which they rest.

“It’s kind of a true song of the mountain. It’s just humming with this energy, and it’s very low frequency; we can’t feel it, we can’t hear it. It’s a tone of the Earth.”  (Jeffrey Moore, a geologist at the University of Utah and senior author of the study.)

A recent study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters reports that the Matterhorn, one of the most famous mountains on the planet, is constantly vibrating about once every 2 seconds because of the ambient seismic energy originating from earthquakes and ocean waves around the world.  

Researchers helicoptered up the Matterhorn to set up one solar-powered seismometer roughly the size of a “big cup of coffee” at the summit. Another was placed under the floorboards of a hut a few hundred meters below the peak, and a third was placed at the foot of the mountain as a reference, said Samuel Weber, a researcher at the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Switzerland and the lead author of the study.

The seismometers continuously recorded movements and allowed the team to extract the frequency and direction of the resonance.

The movements are small, on the order of nanometers at the baseline to millimeters during an earthquake, Moore said. “But it’s very real. It’s always happening.”

Mountains sway to the seismic song of earth - and they sing...

The baseline vibrations of mountains like the Matterhorn are caused by the hum of seismic energy.  “A lot of this comes from earthquakes rattling all over the world, and really distant earthquakes are able to propagate energy and low frequencies,” Moore said. “They just ring around the world constantly.”

All of this is very Isaiah 55:12: "For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing..."

These mountains surround God's people.  They cannot be moved (by people) - but they are dancing and singing to God's seismic music - a solid, permanent, connected presence of God on all sides...

Christ with me,

Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.”

― Saint Patrick

But even surrounded by God's presence, the oppressor is in charge...

 3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest
On the land allotted to the righteous,
Lest the righteous reach out their hands to iniquity.

“Scepter of wickedness”: A poetic way of saying oppressive rule or authority — a symbol of political or spiritual power wielded unjustly. In biblical times, this could mean foreign oppressors, corrupt leaders, or any unjust regime.

“Shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous”: The psalmist hopes or proclaims that unjust rulers won’t have permanent control over God’s people or their land — the land given to them by God (alluding to the Promised Land).

“Lest the righteous reach out their hands to iniquity”: If wickedness rules for too long, even the righteous may be tempted or pressured to sin, to lose faith, or to act unjustly themselves.

The psalmist is expressing a longing for just governance and moral stability. It acknowledges that long-term oppression can wear down even the faithful, leading them to compromise or despair. It’s both a promise and a prayer: God won’t allow injustice to rule forever — because it endangers the spiritual integrity of His people.

This is a very real-world struggle of faith - how hard is it for people of faith to live 24-7 in a toxic environment of oppression and injustice - it wears you down.  How many, like me, have seen your child's goldfish struggling to live in a tank that hasnt been cleaned as your child had promised - and the whole universe that this fish inhavits is a toxic sludge.  The psalmist acknowledges that we will be affected by it.  Maybe we will, over time, become harsher, less kind, more selfish...

The psalmist proclaims or, I prefer, expresses the longing hope that God will not leave is in the toxic sludge for ever - that change will come...  but the longer you wait, the harder that is to believe.

4 Do good, O Lord, 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,

The Lord shall lead them away

With the workers of iniquity.

Peace be upon Israel! 

There's a carrot and a stick here!  Those who stick it out and don't allow themselves to be toxified (those who remain upright) God will do good things for them.  But those who allow themselves to be corrupted by it all (who turn aside to their crooked ways) will be disposed of by the Lord along with the original oppressors.

It looks like we are going to have to lean on the God who made those mountains again - from whence cometh my salvation.

A prayer:

God who hums the mountains into song,
steady us when the world sways under the weight of injustice.
When the toxic waters of oppression seep into our souls,
keep our hearts clean, our steps upright,
our hope alive.
Do good, Lord, to those who cling to goodness;
clear away what is crooked;
surround us again with your solid, singing presence.
Peace be upon your people.
Amen.