First, then, as ‘Maker of heaven and earth’, he is present in every place, sovereignly in control of everything, alongside us where we are, and in full possession of all the riches in glory that heaven contains, sufficient for every need. Secondly, since the blessing comes ‘from Zion’, it is centrally the blessing associated with the house of the

The word ‘sanctuary’ in the Old Testament does not have the meaning ‘a place of safety’, the sense in which we use it now, but always ‘a place of holiness’,7 and, very frequently, the simple noun ‘holiness’ is used.

We know that he is present where two or three are gathered in his name (Matthew 18:20), but do we come too casually? Do we pray sufficiently that the Lord will make his presence felt? Do we spend time preparing our hearts to ‘bless the Lord’?

Very likely the too-frequently missing ingredient in our pilgrim worship is a properly awesome sense of God's presence.

Such worship does not, of course, need to wait till we reach our eternal home. It is the goal of pilgrimage for every day, as the word of God privately ministers to us its ever-deepening treasures of the revelation of God. It is the ideal to strive after when we join our fellow pilgrims in public worship on the Lord's day.

when we bless the Lord, we–say it reverently – review him and respond. He reviews our needs; we review his revealed excellencies.

these servants are not engaged in any work, they are not busy, they are actually standing still (verse ib); the whole ‘feeling’ of the scene is of calm and rest, the only movement is the raising of their hands.

19 Worship in Zion: Safely home, richly blessed

Saul bequeathed the same division to David, so that the ‘Judah’ tribes (2 Samuel 2:4) and the ‘Israel’ tribes (2 Samuel 5:1) came separately to invite David to accept kingship. It was the genius of David's leadership that brought the divided people together around his kingship, the new capital city of Jerusalem, and the freshly established