New Year's Day 2009 | tranquility in your palaces | שלוה בארמנותיך

Peace seeker Mohammad Shibli's dovecote
Shibli, Israel

In her New Year's Eve post on Hard Times, Ronni Bennett, sage and virtual friend (lucky me) wrote: "Hard times. . . We have survived other challenges, some of our own making, and we will do it again this time."

My amen is (deceptively) simple.

יהי שלום בחילך ושלוה בארמנותיך
תהילים קכ"ב
May there be well-being within your ramparts,
tranquility in your palaces.
Psalm 122:6

The scholar Robert Alter, in his notes from The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary, writes on his English-rendering of the Hebrew verse, "As in many lines of biblical poetry, there is a narrative progression from the first verses to the second — first the ramparts, then the palaces within them, following the path of the pilgrim coming up to the city."