Brotherly Love
W. Hawkins. Psalm 133:3 As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended on the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing… I. IT IS A SURE BOND OF UNION. Hermon is in the north and Zion is in the south: morning by morning the sun, Nature's great distiller, extracted moisture from the snow-peaked Harmon, and the clouds wafted southward shed their treasure on the hill of Zion. Thus the various parts of the land served one another in God's natural order. So brotherly love with its mutual service binds the home, the city, the land. No system of unity can be otherwise founded if it is to be secure. Force directed by selfishness can never make a true bond. II. IT IS GOD'S METHOD OF BENEDICTION. "For there the Lord commanded the blessing." The psalmist recognizes in the periodical worship of Zion an occasion of this brotherly love, and speaks therefore of the love as God's blessing vouchsafed there. And all such love has its source in God. Apart from Him we should not know its delights. It is the way He promotes our happiness by filling us with a desire to help one another. We are severally channels of God's help. III. IT IS HEAVEN; BEGUN. "Even life for evermore." What can this phrase mean but that true love is immortal. Has not St. John taught us that to truly and purely love is to share the life of God? In so far as we love, then, we already have imparted to our life an undying element — we participate to that extent in the "pleasures that are for evermore." (W. Hawkins.) Parallel Verses KJV: As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore. WEB: like the dew of Hermon, that comes down on the hills of Zion: for there Yahweh gives the blessing, even life forevermore. A Song of Ascents.