Psalm 24

“Lift up your heads, O gates! … that the King of glory may come in.” (Psalm 24:7)

Psalm 24 falls into three parts that were probably not composed together: a creation confession (vv. 1 and 2), an entrance rite (vv. 3 to 6) and a processional dialogue at the gates (vv. 7 to 10). The middle section belongs to a small group of texts, with Psalm 15 and Isaiah 33:14-16, that raise the question of who may enter the sanctuary and answer it in ethical rather than ritual terms, clean hands and a pure heart. The last section is antiphonal, a challenge and a response given twice, and the title it uses, the King of glory, occurs in no other psalm. The scene of ancient doors lifting has often been connected with the bringing of the ark into Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6). Read on the last Sunday of Advent, the gate question is put to a city rather than to a soul.

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