Psalm 133 packs a goal, a hope, and a prayer into three verses, and it speaks to a church splintering into ever smaller factions. Humanity cannot put the church back together, because human nature is fractious, but God can, and He waits for His people to want unity on His terms. As one of the Songs of Ascent, the pilgrim songs sung on the way up to Jerusalem, it stands fourteenth of fifteen, just before the house of God is reached, which hints that unity is one of the last hurdles before the Kingdom. Verse 1 says unity is good, meaning proper and right, and pleasant, meaning attractive, both to God and to people. The Hebrew yachad implies being joined as a unit. Verses 2 and 3 extend these two ideas through hyperbolic images. The anointing oil running down from Aaron's head to his garment's hem, and the dew flowing from Hermon to Zion, both picture the Holy Spirit descending from God through Christ, the High Priest and Head, to the whole Body. Oil pictures the individual, and dew pictures the whole people, the church. Unity is therefore holy and a gift of the Spirit that sets believers apart. The psalm ends with God commanding the blessing of life forevermore, so unity is a response to His command, worked out together with Him. God supplies the Spirit, and believers supply humility, sacrifice, and perseverance, as Ephesians 4 and Romans 12 teach. Unity begins with the individual.

Psalm 133 is a pilgrimage song sung on the way up to Jerusalem, and its place near the end of the Songs of Ascents shows that the cycle is not complete until brethren dwell together in unity, which fully happens only when Christ returns. Unity is good in the sense of proper and fitting, and pleasant in the sense of attractive, both to God and to those who receive its benefits. The Hebrew yachad literally means "together." The two images of oil and dew show that unity is holy and comes from above. The anointing oil on Aaron, the prototype of Christ the High Priest, symbolizes the Holy Spirit, which descends from the Head, Jesus Christ, over the whole body down to the hem of the garment. The exaggeration in the psalm shows that every member is covered. The dew of Hermon falling on Zion, the church, repeats the descent: unity originates with God and is given through His Spirit, and without Him nothing can be done. The blessing of eternal life commanded in Zion shows that unity is the goal of that life. Because God commands it, unity is a work He begins and His people must carry to completion in response. The Corinthians had every gift yet remained divided because they did not do their part. Ephesians 4 and Romans 12 show that this means humility, gentleness, patience, sacrifice, contentment in one's place in the body, and refusal to repay evil. Unity begins with each individual.

Psalm 133, "How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity," is the fourteenth of the fifteen Psalms of Ascents, which are the pilgrimage songs sung on the way up to Jerusalem. It is one of David's four psalms in the collection, the sixth in the second group of seven, so the placement of David's psalms itself ascends from the third and fifth positions in the first group to the fourth and sixth in the second. In the arrangement of five groups of three, it is the second psalm of its group (Psalms 132, 133, 134), and every second psalm carries the theme of trust in God, set between psalms of distress and psalms of praise. If the fifteen psalms are matched to the first fifteen days of Tishri, Psalm 133 falls on the fourteenth, the day before the Feast of Tabernacles, when God's people gather as one to worship Him in unity. It then leads directly into Psalm 134, the welcoming psalm for God's people at His tabernacle. This matching is an interesting possibility rather than a certainty.

Psalm 133 teaches that unity among brethren is good and pleasant, and that it is as readily available as the dew of Hermon. That dew was legendary among the Israelites, falling heavily almost every morning so that flocks could graze wet grass on the mountains without needing water. Yet the availability of unity does not remove the cause of disunity, which is sin: pride, fear, rivalry, cruelty, and lust, all forms of self-centeredness rather than God-centeredness. Having followed the course of this world under the prince of the power of the air, people are schooled in rebellion against God and so draw effortlessly on a power that divides. Since conversion, a new power from God is available, and each person must consciously choose to draw on it to keep the oneness God established by His calling. The unity of Psalm 133 is not uniformity. God requires agreement on the goal and the way to reach it, and uniformity only in character, so differences and offenses will arise and must be overcome by drawing on God's power. Unity with one another depends on the quality of each person's relationship with God through Jesus Christ, the Head. As God supplies what He requires, as with manna in the wilderness, those who follow the Cloud walk together and grow closer.

Psalm 133 describes the unity God has determined for His people, and it was one of Herbert Armstrong's favorite scriptures. Brethren dwelling together in unity is good and pleasant, like the precious oil poured on Aaron's head that ran down over his beard and garments, consecrating the whole body. Likewise, Jesus Christ, our High Priest, consecrates and sets apart His whole Body in unified service to Him and to one another for the glory of the Father. The dew of Hermon descending on Zion pictures the blessing the LORD commands there, life forevermore upon the high and the lowly. This unity requires that the church remain a single body set apart from the world and its politics, because worldly thinking divides, just as the tares Satan sows among the wheat cause division. The unity of Psalm 133 is not sameness of worldly background but a godly diversity of gifts, as taught in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, blended in love and service under the revealed Word of God. Only this diversity produces unity, with one mind and one mouth glorifying God, as in Romans 15:5-7. Believers must therefore mourn over the world's strife without taking sides, and maintain their consecrated separation in unity.