en_tn/psa/124/001.md

General Information:

Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: rc://en/ta/man/jit/writing-poetry and rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-parallelism)

A song of ascents. Of David.

This is a superscription that tells about the psalm. Some scholars say that this is part of the scripture and some say that it is not. (See "What are Superscriptions in Psalms" in Introduction to Psalms.)

song of ascents

Possible meanings are 1) "song people sang while going up to Jerusalem for a celebration" or 2) "song people sang while going up the steps into the temple" or 3) "song whose words are like steps." See how you translated this in Psalms 120:1

If Yahweh had not been on our side

This is the beginning of a statement about what could have happened but did not. Yahweh really was on their side. (See: rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-hypo)