Psalm 130

Psalms 130:1-2

The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, reads A Song of degrees, one of the fifteen ascent psalms and, by the church's traditional count, the sixth of the seven penitential psalms alongside 6, 32, 38, 51, 102 and 143. The depths are named without further description, the cry itself the only detail given, and the plea moves at once from crying to being heard: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. Spurgeon reads the depths as the psalmist's own sense of sin rather than any outward trouble, the lowest place a soul can occupy before God.

Psalms 130:3-4

The psalm turns on a question no one can answer in his own favor: if thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? Every mouth is stopped before it is opened. The bench lingers on the reversal that follows: but there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared, forgiveness named as the very thing that produces fear of God rather than removing it, since a God who forgives is a God worth fearing in a way strict accounting never was. Henry and Barnes both read this as the psalm's center, mercy the ground of reverence rather than its opposite.

Psalms 130:5-6

Having named forgiveness, the psalm does not rush to feel forgiven; it waits, I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope, the double waiting held together with hope in what God has said rather than in a felt assurance. The comparison is repeated for emphasis in the next verse, my soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning, I say, more than they that watch for the morning, a repetition the older writers take from a watchman's own long night, certain the sun will rise but not yet able to see it. Gill notes the watchman figure fits both a soldier on guard and a priest waiting to end a night's duty at the temple.

Psalms 130:7-8

The psalm closes by handing its private lesson to the whole nation: let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption, the same forgiveness of verse 4 now named redemption and offered in abundance rather than in bare sufficiency. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities closes the psalm where it opened, the depths of verse 1 answered by a redemption that reaches every iniquity without exception. Delitzsch reads the final widening from one soul to the nation as typical of the ascent psalms, a private cry becoming the pilgrim congregation's own prayer by the time the climb to Jerusalem is finished.