Psalms 130

Psalms 130. From the deepest distress the church cries to the Lord, ver. 1 and 2, praying that he would in his compassion forgive their sins, through which they had been thrown into trouble, ver. 3 and 4. They have a strong conviction that he will do this, and wait, full of faith, in longing expectation for the fulfilment of his promise, ver. 5, 6, and in this believing expectation upon the Lord, who is rich in mercy toward his people, and will redeem Israel from all his sins, the Psalmist admonishes them to continue waiting. In ver. 1-6 the Psalmist speaks in the name of Israel, in ver. 7 and 8, to Israel. The distinction is only a formal one; for even in ver. 1-6 behind the I a thou is concealed, the indirect exhor-tation is followed only at the close by the direct. Comp. on this exchange of the I and the thou, the Introd. to Psalms 91. The doc-trine is this: the people of God should not murmur nor complain in their suffering, but pray to their compassionate Lord and Sa-viour, that he would forgive their sins, and save them from the deserved punishment of these, and rest in the assurance that he will do so.

This is the royal way by which we may attain to peace in affliction, and rise from that to joy. The formal arrangement is entirely the same as in Psalms 129.

We have two strophes, each of four verses, that of the prayer and that of the hope, and each strophe falls again into two subordi-nate divisions of two verses. With the preceding Psalm this forms a whole of two parts, ruled throughout by the number four; four strophes, each Psalm with four pairs of verses, each’ strophe with four verses. The threefold occurrence of Jehovah in the preceding Psalm, and the fourfold here, make up the number seven, and with the threefold use of Jehovah in Psalms 128. comprise the number ten. The number of the whole names of God in our Psalm (Jehovah four times, Jah once, Adonai thrice), corresponds to the number of the verses. The Psalm entirely accords with the situation which is commonto all the nameless pilgrim-songs: Israel is plunged in deep dis- tress. The adj. קשב, in ver. 2 points to a late time, as it occurs besides only in the Chronicles, and likewise סליהה in ver. 4, which is found elsewhere only in Daniel and Nehemiah.

Psalms 130:1-4

Ver. 1-4.-Ver. 1. A song of the pilgrims. Out of the depths I cry to thee, Lord. Ver. 2. Lord, hear my voice, let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. Ver. 3. If thou, Lord, wilt mark iniquities, Lord who shall stand? Ver. 4. For with thee is forgiveness that thou mayst be feared.-Great misery appears not unfrequently under the image of deep waters, comp. Psalms 40:40; Psalms 69:69; Psalms 69:2; Psalms 69:14, Isaiah 51:10, Ezekiel 27:34 ; and of this we are cer-tainly to think also here, although the more closely defining ים or מים is awanting. It is to be supplied from the well-known passages referred to. מעמקים is always used of water-depths.–On the words: to the voice of my supplication, ver. 2, comp. Psalms 28:2. Ver. 1 and 2 contains only, in general, the request that God would hear the supplicating prayer: the object of that, the forgiveness of sins, is first more exactly defined in ver. 3.עון שמר signifies not to preserve sin, but to observe sin, to take account of it, Job 10:14; Job 14:16, comp. Psalms 90:8 : “for our iniqui-ties thou placest before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.” The standing, in contrast to the sinking down of the guilty from anguish and the fearful expectation of things which are coming upon them-comp. Christol. on Malachi 3:2 -or even under the heavy burden of the divine punishment, comp. Nahum 1:6, q. d., who then must not go to perdition! The כי preserves in ver. 4 its common signification. For the expression: if thou wilt have respect to our iniquities, of the preceding verse is q. d. have not respect to my sins, and let me not go to destruction, is only a covert prayer for the forgiveness of sins, and one which is grounded here.

The production of the fear of God is marked as the aim of the bestowal of the forgiveness of sins. The forgive-ness of sin is the most glorious manifestation of the divine glory; the treasures of his love, compassion, and fidelity (he has guaran-teed them to his own, of whom alone the discourse is here), are displayed in it, and the mind must, through the apprehension of these, be filled with childlike reverence at the greatness and holi-ness of God (this is here designated by fear, Lampe: “for since it follows pardon, it can no longer proceed from the fear of punish-went.”) The merely punitive righteousness would not awaken the fear of God but destroy it. Calvin: “the apprehension of divine judgment without the hope of pardon strikes terror, which necessarily gives rise to hatred.”

Psalms 130:5-8

Ver. 5-8.-Ver. 5. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and I hope in his word. Ver. 6. My soul waits upon the Lord more than watchmen for morning; watchmen for the morning. Ver. 7. Hope Israel upon the Lord, for with the Lord is mercy and much redemption with him. Ver. 8. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.-The expression: my soul waits, in ver. 5, is stronger than: I wait. I long from my heart. The word is, according to Ps. 119:74, 81, 82, 114, 147, the word of promise. The Psalmist waits and hopes, that he might obtain the fulfilment of it in his own experience.-At the beginning of ver. 6 the verb is to be supplied from the preceding verse. מן is prae.

To the watchman the night is very long, and so is to the distressed the night of weeping. Anxious longing loves repetition. Luther falsely: from one morning watch to another. The redemption from iniquity, ver. 8, is accomplished by the removal of their con-sequences. That we must not give to עונות the sense of punish-ment or sufferings, appears already from ver. 3.