NOTES for Psa 123

¹Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

²Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

³Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

⁴Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

The repentant sinner is likened to a slave. The mention of the word “slave” in Scripture repels many people; it seems to demean human dignity, and so it appears that one must break oneself in order to accept such a comparison. It is hard for a person who constantly repeats a familiar set of sins to admit that what seems humiliating actually raises and straightens that person.

Yes, sooner or later we have to see that every sinner becomes dependent on sin and thereby becomes its slave, so there is no reason to take offense at the word. But acknowledging reality does not mean that reality must remain unchanged. A slave does not dare look upon the master’s face and looks only at the hand that gives instructions or inflicts punishment; but even as we recognize our unworthiness, we can look upon the One who led the people out of the house of slavery.

Even now He has the power both to free us from the degrading servile dependence on our own sinfulness and to restore to us a true awareness of our dignity and worth in His eyes. It depends only on us: we must want to turn to Him.

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For

¹Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

³Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

⁴Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

We often hear the phrase—whether winged or perhaps merely crawling—that history does not tolerate the subjunctive mood... Read more

We often hear the phrase—whether winged or perhaps merely crawling—that history does not tolerate the subjunctive mood. Perhaps it does not; still, to appreciate what we actually possess, it can be useful to imagine what might have been.

For the psalmist, there is no doubt that if the Lord had not been with them, the people would have been destroyed by their enemies. Need we add that we too could reach the same conclusion?...

Those unwilling to acknowledge His intervention in the course of events prefer to explain every positive development and favorable change by their own efforts, by chance, by a fortunate convergence of circumstances... But those who can look back and discern in the chaos of events a coherent and meaningful path composed of scattered episodes are unlikely to reject the thought of the One who directed that path.

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NOTES for Psa 123

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