Psalm 130
A Song of Ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
2 O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
This psalm is the only penitential psalm among the Songs of Ascents and one of seven such psalms in the psalter. It is a brief but desperate prayer for forgiveness. The psalmist begins with describing his present situation. He is in deep. “Out of the depths” suggests that he is in deep water and going under. In the Bible “the depths” usually refers to death for no one can survive long in the water. Large bodies of water were dark and could quickly be deadly so they were feared. The psalmist is crying out to YHWH from the brink of death. He is drowning in the consequences of his choices (he references his sin in vss 3-4), and so he does something that we do in desperation, we cry out to God. We appeal to the highest power because none other can meet the need. He addresses God first using the covenant name YHWH and then the following word is Lord, Master (adonai), a word that indicates authority. He recognizes that YHWH has the relationship and the authority to lift him out of the death spiral he is in. He prays first for God to listen, to hear his voice and pay attention. His primary plea is for mercy, lit. “let your ears be attentive to my supplications”. This anthropomorphized vision of God has him leaning in to listen to the cry of a sinner. This psalmist understands the gravity of what he has done -- the lethal spiritual, physical, and social consequences of his behavior -- and he has no other alternatives than to beg for mercy from God. This is where all transformation begins, with a recognition that I cannot fix myself. I cannot swim out of my watery grave. My sin will surely be the death of me unless I get help, and self-help will not do.
3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.
The psalmist begins to plead his case before God, acknowledging first that God is right to judge and he himself is guilty. There is no rationalization or justification of his sin, just acknowledgment that if God chose to execute punishment it would be just. And it’s not just the psalmist, but all men. If God didn’t forgive, no one could stand before him as faultless. The word translated “mark” here is usually translated as “keep, watch, preserve”. Other translations use the anthropomorphic language of God keeping a record of sin. God does keep a record of sin because he knows all things, but he is also said to blot out those records (Psalm 51:1-2). At the yearly sacrifice on Yom Kippur, the Day of Covering (Atonement), the blood of an innocent animal blotted out, covered up the sins of the people so that God could see them no more. God has the right to judge and condemn, but instead he chooses to forgive. The psalmist doesn’t focus on his new state of forgiveness, instead he points to the greatness of God, “that you may be feared (worshiped).” The psalmist couldn’t see how his sin would ultimately be blotted out by the blood of Jesus, he only knew in faith that God had the authority and capacity to do so. The yearly sacrifice pointed to this, but didn’t reveal the specifics, that God himself would come to earth and make atonement through his own journey “through the depths” to take our place and rescue us.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.
The Hebrew is beautiful here, “I wait for YHWH, waits my soul and in his word I do hope. My soul for Adonai more than those who watch for the morning, those who watch for the morning.” My soul waiting, waiting, hoping, watching, watching, the repetition intensifying the scene of patient expectation. The morning will come, the sun will rise as always, yet in the dark the waiting seems interminable. And yet, there is nothing else to do. One cannot speed up the rising of the sun. It will happen on its own time. The word for “watch” in this text is the same as that in verse 3, “If you O LORD should watch (keep track of) iniquities, who could stand?” The LORD isn’t keeping track of our iniquities (like a watchman keeping track of the movement of the stars and moon to tell time and predict the rising of the sun). If He did so, if he held us accountable for every evil thought and deed we would be done for. And so we wait and watch and look for the signs of a new dawn, the light of forgiveness scattering the darkness. It is a beautiful metaphor that we are reminded of every day at dawn. Light dispels darkness as surely as God’s grace dispels sin. And so we wait for our complete redemption -- body, mind, and soul.
7 O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
Having experienced God’s grace, the psalmist turns to his neighbor, to all of Israel and pleads with them to follow his example and seek the LORD for forgiveness. He reminds them that with YHWH there is steadfast love (hesed) and abundant redemption. Again, the metaphor of the power of the sun to overcome the darkness comes to mind. Sin is no competitor when it comes to God’s faithful love. It overwhelms all resistance. And so the psalmist makes a promise to Israel, to all who “strive with God”: He will redeem you from all your iniquities. Can that be true? Do you believe it? All of your iniquities? Really? Yes. So don’t give up your struggle with sin and don’t give up on your relationship with God. He’s willing to wipe the record clean, to treat your sins as if they had never been seen, recorded, or done. It’s a paradox that I don’t understand, how the all-knowing ever-present God can claim not to know something. The LORD marks our iniquities and then he blots them out, deletes them as if they never existed, bleaches them so they can never be recovered. Why would you hope and trust in anyone else? Why would you strive in your own efforts to clean yourself up? Rest in the grace of the LORD.