Psalms 123: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This short psalm is a prayer for mercy. The speaker looks up to God, who is enthroned in heaven, and compares that steady gaze to the way servants' eyes look to their master's hand. The people ask twice for mercy, because they have taken more than enough scorn and contempt from proud and comfortable people.

Claim by Claim

1. 123:1
   • This psalm is a song of ascents.
   • The speaker lifts up his eyes to God.
   • God dwells in the heavens.
2. 123:2
   • The eyes of male servants look to the hand of their masters.
   • The eyes of a female servant look to the hand of her mistress.
   • In the same way, the eyes of the speaker and those with him look to the LORD their God.
   • They look to him until he shows them favor.
3. 123:3
   • The speakers ask the LORD to show them favor.
   • They repeat the request for the LORD to show them favor.
   • They give as the reason that they have had more than enough contempt.
4. 123:4
   • The speakers' soul has had more than enough of the mockery of those who are at ease.
   • The speakers' soul has had more than enough of the contempt of the proud.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

123:1

"Lift up my eyes" is the gesture of someone appealing to a superior, eyes raised toward the person who can help. The Hebrew phrase behind "the one who lives in heaven" means, more exactly, "you who sit enthroned in the heavens": God is pictured seated as a king, not simply residing there.

123:2

A household servant watched the master's hand rather than his face: orders were given by gesture, and wages, food and permission also came from that hand. So the image is of someone waiting, alert and dependent, for a signal that may or may not come yet. LORD in small capitals marks the personal name of Israel's God (the four Hebrew letters YHWH), which Jewish tradition avoided pronouncing; "God" in the same verse translates a different, ordinary word.

123:3

The Hebrew says literally "we are full of" or "we have had our fill of" contempt, an eating image, as of someone force-fed until sick of it. "Contempt" here means being looked down on and treated as worthless, not merely being disliked.

123:4

"Those that are at ease" in the King James does not mean relaxed or easy-going. The Hebrew word describes people who are secure and untroubled, and so complacent and smug about others' suffering. The last few words of this verse are uncertain in Hebrew: depending on how the letters are divided, the phrase reads either "the contempt of the proud" or something like "the contempt of proud oppressors." Translations differ, and the older Hebrew manuscripts preserve both readings side by side.