Psalms 130

From the deep, low place I am in, I have called out to you, LORD.

1Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.

Note"The depths" translates a Hebrew word used for deep water, the open sea, or floodwaters that pull a person under. It was a stock image for being overwhelmed and beyond self-rescue, not a description of a physical location. Also, this verse begins the psalm's alternation between two different words printed almost identically in English: where the King James prints LORD in capitals it stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters (YHWH) that Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud; where it prints Lord in ordinary type the Hebrew word is *adonai*, an ordinary title meaning "master" or "sovereign." The psalm switches between them deliberately.

2Lord, hear my voice. Listen closely to my voice as I beg you for help.

2Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

3LORD, if you kept a record of every wrong we do, then, Lord, who could stand before you?

3If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

NoteTwo images sit behind this verse. "Mark" is a bookkeeper's word, to keep watch over an account, to record a debt so it can be collected later. "Stand" is a courtroom word: to stand before the judge is to be acquitted and remain standing, while the condemned party falls or is put down. The question expects the answer "no one."

4But you are the one who forgives, so that people will stand in awe of you.

4But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

Note"Feared" in the King James does not mean terror. The Hebrew covers the whole range from dread to the respect owed a king or a parent, and here it names the settled reverence that makes a person take God seriously. The logic of the line struck ancient readers as it strikes modern ones: it is forgiveness, not punishment, that produces this reverence.

5I wait for the LORD. Deep inside, I wait, and I put my hope in what he has said.

5I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.

Note"My soul" translates *nephesh*, which in Hebrew is not a spirit housed inside a body but the whole living person, appetite, breath, life itself. To say "my soul waits" is to say the waiting involves all of someone, not merely their thoughts. "His word" means a promise God has given, the specific thing said rather than scripture as a book.

6I wait for the Lord with more longing than the men on night watch have as they wait for morning. Yes, more than watchmen waiting for morning.

6My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

NoteWatchmen were posted on city walls and at camps through the night in fixed shifts, scanning for attackers. The last watch before dawn was the longest and most dangerous, and daybreak meant relief from duty. The repetition of the line in the second half of the verse is in the Hebrew and is deliberate: it slows the sentence down to imitate the waiting it describes.

7Israel, put your hope in the LORD, because the LORD is faithful and loving, and he sets people free again and again.

7Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.

Note"Mercy" here translates *chesed*, one of the hardest Hebrew words to put into English. It means loyal, committed kindness, the reliable good faith owed within a binding relationship, and so needs words like "steadfast love" or "loving devotion" to cover it. "Redemption" is a commercial and family term: to redeem was to pay the price that got something back, buying a relative out of slavery or recovering land the family had been forced to sell. "Plenteous" says the resources for that payment are not in short supply.

8And he will set Israel free from all its sins.

8And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Note"Israel" here means the whole people, addressed as a single body rather than as individuals, which is why the King James can say "all his iniquities" of a nation. "Iniquity" is the broadest of the Hebrew words for wrongdoing, covering the crooked act, the guilt it leaves, and the consequences that follow from it, all in one word.