Psalm 130
A Song of Ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.
2 Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.
5 I wait for the LORD; my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
8 It is he who will redeem Israel
from all its iniquities.
Bolded words have comments on translation below.
Psalm 130 is often called De profundis from the Latin rendering of the initial words out of the depths. It is one of my personal favorites as it cries with longing for the steadfast love, forgiveness, and redemption that comes from God. Martin Luther called this psalm, “a proper master and doctor of Scripture” and he would use it as the inspiration for his song “Out of the Depths I Cry To You.”[1] Throughout the reformation the song and the psalm were commonly used at funerals, and “Out of the Depths I Cry to You” was sung at the funerals of Fredrick the Wise, John of Saxony, and Martin Luther. (LW 53:222) Psalm 130 was also sung on the afternoon before John Wesley’s transformational experience at Aldersgate. James L. Mays appropriately calls this psalm, “a succinct but powerful expression of the theme that is at the heart of Scripture: the human predicament and its dependence on divine grace.” (Mays, 1994, p. 405)
The psalmist cries out to the LORD from the depths, a phrase that can reference the sea[2] but for many readers it is also a metaphor for a desperate situation or depression. The initial two lines start a pattern of two verses stanzas where God is referred to twice. In the first three stanzas the first time the psalmists utilize the name of God (LORD in NRSVue)[3] in the initial verse of the stanza while the second reference is the generic Adonai (Lord in NRSVue). In verses seven the name of God is utilized twice. There is a consistent belief throughout the scriptures that the LORD is a God who hears and is attentive to the voice of the faithful ones, especially in desperate times.
The rapid move in verse three to talking about iniquities implies that the desperate situation referred to by the psalmist crying out from the depths may be due to their own lack of faithfulness. The word iniquities[4] occurs more than two hundred times in the Old Testament, especially in the prophets, to describe sin and guilt. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 928) Yet, the psalmist understands that fundamental to the character of God is forgiveness. The LORD is a God who desires justice, but as James L. Mays says,
The error is to understand the LORD as a god whose principal way with human beings is to watch for iniquities. If that were the case, there would be no hope of anyone. (Mays, 1994, p. 406)
Psalm 130 is one of many places in the Old Testament where we see a God of grace. I have often said to my congregation if you go to the bible looking for a judgmental God you will find one, but if you go to scripture seeking a gracious God you find the patience, forgiveness, and steadfast love of God as a defining characteristic of the God the bible witnesses to. That the LORD is a forgiving and attentive God provides hope for this psalmist who cries out from the depths.
The third stanza with its doubled final line in verse six is what initially captured my attention with this psalm. The psalmist waits and trusts in the LORD with all their being[5] and hopes in God’s word. The verb waits in verse six is not present in Hebrew but needs to be supplied for the translation to make sense. The doubling of more than those who watch for the morning heightens the expectation of the psalm. For me these doubled lines reminded me of keeping watch while in the army at that final watch before the sun rose. I have trouble if it is cold at night getting warm but as soon as the sun comes up my body is typically able to regulate itself better and so for me the longing for sunrise is something I feel intensely in my body. This hope for God with the entirety of one’s being like waiting for the dawning of the new day is a powerful reversal from the depths that the psalm began with.
In the final two verses the psalmist moves from their own situation to that of the people of God and calls on them to hope in the LORD. Just as the LORD has redeemed and rescued the one who call on God from the depths despite their iniquities, now the LORD will redeem Israel from its iniquities and the trouble they have caused. The name of God is now linked to one of the fundamental characteristics of God, steadfast love (hesed). The calling on the name of God twice in this final stanza may be to link the name of God with the characteristic steadfast love (hesed) of God. For the God of Israel, the iniquities of the people are not the final word, steadfast love and redemption are. The God who forgives the individual and rescues them from the depths also forgives and rescues the people. The individual and the people of God wait and hope in the LORD with all their being more than those waiting and watching for the coming of the dawn.
[1] “Out of the Depths I Cry To You” although not as popular as “A Mighty Fortress” or “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word” continues to be sung and it is hymn 600 in the songs of Evangelical Lutheran Worship.
[2] Isaiah 51:10; Ezekiel 27:34; Psalm 69:2.
[3] When the word LORD is capitalized in the NRSV or NRSVue translation of the Hebrew it indicates the four letters of the divine name YHWH (often pronounced Yahweh) are behind it. Hebrew readers will often substitute the Hebrew Adonai to avoid speaking the name of God and risking taking the name of God in vain.
[4] Hebrew ‘awonot.
[5] The Hebrew nephesh often translated soul in English is a very different concept than most modern conceptions of ‘soul.’ For Hebrew the nephesh is about life and not about something that is freed after death.
Sign of the Rose 
