Tag Archives: Psalms of Complaint

Psalm 123 Appealing to the God whose Mercy Overcomes Contempt

Psalm 123

A Song of Ascents

¹ To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
² As the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
until he has mercy upon us.

³ Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
⁴ Our soul has had more than its fill
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.

Bolded words have notes on translation below.

If you read the psalms of ascent as a sequence, which scholars assume was a common practice during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there is a narrative that may underly the pattern. The psalmist begins in a place far from the city of peace surrounded by those who desire war (Psalm 120). The psalmist then departs on a journey lifting up their eyes to the hills (Mount Zion-Psalm 121). In the third song of ascent the psalmist arrives at their destination of Jerusalem (Psalm 122). Now in Jerusalem the pilgrim is joined by other pilgrims coming to the city of peace and they turn their eyes to God and lift up their complaint about the world they come from. They have left behind others in a land of people who seek conflict and speak with lying lips (Psalm 120) and now in the city of God they appeal for not only Jerusalem but the world the LORD stands in authority over.

The psalm begins with a solitary speaker lifting up their eyes to the LORD who sits on the seat of authority in heaven. The psalmist may imagine God presiding over the gods of the nations as in Psalm 82 as they address the LORD in this manner, and this may set the stage for the complaint that the people raise about the contempt and scorn they have received in the nations. The eyes of an individual pilgrim are joined by other servants and maids of the LORD their God look to their master for mercy. The Hebrew conception of the relationship between a servant or maid and their master or mistress envisions the master/mistress bearing responsibility for their subordinates. The subordinates are dependent upon their master for their provision and protection, but the expectations of the master in the psalm are conditioned by the merciful LORD their God who is master over the heavens and the earth. The identity of the LORD God as expressed by God in Exodus 34 is:

“The LORD, the LORD,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
⁷ keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children
and the children’s children,
to the third and the fourth generation.” Exodus 34: 5-7.

And the blessing of the Aaronic priests in Numbers 6:22-27 echoes the ideas of God turning God’s face in graciousness towards those who lift up their eyes to the LORD:

²² The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²³ “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them:
²⁴ The Lord bless you and keep you;
²⁵ the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
²⁶ the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
²⁷ “So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

The pilgrim has joined other pilgrims within the city seeking mercy from the LORD their God and they lift up their eyes and their appeal. As Walter Brueggemann notes, “Our psalmist…dares to look to heaven, not because he is worthy but because he knows that the master to whom he looks is merciful.” (Bellinger, 2014, p. 533)

The character of the people of God is expected to match the God who they serve and this informs the view of what the kings, princes, and nobles of Israel were to be. The character of God is one of the reasons that subordinates can look to those in authority over them with the expectation of receiving mercy. This psalm made me reflect on leaders I have encountered in numerous settings who I was proud to serve under. They were leaders who were invested in those who they led and were dependable. Many of them saw the way they led as connected to their faith and it was reflected not only in their actions but in the response of their subordinates to their authority.

Psalm 123 is unusual because it ends in complaint rather than thanksgiving, but it may rely on the following psalm to complete the normal pattern. The pilgrim looks at the world of people of lying lips and who seek conflict and they dare to seek in their God, “the grace that overcomes the world.” (Mays, 1994, p. 396) Before they begin their complaint they have invoked God’s mercy three times. They need God’s mercy to overcome the contempt and scorn which have overwhelmed them. Nancy deClaissé-Walford notes on the translation of verse three and four:

The word translated overwhelmed (NRSVue have had more than enough/ its fill) is from the root ‘saba’, which means, literally, “eat one’s full, be sated, have enough.” And interestingly the word translated mockery (NRSVue scorn) is from the root la’ag, which beans literally, “speak with a stammering tongue.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 904)

Their experience of conflict and lies in their communities have overwhelmed them. They have had more of mockery and scorn than they can take and the leaders in the communities they have come from leave them crying out for God’s mercy which can overcome the mockery and scorn which overwhelms them.

J. Clinton McCann, Jr. connects the language of this complaint to the post-exilic experience of the time of Nehemiah.

As several scholars observe, the situation certainly sounds like that of the post-exilic era (see, e.g., Neh 2:19, 4:4, where “ridiculed” and “despised” represent the same Hebrew root as “contempt” in Ps 123: 3-4, “scorn” in 123:4 also occurs in Neh 2:19; 4:1 as “mocked.” (NIB IV: 1187)

The post-exilic experience of returning to the remains of the once proud city of Jerusalem and being taunted by their neighbors is a reasonable backstory for the psalm, but the experience of being overwhelmed by contempt or scorn is a common experience. If the experience is tied to the experience of Psalm 120 that also is a common experience of people longing for peace and justice in an unjust world that seeks conflict. That is one of the reasons that the psalms continue to resonate thousands of years after their composition. They may have originally spoken to a specific crisis in the pilgrim’s life but now they speak to the community of the faithful raising their eyes to God and appealing for God’s mercy which can overcome the experiences and injustices which threaten to overwhelm them.

Psalm 102 The Song of One Suffering in Solitude

Psalm 102

A prayer of one afflicted, when faint and pleading before the LORD.
¹Hear my prayer, O LORD; let my cry come to you.
²Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call.
³For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace.
⁴My heart is stricken and withered like grass; I am too wasted to eat my bread.
⁵Because of my loud groaning my bones cling to my skin.
⁶I am like an owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places.
⁷I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.
⁸All day long my enemies taunt me; those who deride me use my name for a curse.
⁹For I eat ashes like bread, and mingle tears with my drink,
¹⁰because of your indignation and anger; for you have lifted me up and thrown me aside.
¹¹My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass.
¹²But you, O LORD, are enthroned forever; your name endures to all generations.
¹³You will rise up and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to favor it; the appointed time has come.
¹⁴For your servants hold its stones dear, and have pity on its dust.
¹⁵The nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth your glory.
¹⁶For the LORD will build up Zion; he will appear in his glory.
¹⁷He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and will not despise their prayer.
¹⁸Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet unborn may praise the LORD:
¹⁹that he looked down from his holy height, from heaven the LORD looked at the earth,
²⁰to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die;
²¹so that the name of the LORD may be declared in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem,
²²when peoples gather together, and kingdoms, to worship the LORD.
²³He has broken my strength in midcourse; he has shortened my days.
²⁴“O my God,” I say, “do not take me away at the midpoint of my life, you whose years endure throughout all generations.”
²⁵Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
²⁶They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing, and they pass away;
²⁷but you are the same, and your years have no end.

²⁸The children of your servants shall live secure; their offspring shall be established in your presence.

Psalm 102 is described in its superscription as a prayer of one afflicted, when faint and pleading before the LORD. This type of description is unusual among the psalms. It doesn’t indicate an author to attribute the psalm to, nor does it give instructions for its performance or a reference to a scriptural story that the psalm comes from. This psalm of a suffering one who is alienated from their body, from society, and ultimately from God may have been intended as a psalm that any suffering individual could recite at times where their situation seemed hopeless, and God’s help seemed far away. Imagery of impermanence, loneliness, pain, and shame permeate the complaint of the psalm, but like many psalms of complaint there is a turn towards hope. The psalmist intuits that the answer, “to human finitude and mortality is divine infinitude and immortality.” (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 754)

The opening language of the psalm resonates with appeals throughout the psalter as Rolf A. Jacobson notes:

The opening appeal to be heard employs language quite typical of these entreaties—hear my prayer, let my cry come unto you (39:12), do not hide your face (27:9; 143:7), turn your ear towards me (31:2; 71:2), make haste to answer me (69:17; 143:7) (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 751)

Although Rolf Jacobson attributes this to intentionally creating a generic composition for use in the community, the use of familiar language may also reflect a person shaped in the communal worship which utilizes these psalms. The language of prayer and faith is shaped in the worshipping community which shaped the psalmist’s faith and life. Yet, now in a time when the author is alienated from their own physical body, from the community, and from God, they turn to the words that shaped their life when they were physically, socially, and religiously whole.

The psalm moves between personal complaints about their own health and isolation, “I complaints” in Westermann’s terminology, complaints about the actions of isolation and persecution by those in the psalmist’s society, “they complaints”, and complaints about the way that God is treating the psalmist, “you complaints.”[1] The personal complaints begin with an image of transience that reminds me of Ecclesiastes frequently used term hebel (vanity, emptiness). Hebel literally means smoke, mist, or vapor but is often used metaphorically to refer to the emptiness of life.[2] Now for the psalmist their days pass away like smoke and their bones burn like a furnace. Their life down to their very bones is going up in smoke while their heart withers like grass and they are too far gone to even eat the bread that could give them strength. Their songs have turned to groans and their body now is transforming into a (barely) living skeleton. We don’t know if they were suffering from an illness, but they attribute their suffering to God’s judgment upon them. Their suffering is also done in isolation, they are like an unclean owl of the wastelands or a lonely bird on a roof. These lonely images of birds heighten the feeling of the psalm, for the sufferer is not only weak but they are abandoned.

The social complaints are also sharply worded as the psalmist’s unnamed name is synonymous with a curse among their enemies. Their personal weakness and isolation are viewed in the society as a curse from God, and enemies have taken advantage of this weakness. The only nourishment left for this abandoned one is the bread of ashes and the drink of tears. Yet, behind both the physical pain and suffering and the social isolation is the LORD. We are never told of any sin that this poet has committed, but they view their suffering because of God’s anger and distance. In the words of the psalm God has cast the suffering one aside and yet hope resides in God repenting from God’s attitude towards the psalmist, turning the face and hearing with the ear and responding with grace and healing.

In contrast to the evanescent position of the psalmist is the strength and might of the LORD. The psalmist now joins his fate to the action of God to have compassion on Zion. It is possible that this psalm originates in the time of the exile where there is hope for the rebuilding of Zion and rescue the people from the destitute position as exiles in a foreign land. Yet, even without the context of the Babylonian exile, the turn to hope is based on the faithfulness of God for the people and a belief that God’s anger lasts only a moment, but God’s favor is for a lifetime.[3] The poet’s strength may have been broken in the middle of their life by God’s action, but if God wills it will be renewed. The heavens and the earth which seem so permanent to humanity are like a garment that can easily be changed by the powerful and permanent God. God will continue to endure and only in God can this suffering one hope to find a renewed physical, social, and religious life. The psalmist claims their familial bond to the LORD the God of Israel and now awaits the parental turning of their God to the children of God’s servants.

[1] Rolf A. Jacobson notes this helpful pattern citing Westermann, The Psalms (54-57). (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 752)

[2] Psalm102 does not use the term hebel but the combination of words of impermanence create a similar resonance for me as Ecclesiastes.

[3] Psalm 30:5.

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