Psalm 130 is a psalm “of ascents,” one that traditionally was sung by Jews who were making their way up to the Temple in Jerusalem.  As they brought their sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to God, singing words of repentance, trust and hope, the people both understood and expressed their need for God’s forgiveness.  Psalm 130 bears eloquent witness to this tradition.  

There is a powerful dynamic in this psalm between the first person singular and the first person plural – between the individual and the worshiping community.  The psalmist begins from the very depths of his or her being, raising this “cry” to God.  One commentator notes that “the ‘depths’ is the watery deep, chaos, Sheol and the realm of death – as far away as one can get from God…. To be sucked into chaos is to be separated from the place where people can praise God and share the faith” (Konrad Schaefer, Berit Olam: Psalms, 311).  To be trapped in the depths is to be separated from God and from the community.  It is a lonely place, without light, like the darkest hours of the night.  And yet there is forgiveness with God – a forgiveness that transcends all of the boundaries the psalmist can muster.  Like the earliest beams of light creeping along the early morning horizon in the east, the psalmist finds hope in the steadfast fidelity of God which is not shaken by the darkest night of the soul.  After affirming this profound forgiveness that the God of Israel has offered to all, the psalmist

exhorts his or her own community – the people of Israel – to place their trust and hope in Yahweh, “For with the LORD there is steadfast love… [and] great power to redeem” (v. 7).  Fundamentally, it is the God of Israel who redeems both the individual and the community from their sins, bringing them to wholeness and peace with one another.  

The psalmist utilizes one image in verse 6 that is particularly striking in our context: the “watchman” (NIV), “those who watch for the morning” (NRSV).  In ancient cities, the watchman was assigned the task of staying up through the night, keeping a lookout for foreign armies or other threats to the city.  The watchman thus had a keen eye for danger lurking in the shadows.  When dawn came, the watchman could breathe a sigh of relief that the city had survived the night, and that nothing had happened on his watch.  Of course, we longer have watchmen for our cities, but we do in our prisons, where towers rise high off the ground to give armed guards the best view of the people within their walls.  The role of the watchman, then, both ancient and modern is to gaze, fearfully, for imminent threats.  The role of the psalmist-as-watchman, however, is just the opposite: to look for signs of God’s steadfast love and forgiveness, even in the darkest night.  It is precisely this waiting-with-hope that frees us to forgive and reconcile with one another, even as we have been forgiven through the faithfulness of God to us. 

BY CHRIS LIU BEERS, PROGRAM ASSOCIATE

NC COUNCIL OF CHURCHES