Psalm 130 - A Song of Ascents.
1 Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Yahweh; 2 Lord (Adonai), hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. 3 If You, Yah, should mark iniquities, O Yahweh, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared. 5 I wait for Yahweh, my soul waits, and in His word I do hope. 6 My soul waits for Yahweh more than those who watch for the morning— yes, more than those who watch for the morning. 7 O Israel, hope in Yahweh; for with Yahweh there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption. 8 And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
“”A Song of Ascents.’ The psalmist calls on “Yahweh”, as well as “Yah” and “Adonai.” “Yahweh- God gave out that name to His people to confirm their faith in the stability of His promises: Exo 3.” (Owen) In verse 2, it is Lord. “Hebrew, Adonai. As Jehovah marks his unchangeable faithfulness to His promises of delivering His people, so Adonai His Lordship over all hindrances in the way of His delivering them.” (Andrew Robert Fausset) In verse 3, it is Yah— “a name, though from the same root as the former, yet seldom used but to intimate and express the terrible majesty of God. ‘He rideth on the heavens, and is extolled by his name Jah:’ Psalm 68:4. He is to deal now with God about the guilt of sin.” (John Owen)
Behold Yah comes riding on the clouds in majesty to judge His people. (Ps 68:4) “Just as the barometer marks the rising of the weather, so does this Psalm, sentence by sentence, record the progress of the soul. And you may test yourself by it, as by a rule or measure, and ask yourself at each line, ‘Have I reached to this? Have I reached to this?’” (James Vaughan) “Of the Psalms which are called Penitential this is the chiefest. But, as it is the most excellent, so it has been perverted to the most disgraceful abuse in the Popedom: i. e. that it should be mumbled in the lowest voice by slow bellies, in the sepulchral vigils for their liberation of souls from purgatory: as if David were here treating of the dead, when he has not even spoken a word about them; but says that he himself, a living man, was calling upon God; and exhorts the Israelites, living men also, to do the same. But leaving the buffooneries of the Papists we will rather consider the true meaning and use of the Psalm. It contains the most ardent prayer of a man grievously distressed by a sense of the Divine anger against sin: by earnest turning to God and penitence, he is seeking the forgiveness of his iniquities.” (Solomon Gesner)
“’Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Yahweh.’ (1) From the very bosom and bottom of despair, caused through deepest sense of sin and fear of wrath. One deep calleth to another, the depth of misery to the depth of mercy." (John Trapp) “Jonah lay sleeping in the ship, when the tempest of God's wrath was pursuing him: God therefore threw him irate the belly of the whale, and the bottom of the deep, that from those deep places he might cry to him.” (Archibald Symson) “And we seldom rise till we have gone very deep. ‘I die! I perish! I am lost! Help, Lord! Help me! Save me now! Do it now, Lord, or I am lost. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for thine own sake, O my God!’
In mid-day, if you are taken from the bright and sunny scenes of light, and go down into the bottom of a pit you may see the stars, which were invisible to you in the upper air.” (James Vaughan)
“’Yahweh, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If You, Yah, should mark iniquities, O Yahweh, who could stand?’ (2-3) Every sin is marked down with its peculiar aggravations. There is no possibility of escape from the deserved condemnation. The evidence against us is clear, and copious, and overwhelming. A thousandth part of it is sufficient to determine our doom. The Judge has no alternative but to pronounce the awful sentence. We must die a felon's death.” (M. M'Michael)— “‘But’— ’as if you heard justice clamouring, ‘Let the sinner die,’ and the fiends in hell howling, ‘Cast him down into the fires,’… : ‘Let him perish,’ and nature itself groaning beneath his weight, the earth weary with carrying him, and the sun tired with shining upon the traitor, the very air sick with finding breath for one who only spends it in disobedience to God. The man is about to be destroyed, to be swallowed up quick, when suddenly there comes this thrice blessed ‘but,’ which stops the reckless course of ruin, puts forth its strong arm bearing a golden shield between the sinner and destruction, and pronounces these words, ‘But there is forgiveness with God, that he may be feared.’” (C. H. Spurgeon) there is forgiveness with You,’ ‘There is a propitiation with thee,’ so some read it: Jesus Christ is the great propitiation, the ransom which God has found; he is ever with him, as advocate for us, and through him we hope to obtain forgiveness…” (Matthew Henry), as well as”special instruction, peace and comfort, in drawing near to God through the Mediator…” (William H. Goold) “The Evangelical doctrine of the gratuitous forgiveness of sins does not of itself beget carelessness, as the Papists falsely allege; but rather a true and genuine fear of God; like as the Psalmist here shows that this is the final cause and effect of the doctrine.”(Solomon Gesner) “See the confessions of Moses, Job, David, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Daniel, Paul, and others of the apostles. Hear Christ teaching his disciples to cry to the Father who is in heaven, ‘Forgive us our trespasses!’ If before God the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, although possessing unusual holiness, nevertheless fell down, and as suppliants prayed for forgiveness, what shall be done with those who add sin to sin?” (D. H. Mollerus)
“‘I wait for Yahweh, my soul waits, and in His word I do hope. My soul waits for Yahweh more than those who watch for the morning— yes, more than those who watch for the morning.’ (5-6) How many in the hallowed precincts of the Temple turned with anxious eye to the east, for the first red streak over Moab's mountains that gave intimation of approaching day; yet it was not for deliverance they waited, but for the accustomed hour when the morning sacrifice could be offered, and the soul be relieved of its gratitude in the hymn of thanksgiving, and of the burden of its sorrows and sins by prayer, and could draw that strength from renewed intercourse with heaven…” (Robert Nisbet)
“Holy men like Simeon, and devout priests like Zacharias, there were, amidst this seething people, who, brooding, longing, waiting, chanted to themselves day by day the words of the Psalmist, ‘My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning.’ As lovers that watch for the appointed coming, and start at the quivering of a leaf, the flight of a bird, or the humming of a bee, and grow weary of the tense strain, so did the (devout) Jews watch for their Deliverer.” (Henry Ward Beecher) “What encourages husbandmen and mariners against the surges and waves of the sea, and evil weather, but hope of better times? What comforteth a sick man in time of sickness, but hope of health? Or a poor man in his distress, but hope of riches? Or a prisoner, but hope of liberty? Or a banished man, but hope to come home? All these hopes may fail, as oftentimes wanting a warrant. Albeit a physician may encourage a sick man by his fair words, yet he cannot give him an assurance of his recovery, for his health depends on God: friends and courtiers may promise poor men relief, but all men are liars; only Yahweh God is faithful who hath promised.” (Archibald Symson)
“‘O Israel, hope in Yahweh; for with Yahweh there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption.’ As if he had said, That which is a ground of hope to me, notwithstanding the clamour of my sins, affords as solid and firm a bottom to any true Israelite or sincere soul in the world, did he but rightly understand himself, and the mind of God in His promise. Yea, I have as strong a faith for such as for my own soul, and I durst pawn the eternity of my happiness upon this principle,—that God should redeem every sincere Israelite from all his iniquities.” (William Gurnall) “Are our sins great? with God there is mercy, matchless mercy. Are our sins many? with God is plenteous redemption; He will multiply pardons as we multiply sins, Isaiah 55:7—Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” (John Trapp— ) “‘And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.’ This Psalm containeth an evident prophecy of the Messias; in setting forth his plentiful redemption, and that he should redeem Israel, that is, the Church, from all their sins. Which words in their full sense were used by an angel to Joseph, in telling him that the child's name should be JESUS, 'because he should save his people from their sins': Mt 1:21. (Sir John Hayward) “Redemption from all iniquity! It baffles the most descriptive language, and distances the highest measurement. The most vivid imagination faints in conceiving it, the most glowing image fails in portraying it, and faith droops her wing in the bold attempt to scale its summit. ‘He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.’ The verse is a word painting of man restored, and of Paradise regained.” (Octavius Winslow)
“And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.” (Hebrews 9:27-28)