Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 5 · Psalm 130
The Hundred and Thirtieth Psalm.
A Psalm of Degrees. The hundred and thirtieth is an affectionate devout prayer to God for mercy, pardon and propitiation, together with a confident affiance and dependence on him for it, and seems to have been composed in time of the captivity, for deliverance out of it.
1. OUt of the depths have I cryed unto thee, O Lord.
2. Lord, hear my voice; let thine eare be attentive to the voice of my supplication.
Paraphrase. Lord, we are deeply implunged in an ocean of miseries: to thee doe we addresse our prayers for our release; be thou graciously pleased to hear and answer us.
3. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
There is not a man to be found who hath not some fault or failing, which if thou shouldest proceed with us in thy just severity, would render us uncapable of thy absolution.
4. But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou maysta. be feared.
But thou art a God of grace and mercy, which allowest place of repentance to those that have offended, and wilt allow pardon to the penitent. Were it not for this, we were all in an hopeless desperate condition, and that utter desperation of mercy would ingage us for ever in our course of sin, without any thought of returning or repenting. But being by thy mercy respited, and by thy gracious call invited, and by the attraction of thy spirit (if we doe not resist) effectually drawn to repentance, and assured of thy acceptance if we come, here is a full concurrence of all arguments, and motives, and aids, to bring us, and oblige and ingage us to it.
5. I wait for the Lord: my soule doth wait, and in his word doe I hope.
In thee therefore my hope and full trust is reposed; thy mercies and gracious promises are the onelyonly anchor and support of my soule.
6. My soule‖hasteneth to the Lord from the guards in the morning, the guards in the morning. waiteth for the Lordb. more than they that watch for the morning; I say more than they which watch for the morning.
To thee I daily betake my selfe early in the morning; at the time that the Priests offer their morning-sacrifice in the temple, I constantly address my prayers and my very soule before thee.
7. Let Israel†to the Lord foreign hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
8. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
And the same is the duty of all true Israelites: let all such apply themselves diligently and constantly to God, as to a God of mercy and pardon and propitiation, that will be reconciled to all truly penitent faithfull servants of his, not imputing to them their frailty and sins of Infirmity, if they be guilty of no other, nay nor their grosser sins knowingly and deliberately committed, if they be retracted and forsaken by confession, contrition, and renovation of minde, and their pardon humbly sued out by constant prayer. For as a remedy for all such the blood of the Messias was most sufficient, and that decreed and designed by God to all the world, for the obteining of actual redemption, and pardon and restitution to his favour (as of captive Israelites to their countrey and temple) upon their sincere change and reformation.
Annotations on Psalm CXXX.
V. 4. Feared] For foreign foreignthat thou mayest be feared, our copies of the Lxxii. have foreign, for thy names sake, and that joyned with foreign I have waited for thee, O Lord, following. But the Hebrew no way inclining to that reading of foreign name, and the Latine which most commonly follows the Lxxii. reading propter legem tuam sustinuite, Domine, for thy law I have waited for thee, and the Hebrew foreign (read without points) being easily mistaken for foreign law, in all probability the original reading of the Lxxii. was foreign (not foreign) foreign, for thy laws (not for thy names) sake. But this, as it is evident, by a double mistake; one in the reading of foreign for foreign, the other (whether in the Latine only, or in the Lxxii. also, 'tis uncertain) by taking that word from the end of the former, and joyning it to the latter period. But without either of these, the Hebrew reading is very current, But (so foreign is oft to be rendred) there is foreign pardon, foreign say the Lxxii. propitiation, with thee, foreign that thou mayst be feared, by the fear of God signifying obedience to his laws, to which his pardoning of the frailties and slips of our lives invites and draws us, when a desperation of all mercy for such would certainly avert us from it.
V. 6. More then they that watch for the morning] This verse is very p…spicuous in the Original, foreign foreignli…erally my soule to the Lord, where is an Ellipsis necessarily to be supplied by riseth, or cometh, or hasteneth, or the like, foreign foreignfrom the watchers or warders, or guard in the morning, i. e. as early, from that time that they come or hasten to their watches: then follows again repeated foreign the guard or watchers in the morning; which repetition in Hebrew Dialect signifies the daily several watchers of every morning, as foreign man man, i. e. every man one after another, the Hebrews wanting forms of distribution (see note on Mar. vi. e.) And so this is the full importance of the verse, The guards every morning that hasten to their watches, are not yet earlier than I in my daily addresses to God. What these watchers or guards of the morning are, the Chaldee hath best exprest; they that observe the morning watches, say they, foreign that they may offer the morning oblation; i. e. the Priests which in their turns officiated: or rather some officers of theirs, which were peculiarly appointed from a tower to expect the first appearance of break of day, the manner of which is at large described in the Talmud, Cod. Joma. The Chaldee for foreign from the watchers, read foreign, just to the same sense, which yet their Latine render plusquam observantes, more than they that observe. But the words do not so import, nor could it truly be said, that he waited, or observed his offices more than the Priests, or guards in the Temple did, who never mist the performing of their daily offices there. The Lxxii. read foreign from the morning watch till night, by the addition of till night, thinking to supply what was wanting, and to the terme from which he began his watch, adding the terme to which he continued it, hereby evidencing their understanding of foreign in the notion of from. And so the Syriack doe also, who read foreign from the watches of the morning, foreign &c. and untill the morning watch, i. e. from one morning watch unto another. Whereby they rightly render the former part, but observe not the elegancy in the repetition, but suppose the preposition ל to to be there wanting, which they thus supply. But the interpretation we have given is most agreeable both to the sense, which is to express his daily constant earlinesse in the service of God, equal to that of the Priests in the Temple, every morning of every day, and to the Hebrew idiome also. Of these watches somewhat hath been said note on Psal. cxix. hh. Yet in this place it will not be amiss to adde a little more, what this morning watch was, or of how many hours it consisted, because in this matter, the computation of the Old and New Testament doth appear to differ. In the Old Testament we find but three watches in the night, and then each must consist of foure hours. The first is called foreign the beginning of the watches, Lam. ii. 19. the second, foreign the middle watch (an evidence that there were but three) Judg. vii. 19. the third is foreign the morning watch, Exod. xiv. 24. and accordingly here we have foreign the watchers in the morning. And so in the Talmud tr. Berachoth, Rabbi Eliezer saith, foreign there are three watches in the night; and so afterward R. Isaac also. And that thus the night was divided among the Grecians also, appears by Homer in the 11th. of the Iliads,
foreign
foreign
foreign,
the larger part of the night, that of two portions of it, was past, and now the third portion or division remained. On which saith Eustathius, foreign, he makes the night according to the antients to be divided into three watches, in like manner as the day also, saying, foreign, morning, or evening, or midday. Yet in the New Testament it is evident there were foure watches in the night among the Jews, (introduced as several other customes, from the Romans) mentioned Mar. xiii. 35. under the styles of evening, midnight, cockcrowing, and morning: and so Matth. xiv. 25. Jesus came to them in the fourth watch of the night. The verse is by the Jewish Arab rendred, So my soule is to him of, or from, the keepers or guard by day, and the keepers or guard by night; and in a note he saith that this is not a literal version, yet a rendring (as he supposed) of the sense, to express his continuall doing it through the whole course of night and day. Kimchi reads, My soule is to the Lord of the watchers for the morning, i. e. waiteth in the night for the Lord, that it may be of those that watch for the morning, i. e. that rise in the morning-watch to pray; and the repeating the words sheweth their continual course and custome so to doe.