Psalm 123 "Looking Desperately"

Psalm for Today = 123:1-2

To you I lift up my eyes,
    O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
 Behold, as the eyes of servants
    look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
    to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
    till he has mercy upon us.

Comments:

One of the literary techniques used in Hebrew poetry is parallelism. The rhyming of Hebrew poetry in generally one of idea rather than the sound of word endings like we have in English verse.

These two verses are contained within  a chiasm (or inverted parallelism). This is where the parallel ideas in the second line are repeated in reverse order. If you play “connect-the-dots” between the parallel ideas (A—A’; B—B’) it makes an “X” hence the term chiasm.

To you I lift up my eyes

   A                         B

so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
         B’                          A’

In between these lines the psalmist inserts two similes (a comparison using the words “like” or “as”) to further describe how he and his people look to the Lord. It is very countercultural illustration for us today but would have been a ready expression of utter dependence for the psalmist and his readers.

“as the eyes of servants
                  look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
                       to the hand of her mistress”

 

They were being by the proud and held in contempt by the arrogant. So in this psalm they are presenting their lament, personally and corporately, in utter dependence to the Lord.

Reading this made me wonder how often we really get to that point of utter dependence on the Lord. It is so easy for us in the west to place our trust elsewhere. The saying goes that we are willing to give Advil more time to cure our headache than we give God to move heaven and earth for us. I don’t know about you but the proud and arrogant can cause quite a headache.

Since this psalm is also a psalm of Ascents (one that would have been sung as they journeyed to meet with the Lord in Jerusalem), they didn’t expect an immediate answer, but looked forward to its arrival. I would expect that their looking would not only have evidenced desperation, but their patience, and a growing expectation as they got closer to Jerusalem. 

Are we desperate for God, yet walking patiently as we wait for His answer to our situation? Is faith rising up in our hearts with a growing sense on anticipation?

He is the God who is faithful to his people!