Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 130

Out of the depths. — A recurrent image for overwhelming distress (Psalms 18:16; Psalms 88:7; also Psalms 69:2, where the same Hebrew word occurs). It is used literally in Isaiah 51:10 for the sea.

If you. —The word rendered “mark” is “watch” in Psalms 130:6. If “Jah” were to watch for men’s lapses, as one watches for the dawn, nothing but conspicuous punishment could follow. So Job (Job 10:14; Job 14:16) actually believed God did watch; while the prophets Jeremiah (Jeremiah 3:5) and Amos (Amos 1:11) use the word to describe the strict vigilance ensuring that consequences followed sin. It is a fact worthy of attention, that misfortune provokes at this crisis, in this people so profoundly religious, not murmurings against the Divine dealings, but a sense of deep contrition.

But. —Rather, for, marking an ellipsis easily supplied. Israel’s sense of Jehovah’s readiness to forgive was too deep to need expression; it was understood: “You will not mark, etc., for ...”

Forgiveness. —The article in the original may be more than is common with abstract nouns: “The forgiveness we need.”

That you may be feared. —Either that the forgiven ones may become more profoundly religious, or perhaps, rather, that the manifestation of Divine mercy to Israel may strike fear in the nations.

I wait. —The Hebrew expresses, I have been waiting, and still wait. Mark the earnestness in the repetition, I wait, my soul waits.

Watch for the morning. —Compare Psalm 123:2 for another figure of the same earnest upward gaze. In the “watcher for the dawn” there may be an allusion to the Levite-sentinel whose duty it was to signal the first ray of dawn, and the moment for commencing the sacred rites of the Temple (Psalms 134:1), but the figure, if it is general, as marking the impatience of a deeply agitated soul—a sufferer waiting for relief, a contrite sinner for forgiveness—is as striking as graceful. (See Deuteronomy 28:67.)