|
[1] Psalm 130 was heard by John Wesley on the
afternoon of Wednesday, May 24, 1738. The Psalm was one of the influences
that attuned his heart to receive that assurance of his salvation by faith,
which the evening of the same day brought to him in the room at Aldersgate
Street (Prothero 293). When Theodore Beza died (October 13, 1605) it was with
Psalm 130 on his lips (ibid., 184). |
|
[2] “Now, O my God,
I pray, let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to the prayer offered
in this place” (2 Chronicles 6:40; see
also 2 Chron.7:15; Neh.1:6,11). |
|
[3] This contracted form of Yahweh occurs 50x in the Hebrew
Scriptures, 43 of which are in the Psalms.
The first time Yah occurs in Scripture is Moses' song which Israel
sang after crossing the Red Sea. Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song
to Yahweh, and said, “I will sing to Yahweh, for He is highly exalted; The
horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea. |
|
[4] The LXX translates the Hebrew word here (câliychah)
as hilasmos (cf. Leviticus 25:9; Romans 3:25). |
|
[5] John Owen (1616–1683)
wrote more than a three
hundred page exposition of Psalm 130 and the background to this is related by
editor Williah H. Goold,
Owen summarizes Psalm 130 by saying, “The Design of the Holy Ghost in
this psalm is to express, in the experience of the psalmist and the
working of his faith, the state and condition of a soul greatly in itself
perplexed, relieved on the account of grace, and acting itself towards God
and his saints suitably to the discovery of that grace unto him; - a great design, and full of
great instruction” (ibid., 329; italics original). |
|
[6] “[T]he
apparent redundancy of v.6bc leads some translators to omit v.6c. The repetition in v.6bc, however,
draws out the poetic line; thus it reproduces literarily the effect of
waiting…” (McCann, 1205). |
|
[7]
“Interestingly enough, only once is [redeem]
(padah) used with reference
to redemption from sin (Ps 130:7–8)” (Theological Wordbook of the
Old Testament, 716). I understand redemption (pâduwth/ padah) in vv.7-8 to be
synonymous with the Hebrew word ga’al, …But the redeemed (ga’al) will walk there, And the ransomed (padah)
of Yahweh will return (Isaiah 35:9-10) Was it not You who dried up the sea, The
waters of the great deep; Who made the depths of the sea a pathway For the
redeemed (ga’al) to cross over? New
Testament terms for redemption do not reflect a distinction between the Old
Testament padah and ga’al (NIDOTTE III:581). The
hope of Israel in Psalm 130 is in Yahweh, her Kinsman Redeemer. |
|
[8] “When our iniquity had been fully accomplished, and it had been made perfectly manifest that punishment and death were expected as its recompense, and the season came which God had ordained . . . he hated us not, nor rejected us, nor bore us malice, but was long-suffering and patient, and in pity for us took upon himself our sins, and himself parted with his own Son as a ransom for us, the holy for the lawless, the guileless for the evil, the just for the unjust, the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the moral. For what else but his righteousness would have covered our sins? In whom was it possible for us lawless and ungodly people to have been justified, save only in the Son of God? O the sweet exchange, O the inscrutable creation, O the unexpected benefits; that the iniquity of many should be concealed in One Righteous man, and the righteousness of One should justify many that are iniquitous!” (Epistle to Diognetus 9:2-5 [2nd century A.D. Christian document]; quoted by I.H. Marshall, “Redemption” in Dictionary of the later New Testament and its Developments). |
