1 To Thee lift I mine eyes,
O Thou that art enthroned in the heavens.
2 Behold, as the eyes of slaves are towards the hand of their
masters,
As the eyes of a maid are towards the hand of her mistress,
So [are] our eyes towards Jehovah our God,
Till He be gracious to us.
3 Be gracious to us, Jehovah, be gracious to us,
For we are abundantly filled with contempt.
4 Abundantly is our soul filled
With the scorn of them that are at ease,
The contempt of the proud.
A sigh and an upward gaze and a sigh! No period is more appropriate,
as that of this psalm, than the early days after the return from
exile, when the little community, which had come back with high
hopes, found themselves a laughing-stock to their comfortable and
malicious neighbours. The contrast of tone with the joy of the
preceding psalm is very striking. After the heights of devout
gladness have been reached, it is still needful to come down to stern
realities of struggle, and these can only be faced when the eye of
patient dependence and hope is fixed on God.
That attitude is the great lesson of this brief and perfect expression
of wistful yet unfaltering trust joined with absolute submission. The
upward look here is like, but also unlike, that in Psalm cxxi., in that
this is less triumphant, though not less assured, and has an expression
of lowly submission in the appealing gaze. Commentators quote
illustrations of the silent observance of the master's look by his
rows of slaves; but these are not needed to elucidate the vivid image.
It tells its own story. Absolute submission to God's hand, whether it
wields a rod or lavishes gifts or points to service, befits those whose
highest honour is to be His slaves. They should stand where they can
see Him; they should have their gaze fixed upon Him; they should look
with patient trust, as well as with eager willingness to start into
activity when He indicates His commands.
The sigh for deliverance, in the second half of the psalm, is no
breach of that patient submission. Trust and resignation do not kill
natural shrinking from contempt and scorn. It is enough that they
turn shrinking into supplication and lamentations into appeals to
God. He lets His servants make their moan to Him, and tell how full
their souls have long been of men's scorn. As a plea with Him the
psalmist urges the mockers' "ease." In their security and full-fed
complacency, they laughed at the struggling band, as men gorged
with material good ever do at enthusiasts; but it is better to be
contemned for the difficulties which cleaving to the ruins of God's
city brings, than to be the contemners in their selfish abundance.
They are further designated as "haughty," by a word which the Hebrew
margin reads as two words, meaning "proud ones of the oppressors";
but this is unnecessary, and the text yields a good meaning as it
stands, though the word employed is unusual.
This sweet psalm, with all its pained sense of the mockers' gibes
and their long duration, has no accent of impatience. Perfect
submission, fixed observance, assured confidence that, "till He is
gracious," it is best to bear what He sends, befit His servants, and
need not hinder their patient cry to Him, nor their telling Him how
long and hard their trial has been.