Another psalm, another song of ascents, and again brief and pointed. This time it is out of the depths that the psalmist cries to the LORD. What those depths are and how he got there, we are not told. O Lord, hear my voice he says (2) Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. He is serious about being heard. He then makes the statement, in verses 3 and 4, that we want to focus on here. The psalmist is not being simplistic when he speaks of forgiveness. In the rest of the psalm he talks first to himself about waiting and hoping and then to Israel about hoping. I wait for the LORD he says (5, 6) my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. In the final verses (7, 8) he apostrophises to Israel O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins. His central point then is a sort of syllogism. The first statement is that if the Lord kept a record of sins, if he noted them all down, then no-one could stand. If the Lord was totally strict and kept his eye fixed on every sin, there would be no hope for any of us. However, according to the second statement, with him there is forgiveness. He is willing to overlook faults. This leads to the conclusion therefore you are feared. On the one hand, he is a God of purity and wrath. Every little sin deserves his punishment. On the other, he is a God of love and mercy, who forgives. Who would not fear a God like that?
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