Psalm 123 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 123 (1928 BCP) (Ad te levavi oculos meos) is a prayer of dependent attention and mercy in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (1928) Psalter. It is appointed at Morning Prayer on the Twenty-seventh Day of the month, after Psalms 121 and 122 and before Psalms 124 and 125. Its four verses turn from lifted eyes, to waiting on God, to a repeated plea for mercy amid contempt.
Prayer Book Text
The Prayer Book gives the Psalm the Latin title Ad te levavi oculos meos. Its first movement is a deliberate turning toward the God who dwells in heaven:
UNTO thee lift I up mine eyes, * O thou that dwellest in the heavens. 2 Behold, even as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, * even so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until he have mercy upon us.
The servants watching a hand express alert dependence, not passivity. The Psalm seeks neither control over opponents nor an explanation before it prays; it keeps its eyes on the LORD and waits for mercy. The plurals, “our eyes” and “our God,” make this the prayer of a people.
3 Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us; * for we are utterly despised. 4 Our soul is filled with the scornful reproof of the wealthy, * and with the despitefulness of the proud.
The doubled petition, “Have mercy upon us,” is the Psalm's centre. It does not deny contempt, but refuses to let scorn determine the worshipper's horizon. In the Office sequence, Psalm 123 follows Psalm 122's joy in the LORD's house; common worship is joined to candid prayer from a vulnerable community.
Waiting upon the Lord
The Psalm's confession of creaturely dependence accords with the apostolic call to humility:
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.
Peter's “mighty hand of God” is a canonical counterpart to the hand on which Psalm 123 waits. The Psalm's servants do not place themselves above others, and Peter prevents a merely private reading: humility is expressed in mutual subjection as well as trust in God. Neither passage makes suffering proof of abandonment; both direct the afflicted away from rivalry and toward grace.
John Mason Neale and Richard Frederick Littledale identify a horizon of displacement and peril in the song while warning against locating God only at a holy site:
There is a great spiritual advance made in this Psalm, since from merely lifting up the eyes unto the hills, the singer raises them to God Himself. Captivity and the ruin of the Temple had taught this lesson, that it was not needful to turn to Zion or Moriah in order to find God, but that He could and would hear the cry of a suppliant directed to Him from any quarter.
This is a nineteenth-century Anglican reading, rather than a Prayer Book historical note. It brings out a consequence of the first verse: heaven is named as God's dwelling, yet the prayer can be made wherever the faithful are. The Daily Office accordingly carries this Psalter into homes, parishes, hospitals, and places of travel.
A Christian reception
Augustine reads the “ascent” of this Song of Degrees as a movement of the heart toward God, and guards it from becoming pride:
We ascend unto heaven, if we think of God, who has made ascending steps in the heart. What is to ascend in heart? To advance towards God. As every man who fails, does not descend, but falls: so every one who profits does ascend: but if he so profit, as to avoid pride; if he so ascend as not to fall.
This is a theological reception, not a replacement for the Psalm's original voice. It puts the upward gaze in conversation with the Psalm's closing condemnation of pride: advance toward God cannot be self-exaltation.
On the servant-and-maiden image, Augustine speaks of a people and the Church:
When therefore you hear Christ, lift up your eyes to the hands of your Master; when you hear the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, lift up your eyes to the hands of your Mistress; for you are both servant and handmaiden; servant, for you are a people; handmaiden, for you are the Church.
Augustine's Christological exegesis is historically particular, but it underlines what the 1928 text already makes clear: the Psalm is not an isolated individual's spiritual technique. Its first-person plurals train the congregation to seek mercy together and to order worship toward God rather than status.
Contempt, wealth, and mercy
Neale and Littledale observe how the closing language can expose a social judgment that equates worth with success:
Men of a devout and contemplative temper have no care either to win or to retain earthly riches, and are thus for the most part poor; and are looked down on as dreamy and unpractical by pushing, busy, money-making men; thus incurring the scornful reproof of the wealthy; and as in like manner they have no ambition to attain rank and dignity, they move for the most part in obscure spheres, and are humble and peaceable, whence they are subject to the despitefulness of the proud.
Their language bears the marks of its period, but its central caution remains useful: wealth and public standing do not measure the truth of a prayer. Psalm 123 neither blesses poverty as such nor treats every prosperous person as cruel. It names the danger of contempt and returns to mercy.
Augustine similarly explains the Psalm's pairing of “wealthy” and “proud” as a warning that possessions and honour can become grounds for self-exaltation:
Why are the proud wealthy? Because they wish to be happy here. Why? Since they themselves too are miserable, are they wealthy? But perhaps when they are miserable, they do not mock us. Listen, my beloved. Then perchance they mock when they are happy, when they boast themselves in the pomp of their riches! When they boast themselves in the inflated state of false honours: then they mock us.
Augustine's exposition makes a theological inference rather than supplying the Psalm's literal sense. Read alongside 1 Peter, it calls the Church to resist the pride it names in others. Psalm 123 is therefore apt in Morning Prayer when a congregation needs honesty about humiliation and discipline against retaliatory self-importance.
Use in the Daily Office
On the Twenty-seventh Day, Psalm 123 comes after Psalm 121's trust in the LORD's keeping and Psalm 122's joy in Jerusalem, and it is followed by Psalms 124 and 125. The sequence moves from pilgrimage and common worship to mercy under scorn, then to deliverance and confidence in the LORD. In public prayer, Psalm 123 gives words to those who are belittled or weary, while teaching the congregation to wait together upon God rather than make earthly standing its refuge.
See Also
- Book of Common Prayer (1928)
- The Psalter (1928 BCP)
- Daily Office (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 122 (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 124 (1928 BCP)
External Links
- Psalm 123 in the 1928 Prayer Book Psalter
- Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 123
- Neale and Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms, vol. IV
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 123, Ad te levavi oculos meos, vv. 1–2, “The Twenty-seventh Day: Morning Prayer”; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. Title, appointment, wording, punctuation, and verse order were compared word for word with
sources/justus1928/Psalms3.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 123, vv. 3–4; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. The complete Psalm was checked against the named local 1928 source.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (Cambridge: University Press, 1769), 1 Peter 5:5–6; Bible Gateway, “1 Peter 5:5–6, KJV”.
- ↑ John Mason Neale and Richard Frederick Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms: from Primitive and Mediaeval Writers, vol. IV, Psalm CXIX–Psalm CL, 2nd ed. (London: Joseph Masters, 1874), p. 188, commentary on Psalm CXXIII; Internet Archive, scan of the 1874 volume. The wording was checked against the scan's retained text transcription.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 123, §2, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 123”. The quotation was checked against the named transcription of Tweed's translation.
- ↑ Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 123, §4, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 123”. The wording and section were checked against the cited source.
- ↑ Neale and Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms, vol. IV, 2nd ed. (London: Joseph Masters, 1874), pp. 190–191, commentary on Psalm CXXIII; Internet Archive, scan of the 1874 volume. The quotation was checked against the retained transcription and is used as an interpretive comment, not as a historical reconstruction of the Psalm.
- ↑ Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 123, §6, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 123”. The quotation was checked against the cited source.