Ps 122 with Commentary by Dr Noel Donnelly
Graphic (c) Netta Ewing
Psalm 122 is the fourth of the 15 Songs of the Steps, or “Ascent Psalms”, sung by pilgrims as they come into the temple. The structure of the psalm goes in steps too!
Verses 1 and 2 has the singer four times raising a male slave’s “eyes” for God’s merciful support. Later, in verse 3, the prayers for mercy are sung twice again, this time by a servant girl. There is no sexual discrimination by God! “To you have I lifted up my eyes, my eyes like the eyes of male slaves on the hand of their lords, like the eyes of a servant girl on the hands of her mistress”.
Moving on to verse 4, the final verse of this short psalm, we hear that on their journey the pilgrims felt they had been treated like dirt for their gullability as believers; overwhelmed with mockery, they are now in the presence of God whom they can rely on totally. Yes, they see themselves as slaves, with no rights at all before God, but they trustfully acknowledge their total dependence on God’s grace, the free giving of new life from their heavenly Master.
In the readings for the 14th Sunday of Year B, our psalm fits nicely as a response to the experience of Ezekiel who was sent to rebels who showed nothing but contempt, a theme of our psalm; that’s followed by the Gospel where Jesus feels his hometown citizens have no faith in him as a prophet, treating him as an upstart. He is “amazed at their lack of faith”.
What do we do when we feel our faith is seen as simple credulity, and we are treated as gullible and irrelevant to the modern world? Well, that’s the risk we take as pilgrim People of God. Psalm 122 is all about eyes. With this pilgrim psalmist can we simply try to turn our eyes on God in heaven and also, importantly, go out to meet him in eyes of our needy neighbour.
That short psalm packs a strong punch!
Ps 122: Words and music (c) Noel Donnelly. Instrumental audio.
Ps 122: words (c) The Grail, England; music (c) Gerry Fitzpatrick; instrumental audio
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