This touching Psalm is an utterance of unfaltering faith and patience in the face of contemptuous scorn and mockery. The Psalmist speaks in Psalm 123:1 in the singular as a leader or representative of the people, and passes naturally into the plural in Psalm 123:2 ff. as he joins all the members of the suffering community with himself in faith and prayer. The Psalm may have been written about the time of Nehemiah’s first visit to Jerusalem. It was a report of the miserable plight of the remnant of the returned exiles which induced him to go there (Nehemiah 1:3); and he speaks repeatedly of the contempt and scorn with which the Samaritans and the heathen neighbours of the Jews viewed his efforts for the restoration of the city, until the success of those efforts provoked them to measures of active hostility. See Nehemiah 2:19; Nehemiah 4:1-4; Nehemiah 4:7 ff. The simile of Psalm 123:2 may naturally be connected with a phrase characteristic of the narrative of that period, the hand or the good hand, of our God. Cp. Ezra 7:6; Ezra 7:9; Ezra 7:28; Ezra 8:18; Ezra 8:22; Ezra 8:31; Nehemiah 2:8; Nehemiah 2:18.

Von Gerlach, quoted by Kay, well observes, “To enter fully into the temper of mind exhibited in the Psalms of this period we must consider what the expectations of the restored Jews were. They looked for the coming in of Messianic glories;—and here they were a laughing-stock to the Samaritans. What a school of patience and high-toned spiritual hope was this!” Comp. introd. to Psalms 131.

1. lift I up] Lit. have I lifted up; I have long been and still am looking to Jehovah for the help which He alone can give. Cp. Psalm 121:1; Psalm 25:15.

O thou that dwellest in the heavens] Rather, O thou that sittest throned in heaven (cp. Psalm 2:4), as the supreme King and Governor of the world. Cp. the frequent use of the phrase ‘God of heaven’ in Ezra and Nehemiah.

1, 2. The eye of hope upturned to Jehovah.

2. Behold, as the eyes of servants (look) unto the hand of their masters,

As the eyes of a maid (look) unto the hand of her mistress,

So our eyes (look) unto Jehovah our God, until he be gracious unto us.

As the servants or slaves of a household are dependent on the master and mistress of the household and look to them for the supply of all their needs, so Israel which is Jehovah’s household acknowledges its dependence on Him, and looks to Him to relieve its present distress. “The hand is the symbol of power, which rules the whole house” (Cheyne). This explanation is preferable to that which supposes the point of the comparison to lie in the intentness with which slaves watch for the slightest gesture of command from their master; or that which regards the hand as the hand of chastisement, and the look as the look of entreaty, appealing to the angry master to desist. With the last line cp. Isaiah 30:18.

3. Have mercy upon us] Be gracious unto us.

for we are exceedingly filled with contempt] Contumely has been as it were the daily food with which we have been crammed to loathing. Cp. Lamentations 3:15; Lamentations 3:30; Psalm 80:5.

3, 4. The plea of suffering Israel, scorned and despised by its insolent neighbours.

4. Our soul is exceedingly filled] The close resemblance of this clause to Psalm 120:6 a in the use of a rare form of the adverb (rabbath), and of the reflexive pronoun (lit. ‘filled for itself’), may indicate that both Psalms were written by the same author.

scorning] Or, jeers. The cognate verb is used in Nehemiah 2:19; Nehemiah 4:1, “they jeered at us” … “they jeered at the Jews.”

those that are at ease] Those who live in careless confident security, regardless alike of the judgements of God and the sufferings of men. Cp. Job 12:5; Amos 6:1; Zechariah 1:15.

the proud] So the K’thîbh: according to the Q’rç the consonants are to be read as two words, the proudest oppressors.