Song of Ascent: Eleventh Step

Song of Ascent. Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
2 O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

In their ascent from the Court of the Gentiles, the Levites step now onto the eleventh step. They enter the last section of five steps.

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary begins:
“In a very emphatic sense this is a song of ascents, for it climbs steadily from the abyss of penitence to the summits of hope. It falls into two divisions of four verses each, of which the former breathes the prayer of a soul penetrated by the consciousness of sin, and the latter the peaceful expectance of one that has tasted God’s forgiving mercy. These two parts are again divided into two groups of two verses, so that there are four stages in the psalmist’s progress from the depths to the sunny heights.”