Augustine once asked what makes the heart of a Christian heavy. His answer was not simply sorrow, pain, loss, or disappointment. The Christian heart is heavy because the Christian is a pilgrim who longs for his country. Even when the world smiles, even when outward circumstances appear prosperous, the Christian still groans because he knows he is not home yet. He may have happiness “in the eyes of fools,” Augustine says in his exposition of Psalm 123, but not yet the happiness promised in Christ. So the psalmist groans, longs, and waits.
This is a mercy. The Bible does not treat the believer’s groaning as strange. It does not tell weary pilgrims to pretend that the road is easy. It gives them songs for the journey, and Psalm 123 is one of these songs. It is one of the Songs of Ascents, pilgrim songs sung by the people of God as they made their way up to Jerusalem.
Some of these psalms feel more obviously connected to travel. Psalm 122, for example, rejoices in the journey to the house of the Lord: “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’” (v. 1). But others deal less with the mechanics of pilgrimage and more with the burdens that make pilgrimage necessary. Psalm 123 is one of these psalms. It is short, simple, and urgent. And it is a psalm for the believer who has not merely had enough, but more than enough—more than enough contempt, more than enough scorn, more than enough of the proud looking down from their ease. And yet the psalm does not teach the believer to look inward in resentment or outward in panic. It teaches him to look up:
To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
till he has mercy upon us.
Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than enough
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud. (Ps 123:1–4)
Psalm 123 teaches weary Christians to lift their eyes above contempt not because God is distant, but because he is enthroned. And because he is enthroned, his mercy is the only mercy strong enough to save.
When We Have Had More Than Enough
The emotional weight of Psalm 123 comes near the end: “We have had more than enough of contempt” (v. 3). In verse 4, the psalmist says, “Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.” There are seasons when trouble does not merely visit. It seems to settle in—one more criticism, one more disappointment, one more strained conversation, one more reminder that the proud seem comfortable while the godly are weary, one more moment when faithfulness feels costly and foolish in the eyes of others.
The psalm does not rebuke the believer for saying, “I have had enough.” It gives him words to say when he has had more than enough. Contempt is not merely opposition. It is opposition with a sneer. It is hatred that looks down. It is not only, “I disagree with you.” It is, “You are weak. You are foolish. You are nothing.” Sometimes contempt is loud, mocking openly. Sometimes it is quiet, coming through the raised eyebrow, the dismissive laugh, the refusal to take you seriously. It may come from unbelievers who think Christian faith is childish. It may come from the proud who despise weakness. It may even come from those who are simply at ease, those who cannot understand why your soul is tired.
Nehemiah 4 gives a vivid picture of the kind of burden Psalm 123 names. When the returned exiles began rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, Sanballat was angry and greatly enraged. He jeered at the Jews: “What are these feeble Jews doing?” (v. 2). Tobiah joined the mockery: “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!” (v. 4).
The people of God were not merely opposed. They were mocked, and their work was despised. Their weakness was ridiculed. Their hope was treated as laughable. And Nehemiah prayed, “Hear, O our God, for we are despised” (v. 4). This is Psalm 123. The pilgrim life is not sentimental. The road to Zion is not free from scorn. Faith does not make the contempt of the proud imaginary, nor does it require us to pretend that contempt does not wound.
Lifting our eyes does not mean pretending the pain does not hurt. It does not mean saying, “It is fine,” when it is not fine. Psalm 123 is too honest for that. The psalmist does not minimize the scorn; he names it twice. Faith does not require us to call pain painless. Faith teaches us where to look with our pain.
The Pilgrim Looks to the King
“To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!” (Ps 123:1).
This language should remind us of Psalm 121:
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth. (vv. 1–2)
Psalm 121 looks to the Lord as creator. Psalm 123 looks to the Lord as king. Both are true. Both ground our hope. The One who made heaven and earth is the One enthroned in the heavens.
But we should be careful. When the psalmist says that God is enthroned in the heavens, he is not saying that God is distant, uninvolved, or unaware. He is not saying that God is too far removed to know what his people suffer. He is not picturing a deity who is so heavenly that he is no earthly good. The throne of God is not a sign of distance. It is a sign of dominion. God is enthroned in the heavens because he reigns. He rules over all creation, over every nation, over every proud man, over every contemptuous tongue, over every grief of his people. He is not one more actor within creation. He is the sovereign Lord over creation.
A frightened child in a crowded room does not look at every stranger with equal hope. He looks for one face—the face of his father or mother—not because no one else exists but because only one person in that room belongs to him in that way. The child knows where help is found. Psalm 123 teaches the believer to do the same. We lift our eyes to the Lord not because there are no other powers in the world, but because only one throne is occupied by our covenant God. This is why the heavenly throne is good news for the afflicted. If God were merely near but not sovereign, he might sympathize but not be able to save. If God were merely powerful but not merciful, he might rule but would not receive us. But Psalm 123 teaches us to lift our eyes to the God who is both enthroned and merciful.
John Calvin saw the comfort of this. God is called the one who dwells in the heavens so that when all earthly hope appears gone, believers may remember that God’s power remains “in unimpaired and infinite perfection,” he writes in his commentary on Psalm 123:1. This is not abstract theology; it is the difference between despair and prayer.
If God is God at all, then he knows our needs better than we do. If God is God at all, then he is more in touch with the reality of our thoughts, emotions, bodies, families, churches, and nations than we are. If God is God at all, then he has a more comprehensive grasp of our afflictions than we could ever possess. So the Christian lifts his eyes not because trouble is small and not because contempt does not wound, but because the Lord is enthroned in the heavens.
©Everett Henes. All Rights Reserved.
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Everett Henes
Everett Henes (MDiv, ThM, DMin) is pastor of Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, where he has served since 2008. He is husband to Kimberly and father of five children and grandfather of five (and counting!). He teaches US History and Philosophy of History for Jackson College in Michigan. He is currently working towards a PhD in Humanities with a focus in US Religious History from Faulkner University. In his spare time, he enjoys competing in powerlifting and strongman and teaching homeschoolers Taekwondo.
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