What does Psalms Chapter 123 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Israel is invited to repeat the conditional account. Perhaps remains in swallowing and water statements. Broken snare deliverance closes with help in the Maker’s name.

Chapter breakdown

Nisi quia Domini is the incipit, with a heading interpreting the church’s glory for enemy deliverance and a gradual-canticle inscription. Israel is called to say twice that if the Lord had not been with us when men rose up, perhaps they had swallowed us alive when their fury kindled. Perhaps remains; men are not newly specified as foreign nations and no actual assembly is described.

Perhaps waters had swallowed us. Their soul has passed through a torrent and perhaps had passed through insupportable water. The Lord is blessed for not giving them as prey to teeth. These images are not resolved into a documented battle or flood.

Their soul has been delivered like a sparrow from fowlers’ snare; the snare is broken and we are delivered. Help is in the Lord’s name, heaven and earth’s Maker. The declaration stays attributed to the speakers, without a universal future survival guarantee or an invented sudden release scene.

The story inside

Opening: Israel is invited to repeat the conditional account. Development: Perhaps remains in swallowing and water statements. Conclusion: Broken snare deliverance closes with help in the Maker’s name.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Israel is invited to repeat the conditional account.
2
Perhaps remains in swallowing and water statements.
3
Broken snare deliverance closes with help in the Maker’s name.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 66055–66061
123:1. If it had not been that the Lord was with us, let Israel now say: 123:2. If it had not been that the Lord was with us, When men rose up against us, 123:3. Perhaps they had swallowed us up alive. When their fury was enkindled against us,
Lines 66063–66069
123:4. Perhaps the waters had swallowed us up. 123:5. Our soul hath passed through a torrent: perhaps our soul had passed through a water insupportable. 123:6. Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us to be a prey to their teeth.
Lines 66071–66074
123:7. Our soul hath been delivered as a sparrow out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken, and we are delivered. 123:8. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.