Why read Psalm 122?
Psalm 122 gives words to patience and a request for mercy when you are treated with contempt. Looking towards God expresses the hope of help without concealing the hurt of humiliation.
You can read this psalm when its themes speak to your circumstances, or as part of your regular reading of the Psalter. This explanation draws on the text itself; the psalm is not reserved for one particular need.
The full text of Psalm 122 (4 verses), from the 18th Kathisma of the Psalter. Its opening words — «To You, who dwell in...» — are also the psalm’s traditional “name”: our grandmothers did not say “psalm 122”, but called it by its first words.
The text of Psalm 122
1. To You, who dwell in heaven, I have lifted up my eyes.
2. Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hands of their masters, as the eyes of the maidservant look to the hands of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God until He has mercy on us.
3. Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us, for we have had our fill of contempt.
4. For our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who live in abundance and the contempt of the proud.
When Psalm 122 is read
- It belongs to the 18th Kathisma — the psalms are read in full within the cycle of kathismata, at Matins and Vespers.
- At the end of each psalm, tradition adds: «Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.».
Adjacent psalms
The numbering follows the Orthodox Psalter (Septuagint). The same psalm may have a different number in other Bible editions.
