◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary) / Psalm 130 (With you there is forgiveness); Genesis 2:4b-14 (The tree of knowledge); Luke 8:4-15 (Hearing and living the word of God) (New Catholic Bible)

Prev Day

June 10, 1967

Next Day

Use the calendar to view readings from this devotional.

June 1967
Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

Return to today's reading

Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 130

Psalm 130^[a]

Prayer for Pardon and Peace

¹A song of ascents.

Out of the depths^[b] I cry to you, O Lord;
²    O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
    to my cries of supplication.^[c]
³If you, O Lord, kept a record of our sins,
    O Lord, who could stand^[d] upright?
⁴But with you there is forgiveness
    so that you may be revered.^[e]
⁵I wait for the Lord^[f] in anxious expectation;
    I place my hope in his word.
⁶My soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the dawn.
More than watchmen wait for the dawn^[g]
⁷^[h]let Israel wait for the Lord.
For with the Lord there is kindness,
    as well as plenteous redemption.
⁸He alone will redeem Israel
    from all its sins.

Footnotes

Psalm 130:1 This is the sixth of the seven Penitential Psalms (see Ps 6) and perhaps the psalm that has been most often recited down the centuries since the time when it became an invocation on behalf of the dead. It is both a prayer of sorrow and a hymn of hope. No other psalm reveals in so marvelous a way the mystery of God who forgives, reconciles, and redeems even those who abandon him. While wonderfully suitable for the deceased, it also befits anyone in the depths of sadness (e.g., Israel), for it makes hope rise for them like the dawn.
Because of the lofty plane on which it moves, this psalm does not need a transformation but only a greater profundity to become a Christian prayer. The parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates this perfectly (Lk 15).
Psalm 130:1 Depths: a metaphor of adversity (see Ps 69:2f, 15; Isa 51:10; Ezek 27:34), connoting alienation from God (see Jon 2:2-5) and approaching death.
Psalm 130:2 In his extremity, the psalmist appeals to the Lord, calling him by his proper name and so obliging him to answer his prayers and intervene. Although the reason for the distress is not indicated here, the petition implies that it is related to sin, and the next verse makes this point explicit.
Psalm 130:3 The unfortunate psalmist is well aware that the nature of his trouble is different from the depression of illness, homesickness, or persecution seen in some other psalms (e.g., Pss 6; 42; 69). It is guilt for sin, an evil that can cease only if God puts an end to the sins that cause the evil. Unless God granted pardon, no one could stand, i.e., pass through his judgment (see Ps 1:5) or enjoy the benefits of his presence (see Ps 24:3).
Psalm 130:4 God is full of forgiveness (see Dan 9:9; see also Pss 86:5; 103:3; Ex 34:7; 1 Jn 2:1f). And he is feared not only because of his great judgment and chastisement but also because of his great love in forgiving. The righteous respond with love and holy fear (see Deut 5:29; 1 Pet 1:17) as well as the desire not to offend him in the future (see Rom 2:4).
Psalm 130:5 After noting that God liberally dispenses pardon, the psalmist expresses in splendid phrases his desire (indeed his certitude) of seeing God come close to him soon to grant him pardon. The words I wait for the Lord indicate that the psalmist ardently desires God and seeks to draw near to him with all his might. In patient waiting, faith looks up to the Lord to grant his grace (see Lam 3:25f). In anxious expectation: literally, “My soul waits”: see note on Ps 6:4. His word: especially his covenant promises (see Pss 119:25, 28, 37, 42, 49, 65, 74, 81, 107, 114, 147) and his word of pardon.
Psalm 130:6 The psalmist waits for the Lord with much greater anticipation and certitude than watchmen wait for the dawn when they will be relieved of duty after guarding the city from night attacks (see Ps 127:1). More than watchmen wait for the dawn: by this twofold repetition after a fourfold expression of “hope” in the Lord, the psalmist succeeds in inculcating a true sense of longing, dependence, and assurance.
Psalm 130:7 Like the psalmist, crushed by miseries, Israel must also hope and wait for the Lord. Rich in grace (compassionate and saving love) and redemption (pardon), God will redeem Israel from all temporal and spiritual miseries; he will deliver the people from all their misfortunes and sins as he delivered them from Egypt once before. The word redemption, at first applied to the deliverance from slavery in Egypt (see Ex 12:27), later designates every type of liberation, every form of salvation (see Pss 25:20; 31:5; 44:27; Isa 43:14); here it signifies the profound liberation effected by the forgiveness of sins. The New Testament uses the word in the same sense—the redemption wrought by Christ (see Lk 2:38; Rom 3:24; Eph 1:7; Col 1:14; Rev 5:9). Kindness: see note on Ps 6:5.

Genesis 2:4-14

⁴This was the origin of the heavens and the earth when they were first created.

Origin of Human Beings.^[a] When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵there were not yet any plants of the field nor had any herbs sprouted in the field, for the Lord God had not yet made it rain upon the earth and there was no one to till the soil. ⁶He made a mist rise out of the ground to water the whole surface of the earth. ⁷Then the Lord God formed man^[b] out of the dust of the earth and he breathed his breath of life into his nostrils and man became a living creature.

⁸And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden,^[c] in the east, and he put the man he had formed there. ⁹The Lord God made all sorts of beautiful and nourishing trees sprout out of the earth, among which was the tree of life^[d] in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; then it divided into four tributaries. ¹¹^[e]The first river was called the Pishon. It waters the whole land of Havilah where one can find gold, ¹²and the gold of that land is good. One can also find bdellium and onyx in that land. ¹³The second river is the Gihon. It flows in the land of Ethiopia. ¹⁴The third river is the Tigris. It flows to the east of the land of Asshur. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

Footnotes

Genesis 2:4 The preceding section (Gen 1:1—2:4a) is to be interpreted as a rethinking of certain aspects of creation and an integration, into a systematic and much broader vision, of what had already been set down in the following story, which is older. This Yahwist account of origins is a single piece that is subdivided into chapters 2, 3, and 4. In its literary form it follows the structure of Sumerian-Babylonian hymns that sing of the origins of civilization, but in its content it is truly religious and completely independent of those mythologies. It expresses, in popular language, a theology of the greatest richness and depth.
God is here called by his proper name, Yahweh, the name under which he reveals himself to his people, Israel; he alone, and no one else, is the maker of the entire world.
Man has need of a collaborator, and God provides this. Woman will be by her nature far superior to the animals, which however will provide help to her and the man. The man exercises dominion over them, while man and woman are made for each other and will achieve their purpose each through the other. This law that God has written into the nature of human beings is the basis for the unity of the couple in marriage, which establishes a single human entity that is no longer divisible into parts. Jesus will reaffirm this exigency (Mt 19:3-8) and St. Paul will remind Christian spouses that their union contributes to actuating in time an unsuspected spiritual reality, namely, the fruitful union of Christ and the Church, in which children of God are born (Eph 5:31-32).
The story of creation is meant to say what kind of beings men and women are and what their origin is, but it does not go into detail on the way in which they were created; it does not specify whether God formed man and woman by direct action or through the cooperation of natural forces that took very long periods to accomplish their work. At the same time, the story emphasizes the fact that the material being is animated by a higher vital principle that is not a product of nature but is infused by God himself. Finally, in describing the unity of the couple formed by the Creator the story proclaims that the human species is one.
Genesis 2:7 Man, in Hebrew adam, is the common name of the human species; only beginning in Gen 4:25 and 5:1 will it be regarded as the proper name of the first male. Here and in 3:19, 23, the author connects it with Hebrew adama, “earth.” This is not a scientific etymology but a popular one, based on assonance. In fact, it seems that adam derives from Sumerian ada-mu, “my father.” His companion, too, is initially called “woman” and receives the proper name “Eve” only from Gen 3:20 on. It seems that this name, haua in Hebrew, derives from Sumerian ama, “mother.”
Genesis 2:8 Eden is derived from Sumerian edin, which means a level, steppe-like, desert region. The garden occupies an eastern section of it; this word, too, gan in Hebrew, is properly Sumerian and means a watered and cultivated piece of land. It was translated into Greek as paradeisos, “garden,” giving rise to the name “earthly paradise.”
Genesis 2:9 The tree of life symbolizes the possibility of becoming immortal that was granted as an unmerited gift to human beings, although these were by nature subject to death (Gen 3:22). The tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the attribute proper to the Creator, by reason of which God is the foundation of the moral order. The first couple attempt to usurp this attribute (Gen 3:5, 22), desiring to decide for themselves what is good and evil for them.
Genesis 2:11 The Pishon and the Gihon are completely unknown; if Gen 10:20 is taken into account, Havilah would be in Arabia.

Luke 8:4-15

The Parable of the Sower.^[a] ⁴When a large crowd gathered together as people from every town flocked to him, he said in a parable: ⁵“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some of the seed fell along the path and was trampled upon, and the birds of the sky ate it up. ⁶Some fell on rock, and when it came up, it withered for lack of moisture. ⁷Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. ⁸And some fell onto good soil, and when it grew it produced a crop of a hundredfold.”

After saying this, he cried out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The Purpose of Parables.^[b] ⁹Then his disciples asked him what the parable meant. ¹⁰He said, “To you has been granted knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but for others they are made known in parables, so that

‘looking they may not see,
and hearing they may not understand.’

¹¹The Explanation of the Parable of the Sower.^[c]“The meaning of the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. ¹²The seed on the path represents those who hear, but then the devil comes and carries off the word from their hearts so that they may not come to believe and be saved. ¹³Those on rock are the ones who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a short while, but in time of trial they fall away.

¹⁴“That which has fallen among thorns are the ones who have heard, but as they go along, they are choked by the concerns and riches and pleasures of life, and they fail to produce mature fruit. ¹⁵But that which is on rich soil are the ones who, when they have heard the word with a good and upright heart, keep it and yield a harvest through their perseverance.

New Catholic Bible (NCB)

Prev Day

Top

Next Day

Use the calendar to view readings from this devotional.

Log in to read this devotional and:

Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 130[a]

Prayer for Pardon and Peace

Footnotes

Footnotes

Footnotes

Psalm 130^[a]