Psalm 130

Psalm 130: Out of the Depths (De Profundis)

De profundis, out of the depths: the psalm for your lowest moments, and the one the Church prays for her dead.

Psalm 130, “Out of the depths,” is the De Profundis, one of the seven penitential psalms. It is the psalm the Church prays for the dead, a cry from the depths that ends in hope of God’s mercy.

Pray it now

Psalm 130 in full

¹Out of the depths I have cried to you, LORD.²Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my petitions.³If you, LORD, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?⁴But there is forgiveness with you, therefore you are feared.⁵I wait for the LORD. My soul waits. I hope in his word.⁶My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen long for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.⁷Israel, hope in the LORD, for there is loving kindness with the LORD. Abundant redemption is with him.⁸He will redeem Israel from all their sins.

Psalm 130 · WEBC

“If thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities: Lord, who shall stand it. For with thee there is merciful forgiveness…”

Psalm 130:3-4 (Douay-Rheims Psalm 129:3-4), Douay-Rheims Bible, Challoner revision (v. 4 quoted to its first colon)

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What Psalm 130 Means

Psalm 130 is known by its first two Latin words, De profundis, and it is one of the most used psalms in Catholic practice.

It begins at the bottom. Out of the depths I have cried to you, and the depths are not defined, which is why the psalm fits so many situations. Grief, guilt, exhaustion, and dread all reach the same place eventually, and the psalm starts there without asking what put you there.

The hinge is the third verse, and it is one of the most quietly devastating questions in Scripture: if you kept a record of sins, who could stand? The expected answer is nobody, including the person praying. And the answer given is not a defence or an excuse. It is that there is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared. Mercy is given as the reason for reverence, which is the opposite of how most people assume religion works.

The middle of the psalm is pure waiting, and it repeats itself on purpose: my soul waits, more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. The repetition is the point. Waiting is not a stage before the real prayer; it is the prayer.

It closes with redemption promised in full, but it does not say when.

Liturgical Use in the Catholic Church

Psalm 130 is one of the seven penitential psalms and is prayed for the dead throughout the Catholic tradition, in the Office of the Dead, at funerals, and in the November commemoration of the faithful departed. It also appears in the Liturgy of the Hours at Vespers.

Praying Psalm 130 — A Simple Practice

Pray it for someone who has died; it is the psalm the Church has used for that purpose for centuries and it asks nothing of you but the words. Prayed for yourself, sit on the third verse rather than rushing past it. And notice that the psalm never reports being lifted out of the depths. It reports waiting there, which is why it survives contact with real grief.

The Church has prayed this psalm for her dead for centuries; the prayer many add to it in November is the St. Gertrude prayer for the souls in purgatory — and what the Church means by purgatory.

The watchman waiting for the morning is the picture behind prayers for hope — including the Act of Hope, and a prayer for when all hope is gone.

Questions people ask

What is the De Profundis?

Psalm 130, named from its opening words in Latin, out of the depths. It is one of the seven penitential psalms and is the psalm the Church most commonly prays for the dead.

Why is Psalm 130 prayed for the dead?

Because it is a prayer from the depths that asks for mercy rather than claiming innocence, and ends in the promise of full redemption without setting a time. It is used in the Office of the Dead, at funerals, and in the November commemoration of the faithful departed.