Psalms 122:2
Behold as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, As the eyes of the handmaid are on the hands of her mistress: so are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until he have mercy on us.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ecce sicut oculi servorum in manibus dominorum suorum ; sicut oculi ancillæ in manibus dominæ suæ : ita oculi nostri ad Dominum Deum nostrum, donec misereatur nostri.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἰδοὺ ὡς ὀφθαλμοὶ δούλων εἰς χεῖρας τῶν κυρίων αὐτῶν, ὡς ὀφθαλμοὶ παιδίσκης εἰς χεῖρας τῆς κυρίας αὐτῆς, οὕτως οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ἡμῶν πρὸς Κύριον τὸν θεὸν ἡμῶν, ἕως οὗ οἰκτειρῆσαι ἡμᾶς.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 123:2
- הִנֵּ֨ה כְעֵינֵ֪י עֲבָדִ֡ים אֶל יַ֤ד אֲֽדוֹנֵיהֶ֗ם כְּעֵינֵ֣י שִׁפְחָה֮ אֶל יַ֪ד גְּבִ֫רְתָּ֥הּ כֵּ֣ן עֵ֭ינֵינוּ אֶל יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֵ֑ינוּ עַ֝֗ד שֶׁיְּחָנֵּֽנוּ
Haydock's commentary
Masters. Expecting liberty, or rather food; though it may also imply that they are ready to run at the first sign, which they observe with attention. Thus Menelaus had his eyes on Agamemnon. (Homer) (Calmet)
As servants, and particularly handmaids, are very attentive, and hope to receive sustenance, so we ought to pray with all earnestness to God for what is necessary. (Worthington)
All must come from Him.
Until. Or "waiting for his having mercy on us." We shall not cease to look up to Him afterwards. (Berthier)
"Take care not to turn thine eyes away from mine." (Terent. Adelph. ii. 1.)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine City of God, What is Written in the Revelation of John Regarding the Two Resurrections, and the Thousand Years, and What May Reasonably Be Held on These Points
The words, “that he should not seduce the nations till the thousand years should be fulfilled,” are not to be understood as indicating that afterwards he is to seduce only those nations from which the predestined Church is composed, and from seducing whom he is restrained by that chain and imprisonment; but they are used in conformity with that usage frequently employed in Scripture and exemplified in the psalm, “So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until He have mercy upon us,”, not as if the eyes of His servants would no longer wait upon the Lord their God when He had mercy upon them. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXXIII
4. What then followeth, since he hath said, “Unto Thee do I lift up mine eyes”? ( ver. 2 ). How hast thou lifted up thine eyes? “Behold, even as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress: even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until He have mercy upon us.” We are both servants, and a handmaiden: He is both our Master and our Mistress. What do these words mean? What do these similitudes mean? It is not wonderful if we are servants, and He our Master; but it is wonderful if we are a maiden, and He our Mistress. …
St John Chrysostom An Exhortation to Theodore After His Fall, Letter I
“ Oh! that my head were water, and mine eyes a fountain of tears!” it is seasonable for me to utter these words now, yea much more than for the prophet in his time. For although I am not about to mourn over many cities, or whole nations, yet shall I mourn over a soul which is of equal value with many such nations, yea even more precious. For if one man who does the will of God is better than ten thousand transgressors, then thou wast formerly better than ten thousand Jews. Wherefore no one would now blame me if I were to compose more lamentations than those which are contained in the prophet, and to utter complaints yet more vehement. For it is not the overthrow of a city which I mourn, nor the captivity of wicked men, but the desolation of a sacred soul, the destruction and effacement of a Christ-bearing temple. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily XVII on Rom. x. 1
For supposing they do admire you for the time, when the occasion has gone by they will have forgotten it all, and have taken away from thee the crown God had given, and have been unable to secure to thee that from themselves. And yet if this were abiding, it were a most miserable thing to exchange that for this. But when even this hath gone, what defence shall we be able to make for betraying the abiding one for the sake of the unabiding one, for losing such blessings for the sake of credit with a few? And indeed even if they who praise were numerous, even for this they were to be pitied, and the more so the more numerous those who do it. But if thou art surprised at what I have said, hear Christ giving His sentence in this way, “Woe unto you, when all men speak well of you.” ( Luke vi. 26 .) And so indeed it should seem. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).