More Than Watchmen

“My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning.”

Then the psalm says “watchmen for the morning” again, immediately, back to back.

Hebrew repeats for emphasis. Read it aloud, though, and it sounds less like emphasis than like a man saying a thing twice because the night is long and he has run out of other words.

The image is deliberately unimpressive. A man on a wall. Standing there, watching a horizon that has looked the same for hours.

He is also certain. Morning will come. That much is settled.

Which makes his problem a narrow one. He knows how the night ends. He only has to get through the part before it.

Most of what we call waiting on God is closer to that than to suspense.

The psalm says it twice. Once for the watchman, and once for whoever is reading it at three in the morning.