Psalm 123 Structure

This year's preaching has been mostly Acts during school terms, and the Psalms of Ascent (120-134) over the school holidays. My first psalm was 123, which has an interesting structure as shown below:

After the heading (1a), the psalm divides into three based on the three verbs present:

• 1b-2c נשׂא (to lift up)
• 2d-3a חנן (to be gracious)
• 3b-4 שׂבע (to fill)

As is evident from from the passage, נשׂא only occurs once, in 1b, but is assumed throughout verse 2: what is done with the eyes there is that they are lifted up as per verse 1.

In the second paragraph חנן occurs three times in rapid succession, a prayer to the one to whom the pilgrim's eyes are lifted.

Finally, the third paragraph gives the reason behind the plea, namely the filing with contempt. It is structured with שׂבע occuring once in each of the first two lines, and is also bookended with בוז (contempt) (3b,4c).

As can be seen, although the psalm can be divided into three paragraphs based on the use of each of the three verbs, the logic flows between them so that the psalm is very tightly held together based on verses (1-2,3,4) as well as by verbs (1b-2c,2d-3a,3b-4).