Psalm 130
Psalm 130 offers one of the great Biblical calls for deliverance from God: a promise of God’s presence in every place and situation, and of the divine movement always towards liberation and reconciliation.
The psalmist writes: “Out of the depths I cry to you…” The language of “depths” operates at multiple levels. It brings to mind for me the concrete realities of the darkest hallways I have seen inside a jail, the places where human ingenuity and architecture are turned toward torment and inhumanity. Jails and prisons, designed to cage people, are locations where the evil powers of sin and death are made manifest in the very building, yet at the same time, God is always — always — present with those who are incarcerated.
The language of depths also draws on the psychological: the depths of our own suffering from harm done to us and of despair or guilt over the harm we have done. The cry from the depths is a cry for healing. The cry from the depths is also the psalmist’s cry for forgiveness, made in the sure and certain knowledge that God does not “mark iniquities” but instead forgives and restores us to health and peace where we have done harm. The justice of God is the justice of ongoing restorative accountability and healing, not punishment and suffering.
Finally, the language of depths raises the specter of the ocean depths, which in the Tanakh often represent the forces of chaos, pagan gods, or danger. The language of “depths” in this way brings to mind Psalm 107, where God calms a storm on the sea to deliver God’s people. Psalm 107 is a psalm of liberation as well: in addition to delivering people from the power of the deep, God “breaks bars asunder…shatters the doors of bronze and cuts in two the bars of iron” (v. 14-16), explicitly setting free prisoners. God hears the cry of those in prison and those in danger from the depths, and sets them free.
It is true that Psalm 107 also shows the overthrow of the wicked and powerful. God transforms conditions of oppression and harm. But the promise of Psalm 130 is that God is always on the side of those in the depths. God is on the side of the incarcerated and imprisoned. God is on the side of those who suffer from harm done to them — including the state violence of incarceration. God is on the side of those who suffer pain and despair as they seek to make amends for harm they have done, and so God offers a way out, through restorative and transformative processes of accountability that provide pathways to healing rather than punishment and imprisonment.
God hears the cry from the depths and God brings liberation and healing. This is the promise of Psalm 130. Abolitionist efforts by allies should always remember to take leadership from incarcerated and directly impacted individuals; from those who have done harm and from survivors of harm. In that way, allies hear and respond to “the cry from the depths,” and the abolition of policing and prisons becomes a human response, out of the depths and supported by God’s ever-present solidarity.
Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for Abolition.