The interpretation timeline

Ps 129:5

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

1 Patristic · 1 Jewish · 1 Catholic · 1 Lutheran

Ps 129:5 · Douay-Rheims
“My soul hath hoped in the Lord.”
Patristic before A.D. 750
430
A.D.
Augustine of Hippo Patristic
A.D. 354–430
“We therefore trust without fear on the word of Him who cannot deceive. "My soul has trusted in the Lord, from the morning watch even unto night" [Psalm 130:5]. This morning watch is the end of night. We must therefore understand it so that we may not suppose we are to trust in the Lord for one day only. What do you conceive to be the sense, then, brethren? The words mean this: that the Lord, through whom our sins have been remitted, arose from the dead at the morning watch, so that we may hope that what went before in the Lord will take place in us. For our sins have been already forgiven: but we have not yet risen again: if we have not risen again, not as yet has that taken place in us which went before in our Head. What went before in our Head? Because the flesh of that Head rose again; did the Spirit of that Head die? What had died in Him, rose again. Now He arose on the third day; and the Lord as it were thus speaks to us: What you have seen in Me, hope for in yourselves; that is, because I have risen from the dead, you also shall rise again.”
Source
675 years pass — nothing from this stretch is hosted yet
Scholastic c. 1100 – 1500
1105
A.D.
Rashi Jewish
1040–1105
“I hoped, O Lord; yea, my soul hoped one hope after another hope, similar to (above 27:14): “Hope for the Lord, be strong and He will give your heart courage, and hope,” and similar to “among those who await the morning, those who await the morning.””
744 years pass — nothing from this stretch is hosted yet
Post-Reformation c. 1650 – 1900
1849
A.D.
1774–1849
“Word. And promises that the captivity should end, (Calmet) and sin be remitted. (Haydock)”
1875
A.D.
Keil & Delitzsch Lutheran
1861–1875
“Therefore the sinner need not, therefore too the poet will not, despair. He hopes in Jahve (acc. obj. as in Psa 25:5, Psa 25:21; Psa 40:2), his soul hopes; hoping in and waiting upon God is the mood of his inmost and of his whole being. He waits upon God's word, the word of His salvation (Psa 119:81), which, if it penetrates into the soul and cleaves there, calms all unrest, and by the appropriated consolation of forgiveness transforms and enlightens for it everything in it and outside of it. His soul is לאדני, i.e., stedfastly and continually directed towards Him; as Chr. A. Crusius when on his death-bed, with hands and eyes uplifted to heaven, joyfully exclaimed: "My soul is full of the mercy of Jesus Christ. My whole soul is towards God." The meaning of לאדני becomes at once clear in itself from Psa 143:6, and is defined moreover, without supplying שׁמרת (Hitzig), according to the following לבּקר. Towards the Lord he is expectantly turned, like those who in the night-time wait for the morning. The repetition of the expression "those who watch for the morning" (cf. Isa 21:11) gives the impression of protracted, painful waiting. The wrath, in the sphere of which the poet now finds himself, is a nightly darkness, out of which he wishes to be removed into the sunny realm of love (Mal 4:2); not he alone, however, but at the same time all Israel, whose need is the same, and for whom therefore believing waiting is likewise the way to salvation. With Jahve, and with Him exclusively, with Him, however, also in all its fulness, is החסד (contrary to Ps 62:13, without any pausal change in accordance with the varying of the segolates), the mercy, which removes the guilt of sin and its consequences, and puts freedom, peace, and joy into the heart. And plenteous (הרבּה, an adverbial infin. absol., used here, as in Eze 21:20, as an adjective) is with Him redemption; i.e., He possesses in the richest measure the willingness, the power, and the wisdom, which are needed to procure redemption, which rises up as a wall of partition (Exo 8:19) between destruction and those imperilled. To Him, therefore, must the individual, if he will obtain mercy, to Him must His people, look up hopingly; and this hope directed to Him shall not be put to shame: He, in the fulness of the might of His free grace (Isa 43:25), will redeem Israel from all its iniquities, by forgiving them and removing their unhappy inward and outward consequences. With this promise (cf. Psa 25:22) the poet comforts himself. He means complete and final redemption, above all, in the genuinely New Testament manner, spiritual redemption.”
Source
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.