In this Psalm, the Psalmist is comparing his wait for the LORD to a watchman in the night. The Psalmist is waiting on the light, or fruition, but his very soul waits. For what or for whom? The LORD Himself.
Being a watchman in the deep night is lonely. Time itself seems to drag.
I am witness to the darkness before the dawn myself. I lived on a sailboat with my husband for two years, making sea journeys overnight offshore through day and night and a day and a night. Standing watch through the night, being out in the weather, alone on the sea, makes one desperately appreciate the light. All you do is stand, and watch. You watch the dark, you look at the sky, which is also dark if it's covered in clouds. One is insignificant against the yawning, grasping dark surrounding you on all sides. You stand, and look, and wait.
The 3:00am watch is dark, cold, and seemingly endless. Time seems to expand into an eternity of nothingness and blackest of black coal. When one glimpses the first glimmer of a change from blackest coal sky to indigo then blue then the pink and golds of sunrise, the heart lifts and one feels that one has emerged from an endless tunnel in which one’s very soul had been swallowed.
This is the allusion the Psalmist is making here in the Psalm. He is watching and waiting for the sunrise of glory to come, eager for it, even more than those watchmen who wait in the night through the deepest dark!
We, sisters, should live in hope of His coming. The greatest burst of light at dawn dispelling the deep black of life here on hearth will not compare to His return in glory. Eager expectation should be our attitude. Our very soul to its depths should long for our Groom. Redemption is coming!
