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Psalm 123 · a question people ask

Who are "those who are at ease" and "the proud" (123:4)?

In the text

The psalm doesn't say. It names what they give, "the scoffing" and "the contempt" (123:4), and not who they are, what they said, or what should happen to them. Those who are at ease is one Hebrew word (tap ease). The lexicons give it both ways: Brown-Driver-Briggs lists "at ease, secure", and also "at ease, with collat. idea of careless, wanton, arrogant"; Strong's gives "secure; in a bad sense, haughty". The proud is a word the Hebrew Bible has only here (tap proud). Job, answering his friends (Job 12:1), puts at ease and contempt together too: "In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune" (Job 12:5). Psalm 123 asks nothing against them. It asks the LORD for mercy (123:3). These notes name no one as the psalm's scoffers, then or now.

The verses

“Have mercy on us, LORD, have mercy on us, for we have endured much contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scoffing of those who are at ease, with the contempt of the proud.”
Psalm 123:3-4 · World English Bible
“Then Job answered,”
Job 12:1 · World English Bible
“In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips.”
Job 12:5 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 123

Psalm 123: Our eyes look to the LORD

Psalm 123 lifts its eyes "to you, you who sit in the heavens" (123:1) and pictures servants and a maid with their eyes on a master's and a mistress's hand (123:2). In Hebrew that verse has no verb for look: only eyes, turned toward a hand. One verb for mercy comes three times, and the verb behind "endured" (123:3) is the verb of "filled" (123:4).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions