Israel is suffering the punishment of its sins, and humbly the Psalmist confesses that if Jehovah takes strict account of those sins, Israel's case is desperate. But Jehovah has revealed Himself as a pardoning God, in order to gain man's devotion (Psalms 130:1-4). Therefore he can wait in patient but eager expectation, and he bids Israel wait, in confidence that the day of redemption will come at last (Psalms 130:5-8).
Many commentators think that Psalms 130:7 stamp the Psalm as the prayer not of an individual but of the congregation: but the exhortation to the people in those verses does not necessarily imply that the speaker in Psalms 130:1 is Israel personified; in fact it rather tends to distinguish the speaker from Israel. At the same time "the depths" out of which the Psalmist calls are mainly if not wholly national not personal sufferings. The sense of national guilt weighed heavily on the hearts of men like Nehemiah, whose prayer (Nehemiah 1:4-11) is closely akin to this Psalm, and the Psalm may best be understood as the prayer of a representative godly Israelite, such as Nehemiah.
This Psalm is earlier than the Book of Chronicles, for the Chronicler in his addition to Solomon's prayer (2 Chronicles 6:40-42) combines Psalms 130:2 with Psalms 132:8-9; Psalms 132:16; Psalms 132:10 b, Psalms 132:1. It might have been written in the Exile, but more probably it belongs to the time of Nehemiah. It has noticeable points of contact with the confession in Nehemiah 9, as well as with Nehemiah 1:4-11. It should also be compared with Psalms 86.
It is one of the four Psalms which Luther called -Pauline Psalms" (32, 51, 130, 143); and as one of the seven Psalms known from ancient times in the Christian Church as -the Penitential Psalms," it is appointed as a Proper Psalm for Ash Wednesday.