From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord. (Psalm 129:6 DR)
In the ancient world there were very real dangers for families and tribes and cities which constantly surrounded them, whether from nature or from man. Because of this it was generally necessary to be constantly on guard, especially during the night when both man and beast were on the prowl.
This “watching” led to the creation of three to four divisions of the night into what were called watches, during which those guarding would—wait for it!—watch. Not just to observe in the modern, passive colloquial sense but rather to be vigilant in searching out dangers and being prepared to rouse the rest of the guard and defend against the threat. These watches of the night thus would generally correspond to the rotation of guard duty of three to four hour shifts, depending on the division of the watches.
The first watch might generally begin around sunset or what might roughly be about 6 P.M. in modern reckoning, with the morning watch concluding around sunrise or roughly 6 A.M.
These watches in Latin were termed vigils which originally had the denotation of guarding or watching. However, within Christianity the term became associated with the vigils before feasts, which were times of intense prayer and fasting, sometimes late into the night or even all night. The term vigil thus took on this devotional connotation and came into English as vigil directly from the Old French vigile, itself derived from the Latin vigilia (Online Etymological Dictionary, “vigil”).
However, by the time it entered English it did so with an explicitly religious connotation, meaning eve of a religious festival. It only later reverted closer to the more generic Latin meaning of keeping watch, although we still tend to use it in a devotional or memorial context, such as vigils for people who have died.
The Scriptures tie prayer to the watches explicitly in many places. When Aaron and his sons were being consecrated, they were commanded by the Lord to keep watch constantly for seven days:
Day and night shall you remain in the tabernacle observing the watches of the Lord, lest you die: for so it hath been commanded me. (Leviticus 8:35 DR)
The Psalmist in many places speaks of praying at various times in the watches:
O God, my God, to thee do I watch at break of day. For thee my soul hath thirsted; for thee my flesh, O how many ways! (Psalm 62:1 DR)
My eyes to thee have prevented the morning: that I might meditate on thy words. (Psalm 118:148 DR)
To watch for the Lord is thus synonymous with prayer and meditation on the words and commandments of the Lord, and our Lord Himself would often pray deep into the watches of the night:
And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and he passed the whole night in the prayer of God. (Luke 6:12 DR)
He Himself sets an example of watchfulness in prayer and commands it of His disciples and those who would follow Him, and ties it to His second coming:
Take ye heed, watch and pray. For ye know not when the time is. Even as a man who going into a far country, left his house; and gave authority to his servants over every work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore, (for you know not when the lord of the house cometh: at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning,) Lest coming on a sudden, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch. (Mark 13:33-37 DR)
This four-fold division of the watches into roughly three hour periods throws into stark relief the Agony in Garden in which He commanded His disciples to watch, by which they would have understood that they were to keep vigil for roughly three hours. When He comes and finds them sleeping, he chides them for not even keeping vigil for one hour, let alone three. This happens three times (presumably at the end of the original watch), after which He dismisses them (potentially ironically) from their vigil to rest (cf. Mark 14:41).
The Psalmist speaks within this mindset in which watches were a commonplace feature of the ancient world. The watch or vigil implies staying awake while others are asleep (and when one would also rather be asleep), which involves sacrifice and self-mortification. However, this watching is also necessary as the danger which surrounds is real and ever-present, both physically and spiritually (cf. 1 Peter 5:8).
There seems to be an odd transposition here, however, for the watches generally imply being vigilant against danger. Yet here the Psalmist ties this watching to hopefulness in the Lord rather than to any specific danger. The reason for this is implied here and explicitly found in the Psalmist’s words elsewhere:
Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it. (Psalm 126:1 DR)
The Psalmist recognizes both in the depths of his own soul and in his people and nation that unless the Lord keeps and protects them, all their machinations and strength is as nothing and is in vain. The sinfulness and weakness of his own heart (and that multiplied by a people) are such that without God’s merciful forgiveness they cannot stand before Him. The hope that he has found in the Lord by reason of God’s law is the self-same reason that his people and nation should hope in the Lord and turn to him for the forgiveness of the their sins and redemption from the hand of their enemies.
This hope in the Lord is to be characterized not by its emotional intensity but rather by its constancy; the language of moving from the morning watch to the night watch captures this explicitly. For the morning watch signals the end of the night and the beginning of the day, while the night watch inversely the end of the day and the beginning of the night.
St. Jerome’s Latin translation from the Hebrew is perhaps even more straightforward in the cyclical and constant nature of this watching:
A vigilia matutina usque ad vigiliam matutinam. Exspectet Israel Dominum :
From morning watch to morning watch. Let Israel wait for the Lord:
The Septuagint introduces the poetic juxtaposition between the morning watch and the night watch (and thus is ironically perhaps more Hebraic in the poetic aspect), but also doubles the expression as the Hebrews does here:
ἤλπισεν ἡ ψυχή μου ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον ἀπὸ φυλακῆς πρωίας μέχρι νυκτός· ἀπὸ φυλακῆς πρωίας ἐλπισάτω Ισραηλ ἐπὶ τὸν κύριον.
"My soul has hoped in the Lord from the morning watch until the night; let Israel hope in the Lord from the morning watch."
The Vulgate and the Old Latin eliminate the repetition of “the morning watch,” which creates a somewhat middle ground between the Hebrew St. Jerome used in his translation and the Septuagint. The expression of morning watch to morning watch is identical to morning watch even until night, as until carries the sense of the action being carried through that time period, rather than ending once it arrives.
And while the waiting for the Lord of the Hebrew and the hoping in the Lord from the Vulgate are compatible (as waiting for the Lord implies hoping), the Vulgate explicitly draws this out. Likely the reason for this is to connect the Psalmist’s own hope from the previous passage—my soul hath hoped in the Lord—to that of Israel; that is, the Psalmist transposes his own experience of God’s mercy and forgiveness to that of his people.
And while this watching and hoping implies times of prayer during the physical hours of the day, it also means during the metaphorical hours of life and circumstances. Our prayers should not only arise to God in thanksgiving during the “daylight” hours of life, but (perhaps especially) during the “nighttime” hours of life with all that those entail. St. Paul exhorts the Colossians to be “instant in prayer” (Colossians 4:2), “instant” meaning “now” or “at the present moment,” thus implying the constancy which the Psalmist also exhorts through all times of life and circumstances:
“From the morning watch even until night.;” the whole day, from day break to the end of the night, let them not, for as much as one moment, cease to trust in God. We are bound to hope in God during the whole day, and during the whole night, for two reasons: first, because we are always in danger; nor is there one moment in which we do not need God’s help and assistance; secondly, because we are at liberty to hope at all times in God; and our conversion or penance is always acceptable, be it in the morning; that is, in our youth; or at midday, in the prime of life; or in the evening, in our old age; or be it in the day time of our prosperity; or in the night of our adversity. (St. Robert Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of the Psalms, 129, 6.)
For this animation I wanted to capture the watch cycle from morning to night and back to morning while also speaking to the constancy implied.
So I drew a circle.
Pretty amazing, I know.
I then duplicated this circle many times and arranged it in the composition and animated it to loop. I changed the colors of the ellipses to go from something more like a moon to a sun, and then animated the background color to follow the daylight to night and back pattern.
I added in many glows and color correction effects to finish this off.
Enjoy.
From the morning watch even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.
(Psalm 129:6 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: