See the link between the servant’s eye and the Master’s hand, between the servant’s hand and the Master’s will.
It’s one thing to come up to Jerusalem—from whatever altitude or location, one NEVER goes DOWN to Jerusalem—it’s quite another to go up to heaven. The Lord has addresses in both locations. And so the psalmist writes, “Unto You I lift up my eyes, O You who dwell in the heavens” (Ps 123:1). He then paints a beautiful picture. Imagine a lavish table set with finery. The guests have gathered and are enjoying a delightful meal. The servants have their eyes riveted on one place. It’s not the exquisite flowers or the lords and ladies in their splendor. Instead, they “look to the hand of their masters,” and the “maid to the hand of her mistress” (v 2). The slightest movement of the hand directs them to refill glasses or restock plates from the sideboard. The master need not raise his voice; the merest hint from the mistress is a clear command to her maid. “So our eyes look to the Lord our God, until He has mercy on us” (v 2). And there you see the dramatic difference. The servants wait to act for the master or mistress. We wait for the Master to act for us! And what particular mercy— mentioned no fewer than three times—is the psalmist seeking? Those who come to worship, who seek as servants to do His bidding, are met with a flood of disdain. “Have mercy on us, O Lord,…For we are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorn of those who are at ease, with the contempt of the proud” (vv 3-4). Does it help to remember that the chief Servant, who always pleased His Father, who was “despised and rejected of men” (Isa 53:3, KJV), would have repeatedly sung this little psalm on His journeys three times a year to that city where He eventually would die for such contemptuous sinners?