Forgiveness is woven into the pattern of existence. God of second chances, pathways of atonement. Help us awaken to Your listening presence, your understanding. Fill our hearts with Divine compassion! . . .

This Psalm is straightforwardly post-exilic (for which see Sefer haWiki) but switches in its narrative perspective between before and after the return from Babylon, between gratitude and longing for return, helped by the profoundly non-linear mechanics of verbal tense and aspect in biblical Hebrew. The Psalmist chooses words associated with joy (s’ḥoq, rinah) that are tinged with other, more complicated emotions. Here’s what came out. . . .