Scripture · Psalm 124:7
Psalm 25:7
The Martyr of the Solway
Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my rebellious acts; remember me according to Your loving devotion, because of Your goodness, O LORD.
A young woman stands chained at the waist beside a rough sea, her arms drawn back and her head lowered.
About the artwork
The close view removes the crowd and officials, leaving the chained figure against dark water and a narrow band of distant light. Her pink blouse, plaid skirt, and loose red-gold hair make the threatened body individual. Her hands are hidden, so the visible chain and withdrawn arms carry the evidence of restraint.
The subject is usually associated with Margaret Wilson, the Scottish Covenanter condemned to drowning in 1685, though even the 1898 catalogue called that identification probable. The later historian Robert Wodrow reported that she sang Psalm 25 beginning at verse 7 at the stake. That report explains the particular passage paired here without making it an eyewitness transcript.
Featured in: John Everett Millais’s Bible Paintings: The Holy Family That Made Dickens Furious
What does Psalm 25:7 mean?
Psalm 25:7 asks God not to remember youthful sins but to remember the speaker through divine love and goodness. The surrounding prayer seeks guidance, forgiveness, and instruction. Its confidence rests in God’s character rather than a claim that the petitioner has never failed.
The verse’s reported use by Margaret Wilson gives the painting a historical devotional connection. The psalm itself does not describe a martyr or an approaching tide. Read beside the isolated prisoner, its plea offers words of trust and mercy while the precise thoughts of Millais’s figure remain unrecorded.
Psalm 25:7 is linked to the subject through Wodrow’s later account of Margaret Wilson’s prayer at the stake.
Sources
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (WAG 2123); oil on canvas, 70.5 × 56.5 cm.
John Everett Millais’s Bible Paintings: The Holy Family That Made Dickens Furious. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
Psalm 25 — Berean Standard Bible. Context for Psalm 25:7.
Also from Psalm:NativityMorning Prayer
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