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Psalms 129

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Israel's Endurance Through Affliction 1–4

1
Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth up, Let Israel now say, ​
2
Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth up: Yet they have not prevailed against me.
3
The plowers plowed upon my back; They made long their furrows. ​
4
Jehovah is righteous: He hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked. ​

Prayer for Judgment on Zion’s Enemies 5–8

5
Let them be put to shame and turned backward, All they that hate Zion. ​
6
Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, Which withereth before it groweth up; ​
7
Wherewith the reaper filleth not his hand, Nor he that bindeth sheaves, his bosom:
8
Neither do they that go by say, The blessing of Jehovah be upon you; We bless you in the name of Jehovah. ​

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

Study Notes for Psalms 129

Verse 1

from my youth — Israel speaks as one person, and its 'youth' is the time of Egypt, when the LORD says 'When Israel was a child, then I loved him' (Hos 11:1). Tsarar, 'afflicted', is to bind tight or cramp, and fits 'hard bondage' (Exod 1:14). The singer is told to say it, 'may Israel now say', the same call as in Ps 124:1.

Verse 3

The plowers plowed upon my back — Charash, to plough, and gab, the back: the strokes laid on a bent back are likened to furrows, and the enemy made them 'long' (arak). Isaiah uses the same picture of a people made the ground: 'thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over' (Isa 51:23).

Verse 4

cut asunder the cords of the wicked — Qatsats is to chop off, and abot are twisted cords or ropes, here the bonds in which the wicked hold the people. The ground of release is that 'The LORD is righteous' (tsaddiq), the confession of Lam 1:18 and Ezra 9:15: the righteousness Israel there confesses against its own sin is here the ground of its rescue.

Verse 5

confounded and turned back — Bush, to be put to shame, and sug achor, to be driven back. The words fall on 'all' who 'hate Zion' (sane), the city the LORD says he will 'defend… to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake' (Isa 37:35). A similar prayer is made in Ps 71:13.

Verse 6

as the grass upon the housetops — Gag is the flat roof. Grass sprouts on it with no depth of earth, and the people of the cities Assyria laid waste are 'as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up' (Isa 37:27), the same picture of a short-lived strength. Compare Ps 37:2, 'soon be cut down like the grass'.

Verse 8

The blessing of the LORD be upon you — Berakah, blessing, is the greeting exchanged between reapers and the owner: Boaz says 'The LORD be with you', and they answer 'The LORD bless thee' (Ruth 2:4). Those who pass the withered grass of v.6 give no such greeting; the second half of the verse, 'we bless you in the name of the LORD', is the reply they do not make.