Psalm 127

Unless the Lord builds the house,
    the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
    the guards stand watch in vain.
In vain you rise early
    and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
    for he grants sleep to those he loves.
Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
    are children born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
    whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
    when they contend with their opponents in court.

• Psalm 127:1-5

Type of Psalm

Didactic psalms: These psalms are psalms that are intended to teach.  In most cases the psalm instructs us in moral principles.

Psalms of thanksgiving for God’s goodness to Israel:  Giving God thanks as noted.

Matthew Henry’s Summary

“This is a family-psalm, as divers before were state-poems and church-poems. It is entitled (as we read it) ‘for Solomon,’ dedicated to him by his father. He having a house to build, a city to keep, and seed to raise up to his father, David directs him to look up to God, and to depend upon his providence, without which all his wisdom, care, and industry, would not serve. Some take it to have been penned by Solomon himself, and it may as well be read, ‘a song of Solomon,’ who wrote a great many; and they compare it with the Ecclesiastes, the scope of both being the same, to show the vanity of worldly care and how necessary it is that we keep in favour with God. On him we must depend, I. For wealth, ver. 1, 2. II. For heirs to leave it to, ver. 3-5. In singing this psalm we must have our eye up unto God for success in all our undertakings and a blessing upon all our comforts and enjoyments, because every creature is that to us which he makes it to be and no more.”

• Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Psalm 127 “One of the tasks of Christian discipleship is to relearn ‘the works you did at first’ (Rev 2:5 RSV) and absolutely refuse to ‘work like the devil.’ Work is a major component in most lives. It is unavoidable. It can be either good or bad, an area where our sin is magnified or where our faith matures. For it is the nature of sin to take good things and twist them, ever so slightly, so that they miss the target to which they were aimed, the target of God. One requirement of discipleship is to learn the ways sin skews our nature and submit what we learn to the continuing will of God, so that we are reshaped through the days of our obedience.
“Psalm 127 shows both the right way and the wrong way to work. It posts a warning and provides an example to guide Christians in work that is done to the glory of God.”

• Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

My Thoughts

This psalm is attributed to Solomon.

This continues the songs of ascent, where the people make their pilgrimage up the mountain to Jerusalem.

If you build your house without God, you build in vain.  And if you guard a house that is not looked over by God, you might as well leave all the doors and windows open.

But this analogy pertains to the family within the house.  When does a house become a home?  When a family lives there, loves there, and worships there.  Without God in the house, somehow it simply does not feel like a home.

My wife and I lived in the house I am in now for 27 years.  And I have been here three more years.  But other than a few years of our son going off to college and about three years of him working locally, we were empty nesters here.  Thus, the family was just my wife and I.

When my wife did the math…  When an engineer hears that his/her spouse “did the math” to prove a point, they get very excited.  I mean VERY excited.  Not aroused, EXCITED.  My wife told me that she had reckoned all of the houses she had lived in, all the countries, all the time zones, all the states in the USA.  We had lived here in this house longer than any other place she had ever lived.  I ran through all the numbers for my residence.  Seventeen houses or apartments, not counting staying in a hotel for 2-3 months during transitions.  And this house blows the others away.

I have written that we both felt that Germany during the Cold War was the only one of those addresses that felt like home.  Our neighbors were in the same type of situation and everyone depended upon everyone else.

But this house has stairs everywhere.  I have tested myself.  I can walk with my eyes closed from the second floor to the basement and back, which means going front to back twice over, 34 steps in all.  And I know every irregularity.

But the land lady wants me out of the house so they can rent to someone new, for a lot more money.  She wants to retire, along with her husband, and she wants to live off the rent payments.

So, this is not my house, even if it felt like home, which after thirty years, it still misses that mark.  God is here, but now even my wife is gone.

I do not have those children nearby to be the arrows in my quiver.

Psalm 128

Blessed are all who fear the Lord,
    who walk in obedience to him.
You will eat the fruit of your labor;
    blessings and prosperity will be yours.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
    within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
    around your table.
Yes, this will be the blessing
    for the man who fears the Lord.
May the Lord bless you from Zion;
    may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
    all the days of your life.
May you live to see your children’s children—
    peace be on Israel.

• Psalm 128:1-6

Type of Psalm

Didactic psalms: These psalms are psalms that are intended to teach.  In most cases the psalm instructs us in moral principles.

Matthew Henry’s Summary

“This, as the former, is a psalm for families. In that we were taught that the prosperity of our families depends upon the blessing of God; in this we are taught that the only way to obtain that blessing which will make our families comfortable is to live in the fear of God and in obedience to him. Those that do so, in general, shall be blessed (ver. 1, 2, 4), In particular, I. They shall be prosperous and successful in their employments, ver. 2. II. Their relations shall be agreeable, ver. 3. III. They shall live to see their families brought up, ver. 6. IV. They shall have the satisfaction of seeing the church of God in a flourishing condition, ver. 5, 6. We must sing this psalm in the firm belief of this truth, That religion and piety are the best friends to outward prosperity, giving God the praise that it is so and that we have found it so, and encouraging ourselves and others with it.”

• Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Psalm 128 “There is a general assumption prevalent in the world that 1t 1s extremely difficult to be a Christian. While it  is  true that many don’t completely disqualify themselves as ‘Christians,’ they do modify their claims: ordinary Christians they call themselves. They respect the church, worship fairly regularly, try to live decently. But they also give themselves somewhat generous margins to allow for the temptations and pressures put upon them by the world. To really be on the way of faith, take with absolute seriousness all that the Bible says-well, that requires a predisposition to saintliness, extraordinary willpower and an unspecified number of nameless austerities that they are quite sure they can-not manage.
“But this is as far from the truth as the east is from the west. The easiest thing in the world is to be a Christian. What is hard is to be a sinner. Being a Christian is what we were created for. The life of faith has the support of an entire creation and the resources of a magnificent redemption. The structure of this world was created by God so we can live in it easily and happily as his children. The history we walk in has been repeatedly entered by God, most notably in Jesus Christ, first to show us and then to help us live full of faith and exuberant with purpose. In the course of Christian discipleship we discover that without Christ we were doing it the hard way and that with Christ we are doing it the easy way. It is not Christians who have it hard, but non-Christians.”

• Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

My Thoughts

This psalm is not attributed to any author.

This continues the songs of ascent, where the people make their pilgrimage up the mountain to Jerusalem.

Proverbs speaks of the fear of the Lord being the foundation of wisdom.  The fear of the Lord is mentioned 86 times in the NIV, seven times in the New Testament.

It is important to know that God is God, we are not, and God is an awesome God.  Part of that awe is that we must be obedient.  With our sin nature, we will still make mistakes, but we hate our sin and what that sin does to our relationship with God.  Sinning versus living in sin is a fine distinction at times, but it speaks of what is in our hearts.  We must never live in sin.

Children are again mentioned as a blessing, as in Psalm 127.

And the psalmist mentions that it is a great blessing to live long enough to see one’s grandchildren.  With longer life expectancies, that might be considered a blessing to see the great-grandchildren.  We saw five grandchildren.  My wife saw no great-grandchildren.  I may not either.

Psalm 129

“They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,”
    let Israel say;
“they have greatly oppressed me from my youth,
    but they have not gained the victory over me.
Plowmen have plowed my back
    and made their furrows long.
But the Lord is righteous;
    he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.”
May all who hate Zion
    be turned back in shame.
May they be like grass on the roof,
    which withers before it can grow;
a reaper cannot fill his hands with it,
    nor one who gathers fill his arms.
May those who pass by not say to them,
    “The blessing of the Lord be on you;
    we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

• Psalm 129:1-8

Type of Psalm

Psalms of Affliction: Psalms where the psalmist is crying out in pain or distress, asking God where He is in the psalmist’s time of need.  But no matter how dire the circumstances or how long the lament, there seems to always be a word of praise.  Otherwise, why do we go to God in such times, other than to recognize Him as the only one who can help us?

Imprecatory psalms: Asking for vengeance against enemies.  From the two examples above, these requests for vengeance are usually not specific in how God does it.  I have written about this type of psalm or prayer in that they are legitimate requests to God.  We know that God will eventually stamp out all evil in the world.  Praying that God would do as He promises that He will eventually do is legitimate, but when a face is applied to that evil, our first reaction should be one of forgiveness and mercy.

Intercessional psalms:  These are psalms where the psalmist intercedes with God for others.

Matthew Henry’s Summary

“This psalm relates to the public concerns of God’s Israel. It is not certain when it was penned, probably when they were in captivity in Babylon, or about the time of their return. I. They look back with thankfulness for the former deliverances God had wrought for them and their fathers out of the many distresses they had been in from time to time, ver. 1-4. II. They look forward with a believing prayer for and a prospect of the destruction of all the enemies of Zion, ver. 5-8. In singing this psalm we may apply it both ways to the Gospel-Israel, which, like the Old-Testament Israel, has weathered many a storm and is still threatened by many enemies.”

• Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary

Noted Biblical Scholars, Teachers, and Preachers Comments

Psalm 129 “Stick-to-itiveness is one of the more inelegant words in the English language, but I have a special fondness for it. I heard the word a great deal when I was young, mostly, as I recall, from my mother. I was a creature of sudden but short-lived enthusiasms. I had a passion for building model airplanes, and then one day, mysteriously, all desire left and the basement was left littered with half-finished models. Then stamp collecting became an all-consuming hobby. I received an immense stamp album for Christmas, joined a philatelic club, acquired piles and piles of stamps, and then one day, unaccountably, the interest left me. The album gathered dust and the mounds of stamps were left unmounted. Next it was horses. Each Saturday morning my best friend and I would ride our bikes to a dude ranch two miles from town, get horses and ride up into the Montana foothills imagining we were Merriwether Lewis and William Clark or, less pretentiously, Gene Autry and the Lone Ranger. And then, overnight, that entire world vanished and in its place was-girls.
“It was during these rather frequent transitions from one enthusiasm to another that I was slapped with the reprimand ‘Eugene, you have no stick-to-itiveness. You never finish anything.’ Years later I learned that the church had a fancier word for the same thing: perseverance. I have also found that it is one of the marks of Christian discipleship and have learned to admire those who exemplify it. Along the way Psalm 129 has gotten included in my admiration.”

• Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

My Thoughts

This psalm is not attributed to any author.

This continues the songs of ascent, where the people make their pilgrimage up the mountain to Jerusalem.

This psalm of affliction first speaks of Israel’s enemies have oppressed them, but the enemies have not won.  Then the metaphor is of a farmer plowing their back.  This must mean flogging or some kind of scourge.

Then verse 5 is imprecatory.  It seems like many in other psalms, mentioning shame upon the enemies, but with a twist.  It is speaking of shame as the enemy retreats.  This assumes that God has already won the battle due to the faith of the faithful.  I can remember the story of the army of Sennacherib that besieged Jerusalem, during the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah.  The army was wiped out overnight by the angel of death and Sennacherib, probably with his personal guard, retreated to Ninevah.  Later, Sennacherib was killed by his own family.  As such, this psalm could have been a prophecy of that event.

This is the kind of shame, maybe in the extreme, that this psalm may have been speaking of.

Really, the rest of the psalm is imprecatory, spreading to their enemies being unable to harvest a crop – and there are instances of famines, usually caused by droughts.  But in some of those occasions, the droughts and famines affected Israel and Judah resulting from their disobedience.

Some Serendipitous Reflections

Psalm 127

“1. ls God building your business? Family? Support systems? Or are you?
“2. Jewish law promoted big families. Are they obsolete today? Does society help or hurt family unity?”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

Psalm 128

“1. Do you believe that God rewards good in this life? Why or why not? How or how not?
“2. Will happy, godly families lead to a prosperous, peaceful nation? Why or why not? How or how not?”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

Psalm 129

“1. What is freedom? Does it lie in political sovereignty? What internal menace always plagued Israel?
“2. Have you ever suffered harsh treatment? Are you emotionally tied up? How? Has God cut ‘the cords’ for you before? Can the group become ‘freedom fighters’ for you?”

• Lyman Coleman, et al, The NIV Serendipity Bible for Study Groups

There is one set of questions for each of these psalms.

Substitute whatever group for any reference to a small group or ask who could come to your aid.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.