NOTES for Psa 128

¹Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways.

²For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

³Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.

⁴Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.

⁵The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.

⁶Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.

The reward promised for walking before God is an ordinary everyday life: the opportunity to eat the fruit of one’s hands and raise children. Such an offer may seem dull and tedious to some, but those who have experienced hunger, need, exile, and insecurity—the list could go on for a long time—know that the opportunity to work in peace and come home calmly in the evening is of genuine value.

How often we seek grand miracles, chase rumors of incomprehensible phenomena, and collect inexplicable facts. Meanwhile, so many everyday miracles escape our attention because they have become familiar and therefore go unnoticed.

But to those who walk righteously before God, the world reveals aspects of itself that escape the gaze of the superficial observer.

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For

¹Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways.

²For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

³Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.

⁴Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.

⁵The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.

⁶Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.

The trials that befell the people of Israel were great both in ancient times and in recent history. Yet despite everything... Read more

The trials that befell the people of Israel were great both in ancient times and in recent history. Yet despite everything, the blessing given by God to Abraham and his descendants remained alive and effective.

Can we apply the psalmist’s words only to the destiny of Israel according to the flesh? For not only Abraham’s physical descendants, but all the faithful regardless of ethnic origin, may be called his descendants. It is hard not to notice that the destinies of the faithful in Old Testament and New Testament times have much in common. Accordingly, hostility toward Old Testament Israel and toward the Church, the people of God of the New Covenant, comes from a single source.

It is true that even now many refuse to understand this. But Christians who do not want to acknowledge it undermine their own roots. Meanwhile, in our own day the boundary between anti-Christianity and antisemitism is disappearing, and hatred increasingly joins Jews and Christians into a single image of the “enslaver of the whole world.”

And therefore the words of warning to those who hate Zion sound not only formidable, but also timely.

Readings for 4 April 2023

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NOTES for Psa 128

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Readings for 4 April 2023

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