Psalms 127: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This short psalm says that human effort comes to nothing unless the LORD is behind it: building a house, guarding a city, working from before dawn until after dark. It then names children as a gift the LORD gives, and compares them to arrows in a warrior's hand. The man with many of them will not be put to shame when he faces his opponents at the city gate.

Claim by Claim

1. 127:1
   • This is a song of ascents.
   • The psalm is ascribed to Solomon.
   • Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor for nothing.
   • Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman keeps watch for nothing.
2. 127:2
   • It is futile for you to get up early.
   • It is futile for you to stay up late.
   • It is futile for you to eat bread earned by painful toil.
   • God gives sleep to the one he loves.
3. 127:3
   • Sons are an inheritance given by the LORD.
   • The fruit of the womb is a reward.
4. 127:4
   • Sons born in one's youth are like arrows in the hand of a warrior.
5. 127:5
   • The man who fills his quiver with such sons is happy.
   • They will not be put to shame.
   • They will speak with enemies in the gate.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

127:1

The Hebrew word for "house" means both a building and a household or family line, the descendants a man builds up. Both senses are in play here, and the psalm moves in the second half of the poem to children.

127:2

"The bread of sorrows" is bread got by painful toil, food earned the hard way. The last line is ambiguous in Hebrew and translators split over it: it can mean "he gives sleep to the one he loves" (rest instead of anxious overwork) or "he gives to the one he loves while that person sleeps" (provision without the striving).

127:3

A "heritage" is an inheritance, property handed down within a family, not earned or bought. In Israel that meant chiefly land, which stayed in the family across generations. Calling children a heritage puts them in that category: something received from the LORD rather than achieved.

127:4

"Children of the youth" means children born to a man while he is still young, so that by the time he is aging, they are grown and able to stand up for him. Arrows were a soldier's reach: they let him act at a distance and in numbers.

127:5

A quiver is the case a soldier carried his arrows in, holding a dozen or so. The city gate was not just an entrance but the town's public square and courtroom: the elders sat there and legal disputes and property claims were argued in the open. A man with grown sons standing beside him at the gate had backing in a lawsuit and could not be pushed around.