Psalms 128

Good things belong to everyone who honors the LORD with deep respect and lives the way he tells them to live.

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

Note"Fear the LORD" is a standard Hebrew phrase for loyalty to God (reverence, awe and obedience together), not being frightened of him. Where the King James prints LORD in capitals it stands for the personal name of Israel's God, which Jewish readers did not say aloud and replaced with the word "Lord" when reading. This psalm also carries the heading "A Song of Ascents," one of a group (Psalms 120–134) associated with pilgrims traveling up to Jerusalem for the festivals.

2You will eat what your own work produced. You will be happy, and life will go well for you.

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

NoteIn a farming society this was not a truism. Crops were routinely taken by invading armies, tax collectors or creditors, and the curses of the law threatened exactly that: you plant and someone else eats. To eat what your own hands produced meant safety and settled possession of your land.

3Your wife will be like a grapevine full of fruit inside your house. Your children will be like young olive trees standing all around your table.

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

Note"By the sides of thine house" points to the inner, private part of the home. The grapevine was often trained up against the walls of a courtyard, and a heavily fruiting vine was a stock image of abundance. "Olive plants" are the young shoots that sprout up from the base of an olive tree and grow in a ring around the parent trunk, the picture is of children ringed around the table. The Hebrew word here is "sons," though it can cover children generally.

4Look: this is how the person who honors the LORD will be blessed.

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

5May the LORD bless you from Zion. May you see Jerusalem doing well every day of your life,

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

NoteZion was originally the fortified hill in Jerusalem, and the name came to stand for the temple mount and for Jerusalem itself. Blessing coming "out of Zion" reflects the temple as the place where God was understood to be present among his people.

6and may you live to see your children's children. May there be peace for Israel.

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

NoteLiving to see grandchildren was the standard picture of a full, unshortened life. The word translated "peace" is Hebrew *shalom*, which covers not just the absence of war but health, safety and things being whole and as they should be.