Psalms 129: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Israel is told to speak up about a long history of attacks that began when the nation was young, and to say that the attackers never won. The psalm pictures that suffering as plowing across the speaker's back, and credits the LORD, who is righteous, with cutting the ropes of the wicked. The rest of the psalm asks that everyone who hates Zion be turned back in shame, like rooftop grass that dries up before it can grow, so that no harvester gathers it and no passerby greets it with a blessing.

Claim by Claim

1. 129:1
   • This is a song of ascents.
   • The speaker says they have afflicted him many times from his youth.
   • The speaker calls on Israel to say this now.
2. 129:2
   • The speaker repeats that they have afflicted him many times from his youth.
   • The speaker says they have not prevailed against him.
3. 129:3
   • Plowers plowed upon the speaker's back.
   • They made their furrows long.
4. 129:4
   • The LORD is righteous.
   • The LORD has cut the cords of the wicked.
5. 129:5
   • The speaker asks that all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned back.
6. 129:6
   • The speaker asks that they be like grass on the housetops.
   • That grass dries up before it is pulled up, or before it grows; the wording leaves which unclear.
7. 129:7
   • The reaper does not fill his hand with that grass.
   • The binder of sheaves does not fill his bosom with it.
8. 129:8
   • Those who pass by do not say to them, 'The blessing of the LORD be upon you.'
   • Those who pass by do not say, 'We bless you in the name of the LORD.'

Words Worth Explaining

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

129:1

The "me" here is Israel itself, speaking as though the nation were a single person; "from my youth" means from the nation's earliest days. The line is written as a call and response, a leader says the words, and the assembled people are invited to repeat them.

129:3

A picture of being beaten: the long, parallel welts left by a whip on a person's back are compared to the furrows a plow cuts across a field. The image also carries the sense of being worked over like ground under somebody else's tools.

129:4

"Cords" here is deliberately open. It can mean the ropes with which oppressors bound their captive, or, keeping the picture of verse 3 going, the harness straps of the plow team, cut so the plowing stops.

129:5

Zion was originally the fortified hill in Jerusalem; the name came to stand for the whole city, its temple, and the people who belonged to it. To hate Zion is to be an enemy of Israel.

129:6

Roofs in this part of the world were flat and surfaced with packed earth, used as living and working space. Windblown seed sprouted there readily, but the layer of soil was too thin to hold water, so the shoots died in the sun within days.

129:7

This describes how grain was harvested by hand: the reaper grabbed a bunch of stalks in one fist and cut them, and a second worker gathered the cut stalks against his chest in armfuls to tie into sheaves. Roof grass is too short and too sparse for either grip: there is nothing there to take hold of.

129:8

Passers-by customarily called out a blessing to people working a harvest, and the workers called one back; the same exchange appears in Ruth 2:4. Nobody offers it here because there is no harvest to bless, the greeting is missing along with the crop.