Psalms 129
What Happens in This Chapter
Israel looks back and says that enemies have hurt them since they were young. But those enemies never won, because God is fair and set Israel free. The song ends by asking that people who hate Zion, God's city, would fail like grass that dies on a roof.
Plain reading written for kids. Short sentences, everyday words, one idea at a time.
Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say:
1Let Israel say this: "People have hurt me many times since I was young."
2Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me.
2"People have hurt me many times since I was young. But they never beat me."
3The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows.
3They hurt my back the way a farmer cuts long lines in a field.
The KJV says plowers made long furrows on the writer's back. A furrow is the deep line a plow cuts in dirt. It is a word picture for deep, painful wounds.
4The LORD is righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.
4The LORD always does what is right. He cut the ropes that bad people used to tie me.
5Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.
5May everyone who hates Zion be sent away in shame. Zion is God's city.
6Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up:
6May they be like grass that grows on a flat roof. It dries up before it can get tall.
Roofs in that land were flat, and dirt blew onto them. A little grass would sprout there, but the roof had no deep soil, so the grass died fast.
7Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.
7No worker can gather enough of that grass to fill one hand. No one can carry an armload of it.
8Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the LORD be upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD.
8No one walking by says to them, "May the LORD bless you. We bless you in the LORD's name."
Walking past a field, people would call out a blessing to the workers. Here there is no harvest, so no one calls out anything.
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