Psalm 126
6 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Galatians 6×2Isaiah 35×2Hosea 6×1Joel 3×1Jeremiah 31×1Job 8×1
Summary
Chapter summary
The pilgrims remember the return from exile: 'When Jehovah brought back those that returned to Zion, we were like unto them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter', even the nations said, 'Jehovah hath done great things for them.' The prayer follows the memory: 'Turn again our captivity, O Jehovah, as the streams in the South', the sudden desert torrents of the Negev. Then the sowing law of the kingdom: 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 126The history
The psalm has two halves and a hinge. The first half remembers a homecoming so unlikely that the returnees felt like men dreaming, and neighboring nations said out loud that the LORD had done something big. The second half asks God to do it again, which means the first wave of joy has worn off.
The prayer in between asks for streams in the dry south country. The Negev is the arid region below Judah, cut by valleys that are bone dry for most of the year. After the winter rains those same channels run with water and the ground greens almost overnight. A farmer who had seen that knew exactly what he was asking for.
The sowing in tears is not a mood. In a lean year a farmer's seed grain was also his family's food, and carrying a sack of it out to scatter on the ground meant taking bread out of his children's hands on the chance of a harvest months away. People wept doing it.
The return with sheaves is the other end of the same year. Harvest was a communal celebration with shouting in the fields, and a man walking home under an armload of cut grain was walking proof that the gamble had paid.
What it meant to them
This was a song for people in the gap between a rescue that had happened and a restoration that had not finished. The walls were low, the temple was modest, and the neighbors were hostile.
It tells them the gap is a planting season. What looks like loss going into the ground is the same substance that comes back multiplied.
Sources cited
- Walton, Matthews and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David on Psalm 126
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 126. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.