Psalm 128

What is done

Psalm 128 is the ninth of the fifteen Songs of Ascents, sung within the collection whose setting this site records at /featured/psalms-of-ascent from Mishnah Middot 2:5 and Mishnah Sukkah 5:4. The psalm blesses the household of the man who fears the LORD, and the classical commentary on it is domestic throughout, on work, on marriage, on children and on grandchildren.

How it is read

Rashi reads the whole psalm as admonition and discipline rather than description. He notes that the opening says every man who fears the LORD, where other psalms say the man, and takes the word as widening the blessing to include a woman. On the fruitful vine he says that a woman whose blood is abundant will have many children, and on the innermost parts of the house he gives two readings, the custom of marital relations in private, and the separation kept while a wife is menstruating. On the olive shoots he reads a promise about the sons: "Just as olive trees cannot be grafted, so will your sons not have any disqualification" (Rashi on Psalms 128:3:3, the Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY). Malbim reads the blessing from Zion as a blessing on the whole people that reaches the individual through the whole, so that a man's days are spent seeking "the good of Jerusalem and the success of the whole" (Malbim on Psalms 128:5:1, translated by Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology, CC-BY). Metzudat David reads Zion in the same verse as the source of all blessing (Metzudat David on Psalms 128:5:1, Feuer translation, CC-BY). Ibn Ezra and Radak stand as citations here, at Ibn Ezra on Psalms 128:1:1 and Radak on Psalms 128:1:1.

What the rabbis say

Rashi hands on one saying with its locator, on the man who eats from the labour of his own hands: "He who benefits from the toil of his hands inherits two worlds", which he takes from Berakhot 8a (Rashi on Psalms 128:2:1). He also reads the closing line about seeing children born to one's children as a blessing that no woman of the household will come to the rite of halitzah, and that peace will rest on Israel because of it. The corpus records forty locators on this chapter, thirty Midrash and ten Talmud, among them Midrash Tehillim 128:1 on the opening blessing, Berakhot 8a:21 and Chullin 44b:11 on the labour of the hands, Berakhot 57a:6 and 57a:8 on the fruitful vine, and Ketubot 50a:14 on the children of one's children.

Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Psalms 128:1:1, 128:2:1, 128:3:1, 128:3:2, 128:3:3 and 128:6:1, the Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, CC-BY; Malbim, Malbim on Psalms 128:5:1, translated by Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology, CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Psalms 128:5:1, Feuer translation, Jerusalem Anthology, CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Psalms 128:1:1, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Radak, Radak on Psalms 128:1:1, cited only; Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 8a, as Rashi cites it; Berakhot 8a:21, Berakhot 57a:6 and 57a:8, Chullin 44b:11, Ketubot 50a:14, Sotah 40a:1; Midrash, Midrash Tehillim 128:1 and 119:4, Bamidbar Rabbah 15:12 and 8:9, Bereshit Rabbah 53:3, Eikhah Rabbah 1:2; Mishnah, Middot 2:5 and Sukkah 5:4, as /featured/psalms-of-ascent records them; MannaFest, the Songs of Ascents, at /featured/psalms-of-ascent, 2026.