Psalms 129:3
in Psalms 129The plowmen plowed over my back; they made their furrows long.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
The plowers plowed upon my back; They made long their furrows.
KJV
The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows.
⋯
This verse in Psalms 129
Commentary
9 notes on this verseThe plowers plowed up on my back. The scourgers tore the flesh as ploughmen furrow a field. The people were maltreated like a criminal given over to the lictors with their cruel whips; the back of the nation was scored and furrowed by oppression. It is a grand piece of imagery condensed into few words. A writer says the metaphor is muddled, but he is mistaken: there are several figures, like wheel within wheel, but there is no confusion.
This site's exposition
The plowmen plowed over my back
on Psalms 129:3-4
The back is treated as a field. One Hebrew root gives both the plowmen and their plowing, and the word for a furrow stands only twice in the Hebrew Bible. Verse 4 answers the long furrows with a righteous LORD who chopped off the cords of the wicked.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers3 voices
"Upon my back have sinners built; they have done their iniquity afar off" [Psalm 129:3]. Why have they fought against me? Because "they could not prevail upon me." What is this? They could not build upon me. I consented not with them unto sin. For every wicked man persecutes the good on this account, because the good man consents not with him to evil. Suppose he do some evil, and the Bishop censure him not, the Bishop is a good man: suppose the Bishop censure him, the Bishop is a bad man. Suppose he carry off anything, let the man robbed be silent, he is a good man: let him only speak and rebuke, even though he does not reclaim his goods, he is everything bad. He is bad then who blames the robber, and he is good who robs!...Heed not that such an one speaks to you: it is a wicked man through whom It speaks to you; but the word of God, that speaks to you, is not wicked. Accuse God: accuse Him, if you can.
They prolonged their iniquity. What did he mean by "They prolonged their iniquity"? If I sin, and after my sin I do penance, my iniquity is short, not long. But if I sin, as often as I sin, so often does the cord of my sins grow longer. Whence it is also said in another place: "The cords of sinners have surrounded me." See what he says: The cords of sinners have surrounded me. And in another place it is written: "Each one is bound fast by the cords of his own sins." See what he says: Each one is bound fast by the cords of his own sins. These cords of sins cannot be woven unless I have had many sins. If I commit one sin, it is not so much a cord as it is, so to speak, a single thread. But if it is a single thread, it is quickly broken, and cannot hold and bind. But if there are many sins, and they have prolonged their iniquities, out of many sins, as out of many threads, a cord is made, and it binds, and is not quickly broken. Why have I said all this? Because we read in this little verse, They prolonged their iniquity.
Upon my back the sinners built. Carefully observe what the Scripture says. The holy man is an athlete, and "he is not crowned unless he has competed lawfully." For you know that there are many kinds of athletes: for there are some athletes, but others are like all-in wrestlers (pammacharii), some contend at the discus, and others are runners, that is, those who run in the stadium. Indeed, the Apostle too says that he runs, so that he may reach the crown. And what does he say in another place?
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
The ploughers ploughed upon my back,....
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
The plowers plowed up on my back. The scourgers tore the flesh as ploughmen furrow a field. The people were maltreated like a criminal given over to the lictors with their cruel whips; the back of the nation was scored and furrowed by oppression. It is a grand piece of imagery condensed into few words. A writer says the metaphor is muddled, but he is mistaken: there are several figures, like wheel within wheel, but there is no confusion. The afflicted nation was, as it were, lashed by her adversaries so cruelly that each blow left a long red mark, or perhaps a bleeding wound, upon her back and shoulders, comparable to a furrow which tears up the ground from one end of the field to the other. Many a heart has been in like case; smitten and sore wounded by them that use the scourge of the tongue; so smitten that their whole character has been cut up and scored by calumny. The true church has in every age had fellowship with her Lord under his cruel flagellations: his sufferings were s prophecy of what she would be called hereafter to endure, and the foreshadowing has been fulfilled. Zion has in this sense been ploughed as a field. They made long their furrows:—as if delighting in their cruel labour. They missed not an inch, but went from end to end of the field, meaning to make thorough work of their congenial engagement. Those who laid on the scourge did it with a thoroughness which showed how hearty was their hate. Assuredly the enemies of Christ's church never spare pains to inflict the utmost injury: they never do the work of the devil deceitfully, or hold back their hand from blood. They smite so as to plough into the man; they plough the quivering flesh as if it were clods of clay; they plough deep and long with countless furrows; until they leave no portion of the church unfurrowed or unassailed. Ah me!
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
The plowers plowed upon my back - It is possible that this mode of expression may signify that the people, during their captivity, were cruelly used by scourging, etc.; or it may be a sort of proverbial mode of expression for the most cruel usage. There really appears here to be a reference to a yoke, as if they had actually been yoked to the plouph, or to some kind of carriages, and been obliged to draw like beasts of burden. In this way St. Jerome understood the passage; and this has the more likelihood, as in the next verse God is represented as cutting them off from these draughts.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
The plowers plowed upon my back - The comparison here is undoubtedly taken from the “plowing” of land, and the idea is that the sufferings which they had endured were such as would be well represented by a plow passing over a field, tearing up the sod; piercing deep; and producing long rows or furrows. The direct allusion would seem to be to stripes inflicted on the back, as if a plow had been made to pass over it; and the meaning is, that they had been subjected to sufferings as slaves or criminals were when the lash cut deep into the flesh. Probably the immediate thing in the mind of the psalmist was the hard bondage of the children of Israel in Egypt, when they were subjected to all the evils of servitude. They made long their furrows - On my back. The word used here, and rendered “made long” - ארך 'ârak, means to make long, to prolong, to extend in a right line, and it may be used either in the sense of making long as to extent or space, or making long in regard to time, prolonging. The latter would seem to be the meaning here, as it is difficult to see in what sense it could be said that stripes inflicted on the back could be made long. They might, however, be continued and repeated; the sufferings might be prolonged sufferings as well as deep. It was a work of long-continued oppression and wrong.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| עַל־ | ʾal- | on | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| גַּ֭בִּי | gabi | back my | H1354 → | |
| חָרְשׁ֣וּ | chareshu | they have plowed | H2790 → | 74 times |
| חֹרְשִׁ֑ים | choreshim | plowmen | H2790 → | 74 times |
| הֶ֝אֱרִ֗יכוּ | heerikhu | they have made long | H748 → | |
| לְמַעֲנִיתָֽם׃ | lemaanotam | <to> furrows their | H4618 → |
עַל־on
ʾal-H5921 →5755 times
גַּ֭בִּיback my
gabiH1354 →
חָרְשׁ֣וּthey have plowed
chareshuH2790 →74 times
חֹרְשִׁ֑יםplowmen
choreshimH2790 →74 times
הֶ֝אֱרִ֗יכוּthey have made long
heerikhuH748 →
לְמַעֲנִיתָֽם׃<to> furrows their
lemaanotamH4618 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Isaiah 51:23I will place it in the hands of your tormentors, who told you: ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you,’ so that you made your back like the ground, like a street to…
it leads to
- Joshua 10:24
When they had brought the kings to Joshua, he summoned all the men of Israel and said to the army commanders who had accompanied him, “Come here and put your feet on the necks…
- Zechariah 12:2
“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples. Judah will be besieged, as well as Jerusalem.
- Revelation 11:2
But exclude the courtyard outside the temple. Do not measure it, because it has been given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for 42 months.
- Isaiah 49:25–26
Indeed, this is what the LORD says: “Even the captives of the mighty will be taken away, and the plunder of the tyrant will be retrieved; I will contend with those who contend with…
- Joshua 10:24
Through
Psalms 141:7As when one plows and breaks up the soil, so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
it leads to
- Psalms 53:5
There they are, overwhelmed with dread, where there was nothing to fear. For God has scattered the bones of those who besieged you. You put them to shame, for God has despised them.
- Romans 8:36
As it is written: “For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
- Psalms 44:22
Yet for Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
- Revelation 11:8–9
Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city—figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where their Lord was also crucified.
- Psalms 53:5
About Psalms
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 129; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 7; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; Jerome, Homily 43, on Psalm 128; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763).