Psalms 128:1-6

Psalm 128 ¹ 

A song of ascents. ² 

128:1 How blessed is every one of the Lord’s loyal followers, ³ 

each one who keeps his commands! ⁴ 

128:2 You ⁵  will eat what you worked so hard to grow. ⁶ 

You will be blessed and secure. ⁷ 

128:3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine ⁸ 

in the inner rooms of your house;

your children ⁹  will be like olive branches,

as they sit all around your table.

128:4 Yes indeed, the man who fears the Lord

will be blessed in this way. ¹⁰ 

128:5 May the Lord bless you ¹¹  from Zion,

that you might see ¹²  Jerusalem ¹³  prosper

all the days of your life,

128:6 and that you might see ¹⁴  your grandchildren. ¹⁵ 

May Israel experience peace! ¹⁶ 

Genesis 1:28

1:28 God blessed ¹⁷  them and said ¹⁸  to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! ¹⁹  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.” ²⁰ 

Genesis 9:1

God’s Covenant with Humankind through Noah

9:1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Genesis 12:2

12:2 Then I will make you ²¹  into a great nation, and I will bless you, ²² 

and I will make your name great, ²³ 

so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ²⁴ 

Genesis 17:16

17:16 I will bless her and will give you a son through her. I will bless her and she will become a mother of nations. ²⁵  Kings of countries ²⁶  will come from her!”

Genesis 17:20

17:20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you. ²⁷  I will indeed bless him, make him fruitful, and give him a multitude of descendants. ²⁸  He will become the father of twelve princes; ²⁹  I will make him into a great nation.

Exodus 1:7

1:7 The Israelites, ³⁰  however, ³¹  were fruitful, increased greatly, multiplied, and became extremely strong, ³²  so that the land was filled with them.

Deuteronomy 28:4

28:4 Your children ³³  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks.

Deuteronomy 28:11

28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ³⁴  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ³⁵  promised your ancestors ³⁶  he would give you.

Deuteronomy 30:9

30:9 The Lord your God will make the labor of your hands ³⁷  abundantly successful and multiply your children, ³⁸  the offspring of your cattle, and the produce of your soil. For the Lord your God will once more ³⁹  rejoice over you to make you prosperous ⁴⁰  just as he rejoiced over your ancestors,

Jeremiah 30:19

30:19 Out of those places you will hear songs of thanksgiving ⁴¹ 

and the sounds of laughter and merriment.

I will increase their number and they will not dwindle away. ⁴² 

I will bring them honor and they will no longer be despised.

Ezekiel 37:26

37:26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be a perpetual covenant with them. ⁴³  I will establish them, ⁴⁴  increase their numbers, and place my sanctuary among them forever.

[128:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 128. The psalmist observes that the godly individual has genuine happiness because the Lord rewards such a person with prosperity and numerous children.

[128:1]  ² sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[128:1]  ³ tn Heb “every fearer of the Lord.”

[128:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “the one who walks in his ways.”

[128:2]  ⁵ tn The psalmist addresses the representative God-fearing man, as indicated by the references to “your wife” (v. 3) and “the man” (v. 4), as well as the second masculine singular pronominal and verbal forms in vv. 2-6.

[128:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “the work of your hands, indeed you will eat.”

[128:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “how blessed you [will be] and it will be good for you.”

[128:3]  ⁸ sn The metaphor of the fruitful vine pictures the wife as fertile; she will give her husband numerous children (see the next line).

[128:3]  ⁹ tn One could translate “sons” (see Ps 127:3 and the note on the word “sons” there), but here the term seems to refer more generally to children of both genders.

[128:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “look, indeed thus will the man, the fearer of the Lord, be blessed.”

[128:5]  ¹¹ tn The prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive of prayer (note the imperatives that are subordinated to this clause in vv. 5b-6a). Having described the blessings that typically come to the godly, the psalmist concludes by praying that this ideal may become reality for the representative godly man being addressed.

[128:5]  ¹² tn The imperative with prefixed vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose/result after the preceding jussive.

[128:5]  ¹³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[128:6]  ¹⁴ tn The imperative with prefixed vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose/result after the jussive in v. 5a.

[128:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “sons to your sons.”

[128:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “peace [be] upon Israel.” The statement is understood as a prayer (see Ps 125:5).

[1:28]  ¹⁷ tn As in v. 22 the verb “bless” here means “to endow with the capacity to reproduce and be fruitful,” as the following context indicates. As in v. 22, the statement directly precedes the command “be fruitful and multiply.” The verb carries this same nuance in Gen 17:16 (where God’s blessing of Sarai imparts to her the capacity to bear a child); Gen 48:16 (where God’s blessing of Joseph’s sons is closely associated with their having numerous descendants); and Deut 7:13 (where God’s blessing is associated with fertility in general, including numerous descendants). See also Gen 49:25 (where Jacob uses the noun derivative in referring to “blessings of the breast and womb,” an obvious reference to fertility) and Gen 27:27 (where the verb is used of a field to which God has given the capacity to produce vegetation).

[1:28]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and God said.” For stylistic reasons “God” has not been repeated here in the translation.

[1:28]  ¹⁹ tn Elsewhere the Hebrew verb translated “subdue” means “to enslave” (2 Chr 28:10; Neh 5:5; Jer 34:11, 16), “to conquer,” (Num 32:22, 29; Josh 18:1; 2 Sam 8:11; 1 Chr 22:18; Zech 9:13; and probably Mic 7:19), and “to assault sexually” (Esth 7:8). None of these nuances adequately meets the demands of this context, for humankind is not viewed as having an adversarial relationship with the world. The general meaning of the verb appears to be “to bring under one’s control for one’s advantage.” In Gen 1:28 one might paraphrase it as follows: “harness its potential and use its resources for your benefit.” In an ancient Israelite context this would suggest cultivating its fields, mining its mineral riches, using its trees for construction, and domesticating its animals.

[1:28]  ²⁰ sn The several imperatives addressed to both males and females together (plural imperative forms) actually form two commands: reproduce and rule. God’s word is not merely a form of blessing, but is now addressed to them personally; this is a distinct emphasis with the creation of human beings. But with the blessing comes the ability to be fruitful and to rule. In procreation they will share in the divine work of creating human life and passing on the divine image (see 5:1-3); in ruling they will serve as God’s vice-regents on earth. They together, the human race collectively, have the responsibility of seeing to the welfare of that which is put under them and the privilege of using it for their benefit.

[12:2]  ²¹ tn The three first person verbs in v. 2a should be classified as cohortatives. The first two have pronominal suffixes, so the form itself does not indicate a cohortative. The third verb form is clearly cohortative.

[12:2]  ²² sn I will bless you. The blessing of creation is now carried forward to the patriarch. In the garden God blessed Adam and Eve; in that blessing he gave them (1) a fruitful place, (2) endowed them with fertility to multiply, and (3) made them rulers over creation. That was all ruined at the fall. Now God begins to build his covenant people; in Gen 12-22 he promises to give Abram (1) a land flowing with milk and honey, (2) a great nation without number, and (3) kingship.

[12:2]  ²³ tn Or “I will make you famous.”

[12:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and be a blessing.” The verb form הְיֵה (hÿyeh) is the Qal imperative of the verb הָיָה (hayah). The vav (ו) with the imperative after the cohortatives indicates purpose or consequence. What does it mean for Abram to “be a blessing”? Will he be a channel or source of blessing for others, or a prime example of divine blessing? A similar statement occurs in Zech 8:13, where God assures his people, “You will be a blessing,” in contrast to the past when they “were a curse.” Certainly “curse” here does not refer to Israel being a source of a curse, but rather to the fact that they became a curse-word or byword among the nations, who regarded them as the epitome of an accursed people (see 2 Kgs 22:19; Jer 42:18; 44:8, 12, 22). Therefore the statement “be a blessing” seems to refer to Israel being transformed into a prime example of a blessed people, whose name will be used in blessing formulae, rather than in curses. If the statement “be a blessing” is understood in the same way in Gen 12:2, then it means that God would so bless Abram that other nations would hear of his fame and hold him up as a paradigm of divine blessing in their blessing formulae.

[17:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “she will become nations.”

[17:16]  ²⁶ tn Heb “peoples.”

[17:20]  ²⁷ sn The Hebrew verb translated “I have heard you” forms a wordplay with the name Ishmael, which means “God hears.” See the note on the name “Ishmael” in 16:11.

[17:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “And I will multiply him exceedingly, exceedingly.” The repetition is emphatic.

[17:20]  ²⁹ tn For a discussion of the Hebrew word translated “princes,” see E. A. Speiser, “Background and Function of the Biblical Nasi’,” CBQ 25 (1963): 111-17.

[1:7]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the sons of Israel.”

[1:7]  ³¹ tn The disjunctive vav marks a contrast with the note about the deaths of the first generation.

[1:7]  ³² tn Using מְאֹד (mÿ’od) twice intensifies the idea of their becoming strong (see GKC 431-32 §133.k).

[28:4]  ³³ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[28:11]  ³⁴ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

[28:11]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:11]  ³⁶ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).

[30:9]  ³⁷ tc The MT reads “hand” (singular). Most versions read the plural.

[30:9]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV); NRSV “of your body.”

[30:9]  ³⁹ tn Heb “return and.” The Hebrew verb is used idiomatically here to indicate the repetition of the following action.

[30:9]  ⁴⁰ tn The Hebrew text includes “for good.”

[30:19]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “Out of them will come thanksgiving and a sound of those who are playful.”

[30:19]  ⁴² sn Compare Jer 29:6.

[37:26]  ⁴³ sn See Isa 24:5; 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; 50:5; Ezek 16:60, for other references to perpetual covenants.

[37:26]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “give them.”