Psalm 129[a]
Prayer in Time of Persecution
1 [b]A song of ascents.
They have greatly oppressed me from my youth—[c]
let Israel say—
2 they have greatly oppressed me from my youth,
but never have my enemies prevailed against me.
3 The plowers plowed upon my back,[d]
making deep furrows.
4 However, the Lord is righteous,
freeing me from the bonds of the wicked.
5 [e]May all those who hate Zion
be thrown back in shame and confusion.[f]
6 [g]May they be like grass on the rooftops
that withers before it can be plucked,
7 so that it can never fill the hands of the reapers
or the arms of the binders of sheaves.
8 May those who pass by never cry out,
“The blessing of the Lord be upon you!
We bless you in the name of the Lord.”
Footnotes
- Psalm 129:1 The present psalm repeats the theme of Ps 124, concerning the past endurance of Israel, joining to it a prayer for the prompt defeat and eviction of its enemies. Recalling past oppressions and attacked on all sides, the pilgrims besought the Lord to overthrow the post-Exilic dominations. From the time of their Egyptian bondage, the chosen people have suffered oppression (vv. 1-2), but the Lord has always delivered them from their enemies. The poet expresses his theme by utilizing rural images. He leaves us a prayer of recourse to God—not of resignation—when we are haunted by the memory of fear or too much distress.
Christians can pray this psalm while evoking the continuous assaults that the Church has suffered from her birth and the future triumph that God will assure her over her enemies. The entire Book of Revelation illustrates this theme. - Psalm 129:1 The enemies of Israel, who are at the same time enemies of the Lord, have much stomped on, oppressed, and tried to snuff out the chosen people from their youth in Egypt and during the Exodus. But they have been unable to do so because the Lord has broken their yoke in time. The psalmist may be thinking of the nomads making incursions at the time of the Judges; the Philistines dangerously invading at the time of Saul and David; the Assyrians conquering and destroying Samaria; and the Babylonians conquering and destroying Jerusalem.
- Psalm 129:1 From my youth: from the sojourn in Egypt and the entrance into the Promised Land (see Ps 89:46; Ezek 23:3; Hos 2:15).
- Psalm 129:3 The plowers plowed upon my back: in Ps 124, the enemies are likened to destructive floods and to a hunter; here, they are likened to a farmer who plows the field with long furrows. The plowers are the warriors, the long furrows are the wounds and adversities, and the field is the back of Israel—a metaphor of Israel’s history of suffering (see Isa 21:10; 41:15; Jer 51:33; Am 1:3; Mic 4:13; Hab 3:12).
- Psalm 129:5 The psalmist prays that God may humiliate pagan powers to whom Israel remains subject after the Exile (see notes on Pss 5:11; 35).
- Psalm 129:5 Those who hate Zion disregard God and include not only the wicked of the world but also the Israelites, who do not fear the Lord (see Ps 125:5).
- Psalm 129:6 May God make the wicked suffer the same fate as the grass that sprouts in the protective coating of clay covering roofs (see 2 Ki 19:26; Isa 37:27), which the dry and burning desert wind brutally withers up or men hastily root out. Just as this grass is taken up neither by the reaper nor by the sower, so may God cause the enemies of Israel, once beaten, to find no one to gather them or lift them up, no ally or reaper to whom others would wish success in his task with the cry, “The Lord be with you,” traditionally addressed by passersby to the harvesters who in turn would respond in kind: “The Lord bless you” (see Ru 2:4). May they thus be a wasted growth.