Today’s Passage: Psalm 129
This is a song for the road, one of the psalms Israel sang as they climbed up to Jerusalem. It looks back over a long history of trouble and says the same thing twice, that they have hounded God’s people since the earliest days, from the time the nation was young. But it does not end in despair. However hard the enemy pressed, and the psalm pictures it as plowmen driving their furrows across a bare back, they never won. The LORD Himself cut the ropes and set His people free.
As you read, hold this: They have not prevailed against me.
Psalm 129:1-3 (BSB)
A song of ascents. ¹ Many a time they have persecuted me from my youth—let Israel now declare— ² many a time they have persecuted me from my youth, but they have not prevailed against me. ³ The plowmen plowed over my back; they made their furrows long.
Notice how the psalm says it twice over, that they have hounded God’s people again and again, from the days when the nation was still young. Israel is called to say it aloud together, and then comes the claim the whole song rests on: they have not prevailed. The third verse does not soften what those years were like. It pictures a back treated like a plowed field, the furrows cut long and deep. This is what the persecution felt like, and the psalm does not pretend otherwise.
Psalm 129:4 (BSB)
⁴ The LORD is righteous; He has cut me from the cords of the wicked.
The LORD is righteous, and that is why the avot, pronounced ah-VOTE. Strong's H5688, cords, ropes, thick bands. These are the kind of ropes used to yoke an animal or to hold a prisoner fast. The psalm does not say the LORD loosened them or worked them a little looser. He cut them clean through, and whatever once held His people is simply gone. did not hold. It was not the strength of His people that broke them, but the goodness of their God.
Study notes Hard pressed, not crushed
Paul names the same pattern.
"We are hard pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed." 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (BSB)
Hard pressed, but not crushed. Persecuted, but not forsaken. It is the very same note this psalm strikes: they have not prevailed against me.
Psalm 129:5-8 (BSB)
⁵ May all who hate Zion be turned back in shame. ⁶ May they be like grass on the rooftops, which withers before it can grow, ⁷ unable to fill the hands of the reaper, or the arms of the binder of sheaves. ⁸ May none who pass by say to them, “The blessing of the LORD be on you; we bless you in the name of the LORD.”
Context Grass on the rooftops
The flat roofs of those houses gathered only a thin layer of dust, and when a seed sprouted there it had nothing to sink into. The sun finished it off in a matter of days, and no reaper ever came to gather a harvest from a rooftop. The psalm asks God to make those who hate Zion like that grass. We should not soften the line or sand it down into a gentle mood. The prayer is honest, and it is handed to God: it asks that the enemy’s work against His people come to nothing, that there be no sheaves to carry home, and no neighbor pausing to speak a blessing over them as they pass by.
Turned back in shame, like grass that withers before it can grow, their hands left empty, and no one pausing to say, The blessing of the LORD be on you. Against all of it, the song holds its ground: they have not prevailed against me.
They have not prevailed against me.