Psalm 128 - Home, Sweet Home

Psalm 128 is the ninth of the “Ascent Songs” or “Pilgrim Psalms” and is a companion to Psalm 127. Because families traveled together to the annual feasts in Jerusalem, it is only right that another psalm be devoted to parents and their offspring. The previous psalm pictured children as a rich heritage and as arrows for defeating the enemy (127:3-5). This psalm uses agricultural images for both the wife and the children. In one form or another, the word "bless" is used four times. Like 127 and Jeremiah 29:4-7, this psalm deals with protection (v. 1), working (v. 2), the family (vv. 3-4, 6), and God's blessing on Jerusalem (v. 5). While the writer includes all who fear the Lord (v. 1), the psalm is addressed especially to the man of the house (v. 3). Our homes are either a place where we enjoy heaven on earth or where we experience hell on earth. In our homes with our families, we can enjoy the greatest pleasures and blessings of life, or we might experience the worst emotional, mental, and physical abuse, hurt, pain, offenses, and tragedies in life. In this psalm we also see that the welfare of the state depends on the welfare of the home, and the welfare of the home depends on the spiritual condition of the head of that home. An unspiritual father will often produce unsaved children and unsaved children will build an unstable state. That is the general principle underlying this psalm. The safety of the state depends on the sanctity of the home, and the sanctity of the home depends on the spirituality of the parents. No psalm in the Hebrew hymnbook needs to be preached in America where our homes are literally falling apart more insistently than this one. In verse 1, we have a Jewish couple who truly feared the Lord and wanted to establish a home that Jehovah could bless. To fear the Lord means to reverence Him and seek to please Him by obeying His Word. This is the Old Testament version of Matthew 6:33. It takes three to form a happy marriage: a man and woman who love the Lord and each other, and the Lord who performed the first wedding back in the Garden of Eden. In verse 2, we see where the “blessed home” is one where the family enjoys the fruit of hard-working parents. But who recognize that it is the Lord who gives His people "power to get wealth" (Deut. 8:18). How easy it is for us to think that our planning, skill, and hard work accomplished it all, but such is not the case. As we saw in the previous psalm, without the blessing of the Lord, all our labor is in vain. Each Jew was required to give tithes to the Lord, but the Lord wanted the workers to share the fruit of their labor. In verses 3-4, the family enjoys eating meals together. Both the vine and the olive tree were important to the economy of Israel, the vine providing wine and the olive tree supplying fruit and oil (104:14-15). A husband's love for his wife is illustrated by the vine and the olive tree (Song. 7:6-9). The olive shoots around the base of the parent tree, fresh and vigorous, picture the children around the family table. It takes patience to care for them as they grow, but the efforts are rewarding. In verses 5-6, we go from bride and groom to grandparents in just six verses! How time flies! Three generations are represented in the psalm, and all of them walking with the Lord. We are so prone to remember that God judges the succeeding generations if they imitate the sins of their ancestors, but we must remember that He also passes along the blessings when the ancestors have been godly. The Jewish people are proud of their heritage and want to see God's very best blessings come to Jerusalem. They realize how enriched they are from Zion. They long for each of their children to bring honor to Israel, and they pray for the peace and prosperity of Israel and Jerusalem True patriotism begins in the home, where love of God, family, and country are bound together. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord" (Psalm 33:12). God bless!