1A song of ascents.
who walk in His ways.
2When you eat of the toil of your hands,
happy are you, and it is good for you.
3Your wife is like a fruitful vine
in the recesses of your house,
your children like young olive trees
around your table.
4Look, for it is thus
that the man is blessed who fears the LORD.
5May the LORD bless you from Zion,
and may you see Jerusalem’s good
all the days of your life.
6And may you see children of your children.
Peace upon Israel!
PSALM 128 NOTES
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1. Happy all who fear the LORD. As elsewhere, this initial formula signals the affiliation of this psalm with Wisdom literature (Psalm 1 once more is a useful point of reference). The rewards of the good life are spelled out here in an idyll of domesticity. The language is simple and direct; the only two metaphors, the vine and the young olive trees, link the family (evidently an urban family living in Jerusalem) with the world of productive horticulture. The Hebrew uses a singular subject from the beginning (“Happy everyone who fears . . .”), but the plural has been adopted in the translation for the sake of rhythm.
2. When you eat of the toil of your hands. This line stands in contrast to sundry biblical curses, such as those in Deuteronomy 28, that the people will toil and others will eat the fruit of their labor. It should be observed that the good life is not imagined in terms of wealth but of sufficiency—a man’s enjoying the fruit of his own labor.
3. Your wife is like a fruitful vine / in the recesses of your house. The vocation of the wife is to produce children, as this line and the next make clear. She is removed from the public sphere, in the “recesses” (yarketayim, a term for a secluded corner of the house not adequately represented by the conventional translation “within”).
olive trees. Like the vine, these are cultural symbols of fruitfulness, and the olive played a significant role in Israelite economy.
6. may you see children of your children. In a culture that did not envisage the persistence of a soul after death, perpetuity was imagined through offspring and was thought of as the greatest blessing. It is implied, of course, that the God-fearing man who is privileged to enjoy grandchildren as well as children will be granted the gift of longevity.