Psalms 129:1-8 - Homilies By S. Conway

The Divine life.

This psalm is capable of a threefold application. It tells of the Divine life—

I. IN ISRAEL .

1. The existence of the chosen people was a lifelong struggle . The sounds of battle and war are never, save but for short intervals, absent from their history. From the oppression they had to endure in Egypt right down to the time when this psalm was composed, they never lacked enemies who "fought against" them, and did them all the harm they could.

2. But their enemies never altogether prevailed . ( Psalms 129:2 .) Sooner or later deliverance came. Such a deliverance had just now come, and hence this psalm. And the complete deliverance which is still needed for Israel we may well believe, from the records of the past, will, in God's good time, be forthcoming.

3. The sufferings which they caused them were very great . ( Psalms 129:3 .) As the ploughshare tears up the soil, so the lacerating scourge tore their flesh. In these psalms we yet hear the wail of their lamentations and their exceeding bitter cry (see Psalms 124:1-8 ; Psalms 137:1-9 ; and many more; comp. Isaiah 1:6 ; Isaiah 51:23 ).

4. The Lord , true to his covenant , put an end to their sufferings . As when the cords, the traces that fasten the oxen to the plough, are cut, the plough comes to a standstill, so the dread plough of suffering, which ploughed such agonizing furrows in their souls, was brought to a standstill; for the Lord cut asunder the cords.

5. But the bitter memory begot bitter prayers . ( Psalms 129:6-8 .) That those who so dealt with them may be ashamed, defeated, despised as worthless, like the grass that springs up and at once withers, because on the house-top there can be no depth of earth, and hence such grass is of no value at all (cf. Isaiah 37:27 ), and that they may be such as no blessing of the Lord can rest upon ( Psalms 129:8 ). Before we condemn such prayers, we should put ourselves in the place of those who offered them. They may not be Christian any more than war is always Christian, but they are very natural. They are not the utterances of personal revenge, but prayers for the overthrow of those who hated Zion, and who were the enemies of God as well as of Zion. Nevertheless, in spite of all, Israel was preserved of God.

II. IN THE CHURCH . Verse by verse the words of the psalm tell of her experience. Cradled in conflict, oppressed with suffering, "fought against" by enemies one after another, varied in kind, but all terrible, yet never really defeated—"they have not prevailed against me;" so may the Church say. And long ago the Lord has cut asunder, for the most part, the cords whereby the cruel ploughshare of persecution was dragged over the bleeding flesh of the people of God. Our freedom should kindle and keep glowing our sympathy with those Christians who, in the dominions of the "unspeakable Turk," are yet subjected to horrible atrocities. Oh that the Lord may soon cut asunder those cords, and set his people free! Nor are the prayers against the perpetrators of such atrocities with which this psalm closes improper for us, and still less for those who endure such wrongs. But God's Church ever lives.

III. IN THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL . Again is this psalm the transcript of the history of the life of God, but now as existing in the soul of the individual Christian. The enemies now are not of flesh and blood, but spiritual, and, therefore, yet more terrible. For they who hurt the body soon have no more that they can do; but these can eternally torment us—they can destroy both soul and body in hell. Therefore we may well, as Christ bids us, fear them. Nor are the most terrible of the prayers in these imprecatory psalms out of place when we think of these foes. We are bound to hate them and pray against them, and by God's help we will.—S.C.