Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 5 · Psalm 126
The Hundred Twenty Sixth Psalm.
A Song of ‖ascents.Degrees. The hundred twenty sixth celebrates the returne from captivity, and the great joyfulness thereof, after their former sorrow, and seems to have been first compiled by Esdras, or some of that Age.
1. WHen the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them thata. †are recovered to health.dream.
2. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them.
Paraphrase. After a long and a miserable captive state, it hath at length pleased God to bring us back again to the injoyments of his publick service in his holy place. This is a most joyfull blessing to us, to be celebrated with mirth, and festivals, and singing of Psalms, being as it were the restoring of a joyfull comfortable state of health to a numerous people that were long under a dolorous epidemical disease. The mercy so great and unexpected, and wrought so wonderfully for us, that the very heathens themselves could not but acknowledge it a work of Gods great power, and special favour to us.
3. The Lord hath done great things for us,*we have been made glad foreign whereof we are glad.
And so indeed 'tis true. The Lord hath magnified his mercy toward us, restored to us health and joy.
4. Turne again our captivity, O Lord, as the streamsb. in the‖dry land south.
As for those that are yet behind, unreduced (for so 'tis certain some came back before others, some with Esdras, others after, with Nehemiah) Lord, be thou pleased to hasten their delivery. That mercy will come as seasonable to them, as water to the most parched dry soile.
5. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
And this wilt thou doe in thy good time, give them (as us) a joyfull returne, after so sad a time of captivity.
6. He that goeth forth, and weepeth, bearingc. †little.pretious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoycing, bringing his sheaves with him.
And the poor man that carries out his handfull or small proportion of seed, (and looks upon it with some sadness, as a melancholly thing, to cast that away to rot in the earth, which cost him much labour to get into his granary, to bury that in the clods which was prepared for his sustenance, and so takes his leave of it with wet eyes, sends his tears and prayers after it) cannot be more joy'd to bring home in time of harvest full loads of sheaves into his barne, as the reward from heaven of his faith and patience, than we have all reason to be at this time, having so unexpected a returne frrm God to all the prayers and tears which we have long poured out to him.
Annotations on Psalm CXXVI.
V. 1. Dream] The Hebrew foreign foreignseems to be best rendred by the Chaldee foreign as those that are recovered from sickness, for 'tis but a figurative signification of foreign, wherein 'tis used for dreaming, Jer. xxiii. 25. and elsewhere. The word signifies originally fat or gross, and thence healthy and strong, and recovered to a firme Athletick habit of body. So Isa. xxxviii. 16. foreign thou wilt recover me, as appears by what follows, and make me to live. To this sense, and not to that of dreaming, all the antient interpreters seem to have understood it: the Lxxii. read foreign, the Latine consolati, and so the Arabick and Aethiopick, as men comforted, i. e. restored to strength again (as in the place of Isaiah foreign, having recovered made to live;) not misreading it foreign from foreign to spare (as some fansy) but by this of comfort, expressing health of mind, which is opposite to sorrow, and exprest by laughter and singing v. 2. In this sense the Syriack also read foreign as they that rejoyce. And this is most probably the meaning of it.
V. 4. South] The Hebrew foreign signifies, a dry and desert place, Jud. i. 15. Thou hast given me the land foreign of driness, a dry and a barren land, give me springs of waters. So Isa. xxi. 1. As whirlewinds in the dry ground. The Lxxii. both there and here render it foreign the sauth: and so by a metonymie the word signifies, because the southern parts, by reason of the heat of the sun, are dry. But in this place the adjunct rivers doth sufficiently evidence how 'tis to be understood questionless for a dry ground, which wants foreign torrents, floods to inrich it: for to those floods on a dry ground is this returne to captives fitly compared. And thus the Chaldee at large paraphrases it, Lord, returne our captivity as the earth is turned foreign when the springs or goings out of water break out in time of driness. Yet if by the south we understand a southern countrey, as Aegypt and the like, which being very dry, makes use of overflowings to inrich the grounds, and in its greatest exigence, in the heat of summer, when parcht and dried up, to all humane expectation utterly hopeless, the melted snow of Aethiopia sends down plenty of water to it, and thence the whole countrey is fully irrigated, the sense will be still the same; for then the south, and dry ground, will be the same thing. To which purpose 'tis observable that Aethiopia in Scripture is called the south, foreign Matth. xii. 42. the Queen of the South, i. e. of Sheba, or Meroe. And therefore Abu Walid rendring it the South, gives the reason of mentioning that especially, because, saith he, of the driness of the region, and probability of dearth therein, did not God, when they even despair, cause waters to flow on their ground. So R. Tanchum makes either meaning to be indifferent. The Jewish Arab renders the place, Lord, turne our captivity, as pools which return to the desert.
V. 6. Pretious] The Hebrew here reads foreign. Now foreign foreignfrom foreign to draw, signifies a small measure, such as may readily be drawn without any assistance of wheels, &c. So the Chaldee render it, foreign ‖—plaustra, Tribulaque, Traheaeque, & iniquo pondere rastri. Virg. Georg. 1.traham, a sledge, or a dray used for slighter purposes, and so a cart to carry seed to the fields. This is of a small sise, containing little; and accordingly Job xxxviii. 18. foreign most probably signifies a little of wisdome. The copies of the Lxxii. there read foreign; it should be sure foreign, a small carriage of wisdome, which is there preferred before the richest jewels. In like manner the foreign or small carriage of seed is opposed to the sheaves in the plural, the (perhaps) many wagon-loads of those which are brought home in the harvest. And thus no question it is to be understood, not of pretious seed, which is not so fitly opposed to the sheaves, but of the small contemptible quantity of seed that is sown, and comes back multiplied in the harvest. The Lxxii. and the Syriack and Arabick and Latine and Aethiopick do not at all interpret the word, but only read foreign casting or carrying out their seed; and the rest to the same sense. But the Jewish Arab reads expresly, foreign &c. and carrieth a basket of seed, or seed-lip: and so Abu Walid interprets foreign for such a vessel in which the sower carrieth his seed.