Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 5 · Psalm 129
The Hundred Twenty Ninth Psalm.
A Song of Degrees. The hundred twenty ninth is the recounting of the many dangers of Gods people, and the many wonderfull deliverances which God hath afforded them, and foretelleth the utter destruction of all the enemies thereof. It seemeth to have been composed by Ezra, or some of that time, at the returne from the captivity.
1. ‖They have very much or sorely— foreign see Ps. 123.3.MAny a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say:
2. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth; yet they have not prevailed against me.
Paraphrase. 'Tis now a most proper vacant season to recount the very many invasions and distresses which the people of Israel have met with, from the beginning of their being a nation, from all which God hath wonderfully assisted and defended them.
3. Thea. plowers plowed upon my back, they made long their furrows.
4. The Lord is righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.
We have now for some length of years been severely chastised by oppressing tyrants: but God hath at last in his great mercy delivered us out of their hands.
5. ‖they shall foreignLet them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.
6. Let them be as the grass upon the house tops, which withereth aforeb. it†be plucked up. groweth up.
7. Wherewith the*meter mower filleth not his hand, nor he that‖gathers the handfulls bindeth sheaves his†or arme. bosome.
8. Neither doe they which goe by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we bless you in the name of the Lord.
And now their turns shall come of affliction and discomfiture. All our enemies, oppressors of the Church of God, shall be disappointed of their prey, and pursued with the curse of God, a blasting from heaven; their pride and flourishing condition shall without any armes of ours be speedily brought to nought. In stead of a prosperous harvest of all their oppressions and injustices, they shall reap nothing but emptiness and beggery. And all that see them shall discern Gods curse upon them, and think that they have but their deserts, and abstein from paying them those civilities which are afforded to other men, Ruth ii. 4. 2 Io. 10. not wish them any better success than what they have. Thus hath God at length magnified his deliverances to us, and his judgments on our enemies.
Annotations on Psalm CXXIX.
V. 3. Plowers plowed] The meaning of the phrase foreign foreignwill be discerned by two circumstances in the context, foreign the back, and foreign cords, in the next verse. For as foreign signifies to digge or cut the ground, and so to plough; so 'tis simply to cut, or carve, or grave. So Jer. xvii. 1. foreign it is graven in the table of the heart. So Exod. xxxv. 33. 'tis cutting of stones. And being here applied to the back of captives, and cords being the instruments of it, in all reason it is to be understood of scourging, which cuts, and as it were diggs, and ploughs, and makes furrows in the flesh, and the longer the cords of the scourges are, the longer are the wounds and furrows. As for the doubling of the word, that signifies the great sharpness and severity, they scourging scourged on my back, i. e. scourged me most cruelly; in proportion to foreign v. 1. which belongs to the sharpness of the affliction, the soreness of the stripes, and not to the frequency of them, which is otherwise sufficiently exprest by from my youth. Thus certainly the Chaldee understood it, who express it by foreign (not as their Latine interpreter renders it, araverunt, ploughed, but as foreign in Chaldee and Syriack signifies) they laid on scourging or chastisement on my body. So when 1 King. xii. 14. the Hebrew reads, my father foreign chastised you with whips, as after with scorpions, the Chaldee reads in both places as here foreign scourged. The Syriack also accord, reading foreign they smote with rods, or inflicted stripes on my back, from the Syriack usage of foreign to scourge; and proportionably for foreign cords v. 4. they have foreign the twigs, (from foreign a twig or bough) which is another notion of foreign for boughs as well as cords, and the twigs or boughs the instruments of scourging, as well as cords. The Lxxii. for ploughing they ploughed, or scourging they scourged, read foreign, the wicked framed or wrought; and for lengthening their furrows, foreign, they lengthened their iniquity; and for cords, foreign necks; partly by way of paraphrase, and partly with reference to the Hebrew words: by foreign to foreign, which signifies also to frame, as an artificer doth, and so to work or machinate; and by foreign to foreign, the Hebrew foreign from foreign signifying a surrow, and foreign from the same root signifying affliction, or oppression also, which is oft the importance of foreign iniquity (see Matth. xxiv. 12.) As for foreign they are thought by some to have read foreign necks or backs, from foreign back in the former verse. But 'tis more probable that having taken liberty to paraphrase in the former part, they should continue to doe so here also.
V. 6. Groweth up] The Hebrew foreign foreignsignifies not to grow up, but to pull up, or take out of the place. The Lxxii. rightly render it foreign, the Latine evellatur, plucked up. It is used of drawing a sword, Jud. viii. 20. and xx. 15. of pulling off the shooe, Ruth. iv. 7. and here of pulling up the grass, which was the fashion before sickles and sithes were used: and to that referres foreign the meter or gatherer, but especially foreign foreignv. 7. not he that bindeth the sheaves, but he that gathers the handfulls (so as the leasers did after the reapers, Ruth. ii. 3.) from foreign a handfull of grass or corne, which he that gathers puts into his armes, and carries in his bosome, as here foreign signifies, and Isa. xLix. 22. they shall bring thy sons in their armes. The meaning of the phrase then is, that the enemies of Zion shall wither and fade away of their own accord, not need the sword of enemies to destroy them, but perish without any forreign violence, as grass on the top of an house, where it hath no mould to take good root in, it withers before it be plucked up; whereas other grass is first mowed or plucked up, and then is laid a withering. Again, the grass on the house top grows very thin, he that plucks it up will not have an armefull a great while, which in the field is soon had, and accordingly is not thought capable of those foreign, acclamations or salutations particularly accustomed to be given to reapers, The Lord be with you, Ruth. ii. 4. The Jewish Arab renders foreign by foreign summer, by the East wind of, or in, the summer, is withered. Abu Walid also makes mention of some who render it before the heat, from an use of the word in the Rabbins; and he likes the sense, but saith the Vowels of the word here admit it not to be taken otherwise then for a verb of the preterperfect tense, and himself interprets it, before it perfectly appear, or be come sorth.