Bible Commentaries

The Harvest of Joy after the Sowing of Tears

It is with this Psalm, which the favourite word Zion connects with thepreceding Psalm, exactly as with Psalm 85:1-13, which also gives thanks for therestoration of the captive ones of Israel on the one hand, and on the otherhand has to complain of the wrath that is still not entirely removed, andprays for a national restoration. There are expositors indeed who alsotransfer the grateful retrospect with which this Song of degrees (Psalm 126:1-3),like that Korahitic Psalm (Psalm 126:2-4), begins, into the future (among thetranslators Luther is at least more consistent than the earlier ones); butthey do this for reasons which are refuted by Psalm 85:1-13, and which are at once silenced when brought face to face with the requirements of the syntax.

When passages like Isaiah 1:9; Genesis 47:25, or others whereוהיינו is perf. consec., are appealed to in order to prove thatהיינוּ כּחלמים may signify erimus quasi somniantesthey are instances that are different in point of syntax. Anyother rendering than that of the lxx is here impossible, viz.: ÅôùåêõôçáéÓéùåùðáñáêåêëçìå(כּנחמים? - Jerome correctly, quasi somniantes). Itis, however, just as erroneous when Jerome goes on to render: tunc implebitur risu os nostrumfor it is true the future after אז has afuture signification in passages where the context relates to matters offuture history, as in Psalm 96:12; Zephaniah 3:9, but it always has the significationof the imperfect after the key-note of the historical past has once beenstruck, Exodus 15:1; Joshua 8:30; Joshua 10:12; 1 Kings 11:7; 1 Kings 16:21; 2 Kings 15:16; Job 38:21; it is therefore, tunc implebaturIt is the exiles at home again uponthe soil of their fatherland who here cast back a glance into the happy timewhen their destiny suddenly took another turn, by the God of Israeldisposing the heart of the conqueror of Babylon to set them at liberty, andto send them to their native land in an honourable manner. שׁיבת is not equivalent to שׁבית, nor is there any necessity to read itthus (Olshausen, Böttcher, and Hupfeld). שׁיבה (from שׁוּב, like בּיאה, קימה) signifies the return, and thenthose returning; it is, certainly, an innovation of this very late poet. When Jahve brought home the homeward-bound ones of Zion - the poetmeans to say - we were as dreamers. Does he mean by this that the longseventy years' term of affliction lay behind us like a vanished dream(Joseph Kimchi), or that the redemption that broke upon us so suddenlyseemed to us at first not to be a reality but a beautiful dream? The tenor ofthe language favours the latter: as those not really passing through suchcircumstances, but only dreaming. Then - the poet goes on to say - ourmouth was filled with laughter (Job 8:21) and our tongue with a shout of joy, inasmuch, namely, as the impression of the good fortune which contrasted so strongly with our trouble hitherto, compelled us to open our mouth wide in order that our joy might break forth in a full stream, and our jubilant mood impelled our tongue to utter shouts of joy, which knew no limit because of the inexhaustible matter of our rejoicing. And how awe-inspiring was Israel's position at that time among the peoples! and what astonishment the marvellous change of Israel's lot produced upon them! Even the heathen confessed that it was Jahve's work, and that He had done great things for them (Joel 2:20., 1 Samuel 12:24) - the glorious predictions of Isaiah, as in Psalm 45:14; 52:10, and elsewhere, were being fulfilled. The church on its part seals that confession coming from the mouth of the heathen. This it is that made them so joyful, that God had acknowledged them by such a mighty deed.

But still the work so mightily and graciously begun is not completed. Those who up to the present time have returned, out of whose heart thisPsalm is, as it were, composed, are only like a small vanguard in relation tothe whole nation. Instead of שׁבותנו the Kerîhere reads שׁביתנוּ, from שׁבית, Numbers 21:29, after the form בכית inGenesis 50:4. As we read elsewhere that Jerusalem yearns after her children,and Jahve solemnly assures her, “thou shalt put them all on as jewels andgird thyself like a bride” (Isaiah 49:18), so here the poet proceeds from theidea that the holy land yearns after an abundant, reanimating influx ofpopulation, as the Negeb (i.e., the Judaean south country, Genesis 20:1, and ingeneral the south country lying towards the desert of Sinai) thirsts for therain-water streams, which disappear in the summer season and regularlyreturn in the winter season. Concerning אפיק, “a water-holding channel,” vid., on Psalm 18:16. Ifwe translate converte captivitatem nostram(as Jerome does, following thelxx), we shall not know what to do with the figure, whereas inconnection with the rendering reduc captivos nostrosit is just asbeautifully adapted to the object as to the governing verb. If we haverightly referred negeb not to the land of the Exile but to the Land of Promise, whose appearance at this time is still so unlike the promise, we shall now also understand by those who sow in tears not the exiles, but those who have already returned home, who are again sowing the old soil of their native land, and that with tears, because the ground is so parched that there is little hope of the seed springing up. But this tearful sowing will be followed by a joyful harvest. One is reminded here of the drought and failure of the crops with which the new colony was visited in the time of Haggai, and of the coming blessing promised by the prophet with a view to the work of the building of the Temple being vigorously carried forward. Here, however, the tearful sowing is only an emblem of the new foundation-laying, which really took place not without many tears (Ezra 3:12), amidst sorrowful and depressed circumstances; but in its general sense the language of the Psalm coincides with the language of the Preacher on the Mount, Matthew 5:4: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The subject to Psalm 126:6 is the husbandman, and without a figure, every member of the ecclesia pressa. The gerundial construction in Psalm 126:6 (as in 2 Samuel 3:16; Jeremiah 50:4, cf. the more Indo-Germanic style of expression in 2 Samuel 15:30) depicts the continual passing along, here the going to and fro of the sorrowfully pensive man; and Psalm 126:6 the undoubted coming and sure appearing of him who is highly blessed beyond expectation. The former bears משׁך הזּרע, the seed-draught, i.e., the handful of seed taken from the rest for casting out (for משׁך הזּרע in Amos 9:13 signifies to cast forth the seed along the furrows); the latter his sheaves, the produce (תּבוּאה), such as puts him to the blush, of his, as it appeared to him, forlorn sowing. As by the sowing we are to understand everything that each individual contributes towards the building up of the kingdom of God, so by the sheaves, the wholesome fruit which, by God bestowing His blessing upon it beyond our prayer and comprehension, springs up from it.