Psalms 129 WBT
Summary: A Song of Ascents reflecting on Israel's long history of suffering, opening with a repeated refrain: "Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say" (v. 1-2), yet affirming that oppressors "have not prevailed against me." It uses the image of plowmen cutting furrows on the psalmist's back — "the plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows" (v. 3) — before God is credited with cutting the wicked free of their bonds. It closes wishing haters of Zion to be "as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up" (v. 6), unable to yield any harvest.
1A Song of degrees. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say:
2Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me.
3The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows.
4The LORD [is] righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.
5Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.
6Let them be as the grass [upon] the house-tops, which withereth before it groweth up:
7With which the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves, his bosom.
8Neither do they who go by, say, The blessing of the LORD [be] upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD.
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