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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 127:1 - 127:1
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The poet proves that everything depends upon the blessing of God from examples taken from the God-ordained life of the family and of the state. The rearing of the house which affords us protection, and the stability of the city in which we securely and peaceably dwell, the acquisition of possessions that maintain and adorn life, the begetting and rearing of sons that may contribute substantial support to the father as he grows old - all these are things which depend upon the blessing of God without natural preliminary conditions being able to guarantee them, well-devised arrangements to ensure them, unwearied labours to obtain them by force, or impatient care and murmuring to get them by defiance. Many a man builds himself a house, but he is not able to carry out the building of it, or he dies before he is able to take possession of it, or the building fails through unforeseen misfortunes, or, if it succeeds, becomes a prey to violent destruction: if God Himself do not build it, they labour thereon (עָמֵל בְּ, Jon 4:10; Ecc 2:21) in vain who build it. Many a city is well-ordered, and seems to be secured by wise precautions against every misfortune, against fire and sudden attack; but if God Himself do not guard it, it is in vain that those to whom its protection is entrusted give themselves no sleep and perform (שָׁקַד, a word that has only come into frequent use since the literature of the Salomonic age) the duties of their office with the utmost devotion. The perfect in the apodosis affirms what has been done on the part of man to be ineffectual if the former is not done on God's part; cf. Num 32:23. Many rise up early in order to get to their work, and delay the sitting down as along as possible; i.e., not: the lying down (Hupfeld), for that is שָׁכַב, not יָשַׁב; but to take a seat in order to rest a little, and, as what follows shows, to eat (Hitzig). קוּם and שֶׁבֶת stand opposed to one another: the latter cannot therefore mean to remain sitting at one's work, in favour of which Isa 5:11 (where בַּבֹּקֶר and בַּנֶּשֶׁף form an antithesis) cannot be properly compared. 1Sa 20:24 shows that prior to the incursion of the Grecian custom they did not take their meals lying or reclining (ἀνα- or κατακείμενος), but sitting. It is vain for you - the poet exclaims to them - it will not after all bring hat you think to be able to acquire; in so doing you eat only the bread of sorrow, i.e., bread that is procured with toil and trouble (cf. Gen 3:17, בְּעִצָּבוֹן): כֵּן, in like manner, i.e., the same as you are able to procure only by toilsome and anxious efforts, God gives to His beloved (Psa 60:7; Deu 33:12) שֵׁנָא (= שֵׁנָה), in sleep (an adverbial accusative like לַיְלָה בֹּּקֶר, עֶרֶב), i.e., without restless self-activity, in a state of self-forgetful renunciation, and modest, calm surrender to Him: “God bestows His gifts during the night,” says a German proverb, and a Greek proverb even says: εὕδοντι κύρτος αἱρεῖ. Böttcher takes כֵּן in the sense of “so = without anything further;” and כן certainly has this meaning sometimes (vid., introduction to Psa 110:1-7), but not in this passage, where, as referring back, it stands at the head of the clause, and where what this mimic כן would import lies in the word שׁנא.