The Lord’s servant reviews past sufferings in assured hope 

Sometimes Israel denotes the nation, sometimes the church, and on rare occasions the Lord Jesus, e.g. “Out of Egypt have I called my Son.” The psalm obviously depicts the sufferings of God’s people at the hands of their enemies. Right from their birth as a nation, they had known the deep furrows of enmity laid upon them.

Yet it is also true of our Lord, that from His childhood He experienced the same. Recollect how, as a child He was hunted by Herod, and eventually despised by His own, and ultimately gave His back to the smiters (Isa.50:6). The smiters and ploughers upon Christ and His church shall not prosper, and contrary to Ps.126:6, the mower will not have sufficient in the wicked to bind into sheaves. Indeed, the angel reapers in the last day shall gather the chaff and cast into everlasting fire.

-Pastor Jeff O’ Neil

Recommended Tune: St Anne

Psalm 129

¹Oft did they vex me from my youth,
May Isr’el now declare;
²Oft did they vex me from my youth,
Yet not victorious were.

³The plowers plow’d upon my back;
They long their furrows drew.
⁴The righteous LORD did cut the cords
Of the ungodly crew.

⁵Let Zion’s haters all be turn’d
Back with confusion.
⁶As grass on houses’ tops be they,
Which fades ere it be grown:

⁷Whereof enough to fill his hand
The mower cannot find;
Nor can the man his bosom fill,
Whose work is sheaves to bind.

⁸Neither say they who do go by,
GOD’s blessing on you rest:
We in the name of God the LORD
Do wish you to be blest.