Psalms 128:2-4

128:2 You will eat what you worked so hard to grow.

You will be blessed and secure.

128:3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine

in the inner rooms of your house;

your children will be like olive branches,

as they sit all around your table.

128:4 Yes indeed, the man who fears the Lord

will be blessed in this way.


tn The psalmist addresses the representative God-fearing man, as indicated by the references to “your wife” (v. 3) and “the man” (v. 4), as well as the second masculine singular pronominal and verbal forms in vv. 2-6.

tn Heb “the work of your hands, indeed you will eat.”

tn Heb “how blessed you [will be] and it will be good for you.”

sn The metaphor of the fruitful vine pictures the wife as fertile; she will give her husband numerous children (see the next line).

tn One could translate “sons” (see Ps 127:3 and the note on the word “sons” there), but here the term seems to refer more generally to children of both genders.

tn Heb “look, indeed thus will the man, the fearer of the Lord, be blessed.”