Psalm 127
Psalm 127 • 1 min. read • grade level: 9
This Psalm is also suited to the returning captives, who must on their journey have had the house and the city in their prospect, and the joys of homes and households again before them, when their fruitfulness and prosperity in their own land would give a triumphant answer to many a scornful word of their haughty adversaries. And so it will be with the Remnant in the coming days when, though in trials, they will have expectations given them from the God of hope. And this Psalm is a devout confession that these expected blessings, yea, that all strength and blessing come from God alone, and that without Him human toil is vanity. (See Zech. 4:66Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. (Zechariah 4:6).)
But often (how often!) is there exercise of spirit where all should be stillness (Psa. 127:22It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. (Psalm 127:2)). “Stand still and see the salvation of God.” It is unbelief which raises all this. As with Jacob: he was praying when he should have been sleeping in the promise (Gen. 22). He fears and calculates and settles all according to man’s best advice, when as the heir of the blessing and the possessor of the birthright, he should have trusted and rested. So was it not, however, with Peter. In the very prison, between two soldiers, and bound with two chains, he sleeps, and sleeps so soundly in the promise and sufficiency of God, that his deliverer has to smite him on the side to raise him up (Acts 12). And how did the true “beloved blessed one” sleep, when winds and waves were around Him (Mark 4).