The
Third Sunday of Epiphany (Year B)
(Online
service of Morning Prayer Only)
Psalm
128
John
2:1-11
SERMON NOTES:
So,
as I say, you might like to have Psalm 128 open before you.
It’s
a beautiful and brief poem.
It
might be sung at a wedding or used to celebrate the birth of a child.
You
could call it a family hymn.
As
I’ve lived with this Psalm this week, I’ve been very conscious of some possible
misunderstandings of it and objections to it, and perhaps we’ll address some of
those a bit as we go.
I’m
happy to talk to you about any of this further.
But
first, I want to invite you to enjoy and appreciate this little poem on its own
terms.
I
don’t know if you’re a great reader of poetry.
I
confess I’m not.
But
I suspect we need to read this a bit differently from a novel or a newspaper - even
a narrative in the Bible.
It’s
not like picking through the logic of Paul’s letter to the Romans and carefully
following the argument to understand the doctrine.
We would do well to
read the Psalm slowly and to ponder it.
Perhaps to read it
out load.
Maybe in different
translations which you can find easily on Bible Gateway or Bible Hub
online.
Perhaps we should
pray or sing it.
Or listen to some
different recordings of it being read or sung.
Again, I recommend
Google or your search engine of choice.
It might be worth
reading this Psalm alongside the surrounding Psalms too.
Presumably their
arrangement is more than random.
The Psalm is one of
the Psalms of Ascents (that’s Psalms 120-134) which were possibly sung by the
people as they went up to Jerusalem for the pilgrim festivals.
Psalm 128 shares a
number of themes with the previous psalm with which we started the service
(households, work, food, sons, the blessing of God).
One writer suggests
that we can see an ascent, a development and heightening in our Psalm from the
one before:
Here we see the
house already built and adorned.
The children are
not just arrows, full of potential, but already established olive plants.
In our Psalm there
are no enemies in the gate explicitly mentioned but a prayer or a confidence
for peace for Israel.
The surrounding
Psalms, especially those that follow, might complement our psalm by reminding
us that sin, suffering and strife are an ordinary part of a faithful and
authentic Christian life, but they’re not the focus in our psalm.
Anyway, enough introduction.
Let’s come to what
our Psalm actually says!
I imagine we could
all think of many things which might contribute to a happy life.
We could make a
wish list.
You may have one on
Amazon or in your head.
But look at v1:
“Happy or Blessed
are all those who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways.”
Here’s a universal
principle which applies to everyone.
The one really essential
thing for a happy, blessed fulfilled life is the blessing of God.
Many other things
might be real blessings to be enjoyed with thankfulness, but here is the one
thing needful:
What could be more important
than the smile and protection of Almighty God?
What a blessing to
know the true and living God of the Bible as our Loving Heavenly Father!
Give me that or
give me death, we might say!
Better the blessing
of God with little than lots of stuff with the frown of God.
And the way to this
blessing is to fear God.
That might seem a
very odd thing to say:
Happy are those who
fear!
We would normally
think terrified are those who fear.
But our Psalm is saying,
“if you want to be happy, you gotta be afraid!”
We imagine people
crippled by fear.
But our Psalm says
no:
A right kind of
fear is the pathway to true blessing.
The fear of God isn’t
a cringing terror or an anxiety of judgement.
No, rather to fear
God is to stand in awe of him.
To respect him.
To humbly tremble
at his Word and to obey it.
The one great thing
to fear is offending and displeasing God.
Fear God and fear
no one and nothing.
It is foolish to try
to please all the people all of the time.
You could get into
a terrible mess if you try to live as people-pleaser.
But aim for the “well
done my good and faithful servant” of your loving heavenly Father.
And such awe is appropriate
because our God, the LORD, Yahweh, the great I AM WHO I AM and I WILL BE WHO I
WILL BE is an awesome God.
If you wouldn’t say
you’re gripped by true fear of him, take some time to reflect today on his nature
and character.
When we think about
it, it’s not hard to revere this great God.
And that fear of
the Lord must also result in walking in his ways, in obedience to his Word –
with the Bible as the light to our path.
Go the next step
with God by your side!
The inner attitude
of fear leads to the outward action of walking.
The Lord will be
your shepherd and he will lead and guide and comfort you and bring you safely
at last to your journey’s end.
Our religion is not
a matter of sentiments or aspirations or songs and prayers on a Sunday alone
but of walking with God today and tomorrow and the next day on that long road
of faithfulness.
As we’ll begin to see
in our Psalm, it applies to everyday ordinary life, at home and at work, in the
city and church and nation.
That’s the general
universal picture:
V1: Blessed are
those who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways.
Now the Psalm
begins to paint a more particular picture.
It’s not the only
picture in the Bible.
And no doubt it
belongs to some extent to a bygone age and culture.
One of the
challenges of reading the Bible is to work out how this applies to us in 21st
Century Britain rather than Ancient Israel.
And certainly, our
Psalm is somewhat idealised.
We might call it a
wisdom psalm.
In a way it’s a bit
like proverbs.
It gives us one generalised
picture: other things being equal.
If you look at v3,
it’s clear that the person addressed in this Psalm is a male head of a
household.
It was the men who
had a special duty to go up to Jerusalem for the festivals so maybe that’s had
an influence.
This godly person
is a husband and a father.
Of course we’re not
all men or husbands or fathers!
The Bible has
plenty of other things to say to us.
And of course this
Psalm addresses us too because we all had fathers and grandfathers (even if we
didn’t know them).
Some of us have
husbands or children or grandchildren.
And we all interact
with families.
We could reflect on
our Psalm to see how we might help and pray for families.
I realise this might
be a painful Psalm for some single people who aren’t married and would like to
be.
Or for some couples
who are childless.
So we do need to
say this is only one picture.
It’s not an absolute
promise of prosperity and fertility.
Some godly
Christians starve and some godly Christians can’t have biological children.
But food and
children are important blessings which we need to consider.
For the single and
the childless and for all of us, it is worth remembering that the Lord Jesus
Christ himself wasn’t married and had no biological children.
God places us all
in the family of the church, which in some ways he says is even more important than
our biological family.
And Jesus and the
Apostle Paul both speak of many brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers in
the church.
We may have
spiritual children or grandchildren, even if we never had kids of our own.
Whether married or
single, we all look forward to the wedding supper of the Lamb when the fruitful
church will run into the arms of the bridegroom.
But back to our
Psalm in v2:
“You will eat the
fruit of your labour”
You don’t have to
be a dangerous Marxist to realise that that’s not always the case.
Often there is injustice
and exploitation and the worker is alienated from the profit from his work.
So honest labour
and the enjoyment of its fruits are blessings to take seriously.
The Bible has a
very high view of work as good and worthwhile.
It’s good to aspire
to work quietly with our hands to provide for ourselves and our families and to
have something to give away.
This side of Eden
work is under the curse of God.
Man eats the fruit of
the ground by the sweat of his brow.
There’s always an
element of toil in the 9 to 5.
Thorns and thistles
grow up amongst the emails and in meetings as much as in the fields.
But the Christian
is not meant to be like the vain and anxious toiler of Psalm 127.
With the blessing
of God – and only really with the blessing of God - it is possible to profit
from your work.
The blessings of
this Psalm are pretty basic and simple ones.
The picture is of domestic
happiness.
Okay, this family
prospers, but they haven’t necessarily made their millions.
They have food and shelter
and fellowship and they are content.
Contentment and
gratitude are wonderful virtues to learn.
It’s almost impossible
to enjoy the blessing of God without them.
V3 could be
entitled Home, Sweet Home.
And whilst it might
seem a little bit twee, it might usefully remind us of the importance of your
spouse (if you have one), and your children and your home.
It is proverbial that
very few people say on their death bed, “Oh, I wish I’d spent a few more hours
at the office!”
Of course you have
to work, but don’t neglect your family, your home and your children.
Fathers, be
involved with the kids!
Don’t leave it all
to the women-folk!
There’s so much in
this world that we can’t control, but we can try to do what we can to get our
own house in order.
God has given us
our home and household.
What could we do to
make it more blessed?
World peace is
beyond me, but I could help tidy up the sitting room.
Someone said to me
the other day, by the way, “the most romantic thing you could do is clean the
bathroom without being asked.”
Baby steps, but
let’s pray, “Lord, your will be done in my house as it is in heaven!”
Children in this
Psalm are seen neither as a life-style accessory nor as nuisance.
They are a blessing
not a burden.
Certainly kids are
expensive and they limit your freedom.
I’ve been known to
grumble about never seeing the inside of a pub or a cinema or reading a book
now that we have kids.
But let’s remember
the great blessing of children.
Let’s be thankful
for them and pray for them.
And, indeed, let’s
celebrate big families too.
The ancient
Israelite was blessed if he had a quiver full of sons (Psalm 127v5).
I don’t know how
many arrows you can get in a quiver, but we need to think of the family with
five kids as very blessed rather than very freaky!
It’s a lovely picture
here, isn’t it, of the wife as a fruitful vine.
The Father perhaps
as a gnarled old olive tree surrounded by these children, olive shoots transplanted
to be fruitful themselves in their turn.
Let’s care for and
cultivate our children and grandchildren!
Here’s a picture,
then, of a blessed life.
And have you
noticed the expanding circles?
There’s a godly
individual in v1.
Then a wife and
children in v3.
In v5 we look towards
Zion, Jerusalem.
And in v6 towards
the whole nation of Israel.
Israel in the Old
Testament was sort of mix of church and state, so we need to think carefully
about how to apply this Psalm in the New Covenant.
We shouldn’t read
Israel in the OT and think the modern state of Israel nor the United Kingdom.
Zion was above all
the place of the temple and Jesus is the New Temple.
So all of these blessings
come to us ultimately through Jesus.
And many of these blessings
are mediated through the church, the people of God.
Families can be a
great blessing to the church family.
And the church
family can be a great blessing to families.
Too often we have
probably idolised and privatized the nuclear family.
An English man’s
home may be his castle, but he would do well to have the drawbridge down most
of the time – to invite in others, to practice hospitality, sometimes to get
help from others, sometimes to bless others.
And personal godliness
and home and family life are the essential foundation for making a contribution
to the church and to wider society too.
The blessing of
this Psalm spreads out from the godly person and the home.
But its also a
blessing which endures through time:
V5: all the days of
your life.
V6: not only to the
sons of v3 but to sons of sons in v6, to grandchildren.
We might look to
God to bless us with a legacy, a godly heritage.
Indeed, God loves
to show his love to a thousand generations so why not pray for a thousand
generations of faithful Lloyds, or Smiths, or Joneses, or maybe for those you’ve
brough to Christ and their children, or for your church family centuries from
now.
This church has
been here since 1175 so let’s pray for the next 900 years.
As I say, this isn’t
the only passage in the Bible and it’s not the whole story.
No doubt there will
be sin and suffering and struggles even in the most godly and blessed life.
But the Christian
believer who fears God and walks in his ways can be sure of God’s blessing now
in part in this life and fully in the world to come.
Let us resolve, above
all else, by the grace of God, to fear the LORD and walk in his ways.
We can pray with
confidence:
May the Lord bless
you all the days of your life.
Peace be upon you
and all the church of God.
Amen.
Some THOUGHTS on the way to the sermon, some of which made their way into it:
This is a beautiful and brief poem.
It might be sung at a wedding or used to celebrate the birth of a
child.
You could call it a family hymn.
But one could imagine many possible misunderstandings and objections to
it.
I want to address some of those, but first, could I just invite you to
enjoy and appreciate this little poem for what it is?
We would do well to read it slowly and to ponder it.
Perhaps to read it out load.
Maybe in different translations which you can find easily on Bible
Gateway or Bible Hub online.
Perhaps we should pray or sing it.
Or listen to some different recordings of it being read or sung.
Again, I recommend Google or your search engine of choice.
It might be worth reading this Psalm alongside the surrounding Psalms
too.
Presumably their arrangement is more than random.
The Psalm is one of the Psalms of Ascents (that’s Psalms 120-134) which
were possibly sung by the people as they went up to Jerusalem for the pilgrim
festivals.
Psalm 128 shares a number of themes with the previous psalm (households,
work, food, sons, the blessing of God).
One writer suggests that we can see an ascent, a development and
heightening in our Psalm:
Here we see the house already built and adorned.
The children are not just arrows, full of potential, but already
established olive plants.
In our Psalm there are no enemies in the gate explicitly mentioned but a
prayer or a confidence for peace for Israel.
The surrounding Psalms, especially those that follow, might compliment
our psalm by reminding us that sin, suffering and strife are an ordinary part
of a faithful and authentic Christian life, but they are not the focus in our
psalm.
But let me come to some of those possible misunderstandings or
objections which might arise as we think about Psalm 128:
I can imagine that this Psalm might be greeted with a lofty dismissal.
Some might feel distain for it.
It could be called a Psalm of home, sweet home.
Some of us might like it in cross stich above our mantle-piece but some
of us might feel on the verge of vomit.
It seems rather domestic and quaint.
It paints a charming idyll, but it doesn’t seem very spiritual.
It’s very ordinary.
Perhaps bourgeois, some might say.
Yet, the battle for godliness is often fought out most acutely in the
domestic arena.
It can be easier to be nice and polite in the board room than at the
kitchen sink.
We can keep up some pretences out of doors.
It is interesting that in the letter to the Ephesians, a grand
description of cosmic battle is adjacent to passages about how husbands and
wives and parents and children and slaves and masters relate to one
another.
The dining table can be the arena of spiritual warfare.
The pleasures of a happy, fulfilled blessed life may be fairly simple
and ordinary according to this Psalm.
There may be no great honours or recognition.
Likely there will be hard work, but not the ceaseless godless anxiety
ruled out in the preceding Psalm.
Happiness depends both on our work and, above all, the blessing of God.
Our labour in the Lord is not in vain.
This side of Eden, toil is under a curse but it can also receive God's
blessing.
Let's seek to work hard so that we're not
dependent but rather are able to help those in need.
Under God, we don’t need much to be really happy.
Happiness may even be easier with a simpler life.
Godliness with contentment is great gain!
Yes, this is a sinful and fallen world.
Life is often very painful.
But real happiness, fulfilment and blessing are possible for those who fear
and obey the Lord.
We might say that most of the blessings of the Christian life are in the
future, in the new creation.
Certainly our full enjoyment of them is.
Life now is always mixed.
There is always a shadow and sorrows and a longing for something better.
But there is also real joy and blessing.
And O, for contentment and gratitude!
If we have food and clothing, let us be content with that -
able to be content with little or much.
Let us not allow eagerness for getting to
prevent us enjoying what we have.
The Christian is to be the happy child of the happy, ever-blessed
God!
Fear and happiness might seem to be incompatible.
But the fear of God is not a cringing terror or a dreadful
anxiety.
Awe, reverence and respect are rather the fountain of obedience
and blessing.
The presentation in this Psalm is certainly idealised.
It might be thought of as a wisdom Psalm, giving a generalisation rather
than a cast iron promise that can be imposed on each and every situation
regardless of consideration of all other factors.
For example, Wisdom will say that hard work prospers.
Life tells us that sometimes the hard working starve.
This need not be seen as a contradiction.
The Bible knows that sometimes the wicked prosper.
Calvin commented on this Psalm that we can be sure that the root of fear
of God and obedience to his law will produce the fruit of a blessed life.
But we cannot be sure what that life will look like.
Sometimes the fruit will be hidden or will only be seen in the life of
the age to come.
It might also be objected against this Psalm that it doesn’t seem very
modern.
It is of course from a by-gone age and culture.
And one of the tricky things is to work out how we might apply it to our
own rather different situation today.
And of course its important to say that this is not the only Psalm in
the Bible or the only thing the Bible says.
The person addressed in the Psalm is clearly a man, a husband, a
father.
The patriarchy, some might say?
Maybe this Psalm of assents was used when going up to the pilgrim
festivals in Jerusalem which men were under a special obligation to attend, but
that doesn't completely take away the issue.
Or take the view of women in this Psalm, for example.
One commentator has said that the woman in this Psalm and the one before
is little more than a womb.
Now, I think that might be an exaggeration.
We could imagine the picture of this Psalm as a happy extended family
sitting around the table enjoying one another’s company.
The woman might be integral to that.
But it is true that the situation here is domestic.
The woman is seen as a wife and mother.
And fertility and fruitfulness were especially important in that day and
age – as they remain for many today.
Our Psalm could be blamed for a simplistic view of fertility and
infertility, but at least it acknowledges that these things matter.
It reminds us that, generally speaking, children are a blessing not a
life-style accessory or a burden.
Children should be seen neither as an optional adornment nor an
inconvenience.
Couples who can’t have children don’t necessary want the blessing of
children to be ignored or denied.
We should not deride what some long for without the fulfilment of those
hopes.
In the original setting of this Psalm, your life and your economic survival
possibly depended on having a few kids much more than it does today.
And barrenness may have been seen as mark of shame or even divine
disapproval.
We shouldn’t endorse such views, but we should acknowledge them.
The Bible says much more about women than this psalm.
Yes, much more about women as wives and lovers and mothers and
homemakers.
But also as business women.
And as what we’d call political and religious leaders.
We shouldn’t totalise this Psalm or make it limiting or even normative.
But it does give us one important picture:
One which has been important for most people down through history and
around the world and which remains important today.
We need to recapture the dignity and worth of home and family.
No one should be defined simply by their career outside the home.
Stay at home parents should not be thought second class.
Probably for many of us, little matters more than how we bring up our
kids.
Famously, few people on their death bed wish they’d spent more time in
the office!
The home, food and family matter terribly to most people.
The Psalm begins with a godly individual and then embraces his family,
wider society and posterity.
And personal godliness and the home and family are often foundational to
a society and to a person’s contribution to it.
The family must not look to its own private welfare alone but also to others,
to the wider community, to the city and to the church.
The blessing of your family and of your church are things which God has
joined together which you must not put asunder.
We must ask how the unmarried or the childless fit into this picture.
Surely one answer is that there must be a welcome for them at this
table.
They too can be godly people who contribute to their society and to the
future.
We follow a Saviour who was single and childless.
And yet all who do the will of God are his brothers and sisters and
mothers.
Paul, also likely unmarried and childless, spoke of being like a father
and mother to many in Christ as he ministered to countless brothers and sisters
scattered around the empire.
We have sometimes privileged the immediate nuclear family in unhelpful
ways.
A more open expansive vision would be helpful.
A person’s home should be a castle, but mostly with the drawbridge
down!
Extended human families give us a picture of that much more important
and enduring family, the family of Jesus Christ and the children / brothers and
sisters God has given him who meet around the Lord’s Table and who will one day
all meet around the Throne.
* * *
NOTES:
Cf. Ps 127 inc. blessed v5; 128v1
Contrast the man of Ps 127:2 who toils away
without fearing the LORD and eats alone in anguish
The blessings which come from revering Yahweh
The psalm heaps image upon image as it
describes blessing upon blessing
Plumber asks where one could find a
description of domestic happiness of such beauty and brevity?
Luther called it a wedding song for
Christians.
A family hymn
A suitable blessing for marriages / homes /
families.
A Psalm of Home Sweet Home.
Cf. the priestly blessing of Num 6:24-26
Kidner: the quiet blessings of an ordered life
traced from the centre out – simple piety with its proper fruit of stability
and peace
Daily life, home, family, work, food
This Psalm feels like it could be in Proverbs
– wisdom literature – a wisdom psalm
One of the Psalms of Ascents:
That’s Psalms 120-134, which were possibly
sung by the people as they went up to Jerusalem for the pilgrim festivals.
The focus on men may fit the fact that there
was a more specific obligation on men rather than women to attend the pilgrim
festivals
The individual (the male head of household),
couple, family, wider community
A godly individual can be a blessing to his or
her family and community and indeed to his or her posterity, into the future
Godliness and family are the foundations of a
happy society
V1 – Blessed / happy / fortunate – The Good
Life
V1 and v2b, the same word for happy
Vv1, 2 – happy, happy; vv3, 4 – blessed,
blessed
V1 – blessed = ‘ashrey; v5, barak, to bless –
to be in / be in a favoured position
The ingredients of true happiness – reverence
and obedience – not mere profession, what we say, but also what we do
True Christianity is not just emotion and
desire but also practical action.
It is all very well to pray and sing devoutly
on a Sunday.
Our fear of God must extend to what we do on
Monday morning and Saturday night too.
We must not talk of fear of God and then live
as if we couldn’t care less whether the God of the Bible existed or not!
To use the cliché: we must not only talk the
talk, we must walk the walk.
Our steps will reveal our heartbeat.
And we must be active and deliberate about it.
Get your gospel boots on and step out in reverence
for God.
God’s ways are the way of blessing.
Let’s fear to stray from them!
Why would we want to go any other way?
Danger and misery will follow from departing
from the narrow way.
The victories and happiness of the wicked are
short lived
V1 cf. Ps 119:3
Cf. Is 62:8f
V1 – this blessing applies to any or all who
fear the Lord, though it will go on to be applied to the male head of household
/ husband / father
A universal blessing independent of
circumstances
These general blessings are particularised as
past labour enjoyed, present blessing and future welfare
Believer: it shall be well with you while you
live, better with you when you die and best of all in eternity (after Matthew
Henry and Spurgeon)
The house of God can be a blessing to our house
and our house can be a blessing to the house of God.
V1 - Happy are those who fear!
Seems rather odd
Terrified are those who fear!
Not a cringing terror or an anxiety about
judgement
Calvin – people really don’t believe v1! –
that godliness is really the way to happiness
We could make a list of all the things which
might contribute to a happy life, but surely the one thing necessary, the sure guarantee
of happiness, would be the blessing of Almighty God.
V1 – attitude (fear) and action (walking) –
heart / mind and will
Internal principle and outward expression
The person who walks in God’s ways is blessed
because God Himself walks with him
Fearing God we may dismiss all other fears.
We may step out boldly with confidence.
There is nothing, no one else to fear.
Calvin: the root of fearing God and keeping
his law will always produce the fruit of a blessed life
That fruit might sometimes be unseen or might
sometimes come in the age to come
The Lord must build the house / marriage / family and the
essential foundation is fear of the Lord. There may be a pleasing façade
without it, but it is indispensable to true blessing and may collapse
otherwise.
Reverence / respect / awe
Fear, not of a rebel or debtor or criminal but of a dearly
loved child for an honoured parent
Do what pleases God no matter whom it
displeases
V2 – the unexpected direct personal address
brings the point home to the individual and shows the necessity of personal
appropriation
V2 – cf. Ps 127 – you can be confident about
eating the fruit of your labour if you remember that everything doesn’t depend
on your labour but rather work hard and depend upon the Lord
Ideally, if we’re able, we want to eat bread
we’ve laboured for, not the bread of dependence
We want to make and enjoy an honest living and
have something with which we can help others, rather than being dependent on
them
V2 - Our work is the means God uses to bless
us
V2 – cf. Judges 6:3-6; Dt 28:30
V2 – a simple blessing but one which many
throughout history have not always enjoyed.
You don’t have to be Karl Marx to believe that
often workers have been alienated from their labour and exploited so that they
can’t enjoy the just reward of their labour.
A corrupt or greedy landowner or official can
easily rob us of a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.
The labourer is worthy of his hire.
To not muzzle an ox while it is…
An affirmation of lawful earthly callings and
honest work.
An antidote to super-spirituality.
The Bible says if a man will not work, he shall
not eat.
Eagerness to get can take away our ability to
enjoy.
Our God is a household God (Spurgeon) – a God
of homes and families
Food and fertility were key to well-being in
ancient Israel
Like Psalm 127, the Psalm corresponds to
Genesis 3:16-19 where the man’s focus is work and the woman’s focus is home /
childbearing
V2 – v5 – prosperity / good things
Our labour in the Lord is not in vain.
Seems to be addressed to a man (v2)
Sons – but what about daughters?
V3 – cf. it is not good for man to be alone –
a helper suitable – necessary for fruitfulness!
A helpmeet was needed in Paradise and is not
less necessary out of it (Spurgeon)
V3 – Prov 19:14 – a prudent wife is from the
Lord
V3 – the vine – sexual attractiveness Song 7:8ff;
prosperity Gen 49:11; sweetness / festivity Judges 9:12-13; peace Mal 3:11;
fragrance Song 2:13; Israel Ps 80:8, 14; Dt 8:8 blessing
Goldingay: “The vine and the olive are key
trees without which life would be impossible, and they thus generate key
metaphors; Israel itself is both vine and olive.”
Vine and olive reminiscent of the eras of
David and Solomon 1 K4:25 and associated with the blessings of the Messianic
era Mic 4:4; Zec 3:10
Images of fruitfulness, refreshment and
gladness
The olive tree may suggest longevity and
productivity
Legacy
Children must be considered a blessing not a
burden (Spurgeon)
A marriage may also be fruitful in virtue and
good works
V3 – within your house – within, a strong word
- privacy / lit. inner parts of your house, in the heart of your house –
contrast the promiscuous wife of Prov 7:11
Cf. a heavenly home and inheritance and family
and everlasting blessing and joy
V3 – the sons as transplanted shoots of their
father / parents the original olive tree
How lovely to see the gnarled old olive tree
still fruitful and surrounded by young saplings!
The family around the dinner table
"the notion of a table in a bower may suit a cockney in
a tea-garden, but would never occur to the oriental poet" (Spurgeon)
Count the blessings of your home and family.
How would you feel if they were removed?
There is a loss of liberty and expense etc. in
a committed family life, but there are also blessings and fruitfulness in it.
V3 – shathal – transplanted – Ps 1:3; 92:12
V3 – sons; v6 - grandchildren
V3 cf. Ps 144:12
V5 – the “you” is singular
Heb 12:22ff
Not an absolute promise
Some good godly people are not able to have
children
Some good and godly people go hungry
OT?
Prosperity theology
Zion & Jerusalem (v5), Israel (v6)
The blessings of God generally come to us
through and in fellowship with Zion, the visible church.
V6 – Look upon and see, both imperatives – in
Hebrew imperatives of certain outcome, the future is so certain it can be
commanded – “you will without any possible doubt see”
This might seem like a Psalm from a different
age and culture – and of course it is!
It might also be significant that it is a
psalm from a different covenant.
God’s covenant with his people was never
merely biological and physical.
But Israel = church
No physical promised land nation state today
Mk 3:35 – whoever does the will of God is
Jesus’ brother or sister or mother
With church online, its easier for us to
behave like consumers and its easy for us to switch to another church that
seems to suit us better.
Our Psalm can remind us that church is meant
to be family.
One particular idealised vision.
This is not the only Psalm in the Bible and
the Psalms are not the only part of the Bible.
So we really want to embrace this Psalm and
live in the light of it but we don’t want to totalize it.
To celebrate the fruitful family is not to say
that we don’t value singleness and celibacy.
We follow Jesus, of course, who never had any
biological children.
V6 – Peace be upon could be a prayer or a
confident final statement
Peace – not necessarily always without enemies
and not necessarily entirely untroubled by them but not finally overcome by
them
V6 repeats the closing words of Ps 125
V6 cf. Gal 6:16; Gal 4:26
* * *
OUTLINES:
Motyer:
Peace at the Last!
A1: The foundation: the blessed individual
(vv1-2)
B1: The private / marital community (v3a)
C1: The immediate family (v3b)
A2: The foundation: the blessed individual
(vv4-5a)
B2: The public community (v5b)
C2: The family of the future (v6a)
D: Consummation (6b)
* * *
Kidner:
Peace
Vv1-2 – a man before God
Vv3-4 – the family circle
Vv5-6 – the wider horizon
* * *
Goldingay, Work, Home, Family
Vv1-3 – the declaration
Vv4-6 – the prayers
* * *
Expositor’s Bible:
(1) The blessing of a God-fearing family (vv1-4)
(2) The benediction (vv5-6)
* * *
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