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Psalm 126

A Harvest of Joy

A Song of Ascents.

When the L ord restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then it was said among the nations,

“The L ord has done great things for them.”

The L ord has done great things for us,

and we rejoiced.

Restore our fortunes, O L ord,

like the watercourses in the Negeb.

May those who sow in tears

reap with shouts of joy.

Those who go out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

carrying their sheaves.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

1. When Jehovah brought back the captivity of Zion, etc. It is unnatural and forced to suppose, with some expositors, that this is a prediction of what was to come. For my part I have no doubt that the Psalm was composed upon the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonish captivity; and for this reason I have translated the verb בשוב, beshub, in the past tense. Now, whoever was the author of it, ⁸⁸⁸⁸ Grotius and Amyraldus suppose that it was compiled by Ezra, after the Jews had begun to return from Babylon. whether one of the Levites or one of the Prophets, he affirms that the manner of their deliverance was too wonderful to be attributed to fortune, in order to lead the faithful to the conclusion that the prophecy of Jeremiah, which had assigned seventy years as the term of the captivity, was truly fulfilled. (Jeremiah 25:12, and Jeremiah 29:10.) By the verb dream, which expresses the astonishing character of the event, he teaches us that there is no room left for ingratitude. As often as God works by ordinary means, men, through the malignity of their natures, usually exercise their ingenuity in devising various causes of the deliverance wrought, in order to darken the grace of God. But the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonish captivity, having been a miracle of such splendor as was sufficient to swallow up and confound all the thoughts of men, it compels us to own that it was a signal work of God. This is the reason why the Prophet compares this deliverance to a dream. “So far,” he materially says, “is any mind from comprehending this unparalleled benefit of God, that the bare thinking upon it transports us with amazement, as if it were a dream, and not an event which had already taken place. What impiety, then, will it be, not to acknowledge the author of it.” Moreover, he does not mean that the faithful were so dull of understanding as not to perceive that they were delivered by the hand of God, but only that, judging according to carnal sense and reason, they were struck with astonishment; and he was apprehensive lest, in reasoning with themselves about that redemption, as about an ordinary thing, they should make less account of the power of God than it became them to do. The noun שיבת, shibath, translated captivity, might be rendered bringing back, as some do, which would give greater elegance to the expression of the Psalmist, as in that case שיבת would be a noun of the same verb which is used in the beginning of the verse. ⁸⁹⁸⁹ That is, it would be derived from שוב, shrub, he returned; whereas if it is rendered captivity, it is derived from שבה, shabah, he led captive. The English Bible translators seem to have been uncertain whether שיבת, shibath, is to be considered as derived from the first of these verbs or from the second, their reading in the text being, “turned back our captivity,” and their marginal rendering being, “returned the returning.” There is a play upon the words, שוב, “turn,” and שיבת, “captivity.” It is to be observed that the concluding part of the above sentence in the text is from Calvin’s French Commentary. There is nothing to represent it in the Latin Version. As, however, this makes little difference in regard to the sense, it is enough to have noticed it to my readers in passing.

2. Now shall our mouth be filled with laughter. The adverb of time, אז, az, is commonly translated then; but as the verbs are in the future tense, I have thought that it might not be improper to translate tires — grow shall our mouth be filled, and now shall they say. If, however, we admit what some Hebrew Doctors affirm, that the force of this particle is to change the future tense into the past, the adverb then will be the appropriate word. The design of the Prophet is not at all obscure. He would have the people so to rejoice on account of their return, as not to bury in forgetfulness the grace of God. He therefore describes no ordinary rejoicing, but such as so fills their minds as to constrain them to break forth into extravagance of gesture and of voice. At the same time he intimates that there was good ground for this joy, in which it became the children of God to indulge, on account of their return to their own land. As there was at that period nothing more wretched than for them to live in captivity, in which they were in a manner dispossessed of the inheritance God had promised them; so there was nothing which ought to have been more desirable to them than to be restored. Their restoration to their own country having been therefore a proof of their renewed adoption by God, it is not surprising to find the Prophet asserting that their mouth was filled with laughter, and their tongue with exultation. With a similar joy does it become us at the present day to exult when God gathers together his Church and it is an undoubted evidence that we are steel-hearted, if her miserable dispersion does not produce in our minds grief and lamentation. The Prophet proceeds farther, declaring that this miracle was seen even by the blind; for in that age of the world, as is well known, the heathen were wandering in darkness like blind men, no knowledge of God having shone upon them; and yet God’s power and operation were so conspicuous in that event, that they burst forth into the open acknowledgment that God had done great things for his people. So much the more shame-fill then was the indifference of the Jews to be accounted, if they did not freely and loudly celebrate God’s grace, which had acquired so much renown among the unbelieving. The form of speech employed is also to be marked, which forcibly expresses the idea intended to be conveyed, that the mighty power of God in this deliverance was known by the Gentiles. In the following verse the Prophet repeats in his own person, and in that of the Church, the words uttered by the heathen in the last member of the preceding verse. Let us at least, as if he had said, put forth a confession corresponding to that which God has extorted from the unbelieving Gentiles. When he adds that they were glad, there is an implied antithesis between this fresh joy and the long continued sorrow with which they were afflicted in their captivity, he expressly declares that joy was restored to them, to enable them the better to estimate the dismal condition from which they had been extricated.

4. O Jehovah! bring back our captivity. The second part of the Psalm, as I have said, contains a prayer that God would gather together the residue of the captives. The Holy Spirit endited this form of prayer for the Jews who were already come home to their own country, that they might not forget their poor brethren who were still in exile. All the Jews, no doubt, had a door opened to them, and perfect liberty granted them, to come out of the land of their captivity, but the number of those who partook of this benefit was small when compared with the vast multitude of the people. Some were kept from returning by fear, and others by sloth and want of courage, on seeing such perils at hand as they apprehended they had not power to overcome, choosing rather to lie torpid in their own filthiness, than to undertake the hardship of the journey. It is probable also that many of them preferred their present ease and comfort to eternal salvation. What the Prophet Isaiah had foretold was no doubt fulfilled, (Isaiah 10:22,). That although the people were in number as the sand of the sea, yet only a remnant of them should be saved. Since, then, many openly refused the benefit when it was offered them, and as there were not; wanting many difficulties and impediments to be encountered by those who availed themselves of this liberty granted them by the good pleasure of the king, ⁹²⁹² “Precaria libertas.” — Lat. “Ceste liberte obtenue d’eux par le bon plaisir du Roy.” — Fr. so that it was only a few of sounder judgment and of a more intrepid heart, who dared to move a foot — and even they with reluctance, — it is no wonder that the Prophet requires the Church still to make supplication to God for the bringing back of the captivity. Along with this, the state of those who had already returned is also to be noted; for their land being in the possession of strangers, who were all their inveterate and sworn enemies, they were no less captives in their own country than among the Babylonians. It was therefore necessary, on a twofold account, that the Church should earnestly beseech God to gather together such as were dispersed; first, that he would give courage to the timid, awaken the torpid, cause the besotted to forget their pleasures, and stretch forth his hand to be a guide to all; and, secondly, that he would settle the body of the people who had returned in liberty and ease.

As to the similitude which follows, many think the sense to be, that the bringing back of their captivity prayed for would be as grateful to them as if water should flow through a desert. ⁹³⁹³ Walford reads, “like the streams of the south.” — “In the southern districts of Palestine and Arabia,” says he, “the heat is so vehement during some seasons as to dry up the rivers completely, and parch the soil. When rains come, the torrents again flow, and the soil is refreshed and verdant; — a delightful image of the joy experienced by captives on returning to their native land.” We know how grievous and painful a thing it is to travel in a hot country through and sands. The south, is taken for the wilderness, because the region on the south of Judea was waste and almost uninhabitable. Yet it seems to me more just to say, that the grace of God is here magnified, and still more enlarged by the Prophet’s comparing it to a miracle. “Although it is a difficult matter,” he substantially says, “for the dispersed remnant to be again united into one body, yet God, if he please, can do this, just as he can cause rivers of water to flow through a parched desert.” He, at the same time, alludes to the road intervening between Judea and Babylon, as appears from the situation of the two countries. Thus the words will not require any supplement, the meaning being simply this, that the bringing back of their captivity would be as if a river should run through a barren and and country. And, certainly, to open up a way for the people who, so to speak, were swallowed up in a deep gulf, was as if a course had been opened up for irrigating waters to flow through a desert.

⁸⁸ Grotius and Amyraldus suppose that it was compiled by Ezra, after the Jews had begun to return from Babylon.

⁸⁹ That is, it would be derived from שוב, shrub, he returned; whereas if it is rendered captivity, it is derived from שבה, shabah, he led captive. The English Bible translators seem to have been uncertain whether שיבת, shibath, is to be considered as derived from the first of these verbs or from the second, their reading in the text being, “turned back our captivity,” and their marginal rendering being, “returned the returning.” There is a play upon the words, שוב, “turn,” and שיבת, “captivity.” It is to be observed that the concluding part of the above sentence in the text is from Calvin’s French Commentary. There is nothing to represent it in the Latin Version.

⁹² “Precaria libertas.” — Lat. “Ceste liberte obtenue d’eux par le bon plaisir du Roy.” — Fr.

⁹³ Walford reads, “like the streams of the south.” — “In the southern districts of Palestine and Arabia,” says he, “the heat is so vehement during some seasons as to dry up the rivers completely, and parch the soil. When rains come, the torrents again flow, and the soil is refreshed and verdant; — a delightful image of the joy experienced by captives on returning to their native land.”