Ps 129 (I, Zion)

Many a time / they have afflicted me / since my youth

                Let Israel declare

Many a time / have they afflicted me / since my youth

                Yet they could not / defeat me.

On my back / plowmen plowed

                Making long furrows

Yhwh is loyal

                He has cut off / the yoke / of the wicked.

All who hate Zion

                Will be put to shame / and repulsed

They will be like grass / on the roofs

                Which withers before / it can shoot up

Which cannot fill / the reaper’s palm

                Nor the sheafbinder’s robefold

And passers-by / do not say

                Yhwh’s blessing / rest upon you

We bless you / in Yhwh’s name.

The first stanza describes past afflictions the psalmist has suffered “since his youth”. Initially, the “me” and the “they” are not defined. While the first line speaks of “me” it then becomes something Israel declares, leaving one with the impression that these afflictions are things Israel has suffered since its “youth”. The “they” then becomes the history of “plowmen who have plowed long furrows” on “my” back. “I” am like a field that the wicked have torn up, driving their ploughs deep into “my” back in order to plant the seed of destruction. When Yhwh redeems, therefore, what he does is thwart their ability to continue their plowing and planting. He “cuts off the yoke of the wicked.” They can no longer drive and direct the oxen. They can no longer plant. They are left without their tools of harvesting destruction.

The second stanza identifies the wicked—they are Zion haters—and, conversely, the “I” of the psalm. The evil plowmen seek Zion’s destruction. Yet their efforts to “reap a harvest of destruction” turn out to be paltry. Their harvest is like grass with no roots; grass that withers before it can even shoot up. It cannot even fill the reaper’s palm or fill their robes. Yhwh will not bless their harvest.

Importantly, this also reveals who the “I” of the psalm is—it is Zion itself. Here, the psalmist and the people speak on behalf of Zion and the Temple. Zion is the one who has been “afflicted since her youth” but she has not been defeated. She is the one on whose back the “plowmen have plowed long furrows”. Micah refers to Zion being “plowed into a field”. And there are many psalms that reflect the attack(s) on Zion and her subsequent rebuffing of those attacks. The people often identify themselves and their lives with Zion—she stands as their source of strength and blessing. For her to be destroyed would be “the end of the world” because it is through her that the world is actually made and sustained.

The previous psalms have been emphasizing Yhwh’s blessing of the righteous and wise man’s efforts and understood that in the context of harvest. Their blessing will be their ability to enjoy, literally, the fruit of their labors. They will be able to eat the bread they have worked for. Their work will be substantial in that regard and not subject to the vanity and futility that marks much of post-Eden existence. Here, that insight is reversed as it is applied to the wicked. Their harvest will be paltry. It will participate in and be a reflection of the vanity and futility of post-Eden existence and, more importantly, it will be so as an act of Yhwh’s loyalty.

This lack of substance on the part of the wicked, the substance of the righteous/Zion, and the imagery of harvest, bears a resemblance to Psalm 1. There, the wicked are compared to the chaff of the harvest that is so unsubstantial that the slightest wind can remove them, as compared to the solidity of the wise who are like trees planted by running water who bear fruit. That resemblance continues when it is understood that often Psalm 2 was “part 2” of the psalm. There, the emphasis is on Zion and Yhwh’s installation of his king. There, wisdom and Zion are intimately wed together. Just as here—where wisdom and Zion are closely aligned.  Moreover, as in Psalm 2, the wicked are the Zion-haters who rebel against Yhwh’s anointed.

Finally, it is important to note that the wicked will be put in the position of Zion at the opening—in the position of suffering. They will be “put to shame and repulsed.” The ‘glory’ that they inhabited will now be transferred to the righteous. 

It cannot be emphasized enough that this psalm’s focus is on the Temple. It is the Temple that people want Yhwh to bless, because the Temple is the source of their protection, livelihood, blessing and that place where they can ‘see God’. The Temple is the world and more-than-the-world.

This devotion to Zion is then taken up when Jesus says that he is the Temple and, in his resurrection, the re-built Temple. In so far as we come to speak on behalf of Zion, we enter into the love and devotion for Jesus. This love is not so much as ‘preamble’ of Jesus—but rather something we should enter into, because in so doing we enter into Jesus, as the Temple. Once this is grasped, then the ‘furrows on Zion’s back’ are seen to be participations in the scourging of Christ and the laceration of his back by the whips. His attackers become the Zion-haters of seek the overthrow of the Temple, who want to see it ‘plowed into the ground’.

But their attempts will be broken. When Christ dies and defeats Satan, he cuts off the yoke of the wicked. In Revelation, this is done by Michael, the Archangel, when he casts Satan out of heaven who is then robbed of ultimate power but still furious.