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Psalms 129
Israel speaks as a corporate witness — afflicted from youth, plowed and furrowed by enemies across every generation, yet never overcome. Jehovah's righteousness is named as the cause: He cuts the cords binding the afflicted, not the afflicted's own strength. The psalm then turns to the enemies of Zion with deliberate precision — not cursing them but declaring their end: grass on a rooftop, rootless, unable to fill the mower's hand or bind a sheaf. The sheaf image is exact: those who hate Zion will never harvest what covenant Israel gathers, and no blessing in Jehovah's name passes over them.
1
Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say:
2
Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me.
3
The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows.
4
The LORD is righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.
5
Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.
6
Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up:
7
Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.
8
Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the LORD be upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD.
