#DailyDevotion The Blessing Of God, Home, Wife, Children and Table To The Man Who Fears Him
Psalm 128 Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD and lives in His ways. 2You will eat what your hands have worked for. Blessings to you! May all go well with you! 3Your wife will be like a fruitful vine inside your home; your children will be like olive plants around your table. 4So you can see how a man is blessed if he fears the LORD. 5May the LORD bless you from Zion – may you see prosperity in Jerusalem as long as you live! May you see your children’s children! Peace be on Israel!
This psalm and the previous one are like a double barrel shotgun. The previous one opened up with the providence of the LORD and the blessing of children. Now go the blessedness of the man who fears the LORD and what those blessings consist of.
Now to fear the LORD is to hate evil. When we hate evil we don’t stop there. We go on to live in the ways of the LORD, to do the things He has commanded to do. It is as Jesus says in Matt. 7, 24“Anyone who hears and does what I say is like a man who had the sense to build his house on a rock. 25The rain poured down, the torrents came, the winds blew, and they beat against that house. But it didn’t go down, because its foundation was on the rock.” So we do not just sit on our hands when we have faith in Jesus and fear His name. We actually start living the way He has prescribed for us to live in.
The first blessing is to eat the fruit of the hands of our labor. So that tells us right there, when we fear the LORD we won’t be lazy. In Eph. 4 Paul teaches us, “28Anyone who has been stealing should not steal any more, but instead work hard, doing something good with his own hands so that he has something to share with anyone in need.” So we earn our bread not only for us to eat but also to give to others. In 1 Thess 4 he writes, ” 11do your best to live quietly, mind your own business, and work with your hands, as we ordered you to do, 12so that you live nobly with those who are not Christians – without needing anything.” So the first blessing in fearing the LORD is fruitful hands.
The second blessing is a fruitful wife. He calls her a vine in the house. A vine fills everything and goes everywhere. Her influence in the house is dominant and supported by her husband. Part of her fruitfulness is many children. The blessed man’s children are like olive trees around the table. On the one hand, they will be many like an orchard. On the other hand, they are firmly planted around the table. They aren’t going to other places. They have no desire to leave. There are few exceptions to this but when there are, God’s providence is at work with the faithful man, like Abraham.
So we see how the man is blessed who fears the LORD and does what He teaches.
There is a closing blessing upon us. Remember this is a psalm of ascent, sung as the pilgrims went up the mountain to Jerusalem and to the Temple. One was to see the prosperity of Jerusalem. For us that would be to see the Church grow. The second blessing is to be able to see our grandchildren. I can think of relatively few people who don’t enjoy seeing their grandchildren. They also don’t seem to fear the LORD and trust in His blessing. Children and grandchildren are a blessing from the LORD. The final blessing is peace be upon Israel, that is, the LORD’s Church. We are truly blessed at times to have peace in the Church so that we may develop and grow in our knowledge of the LORD and to grow in number, snatching people from the fires of hell and bringing them into the gates of Paradise to be with their Creator and God.
Heavenly Father, grant us such faith that we truly fear Your name and live according to all Your commands that we may receive Your blessings of house and home. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.