What does Psalms Chapter 127 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Fearers and walkers are blessed with future well-being. Wife and children appear as vine and olive comparisons. Jerusalem good and grandchildren remain requested blessings.

Chapter breakdown

Beati omnes is the incipit; the heading calls fear of God the way to happiness and the inscription a gradual canticle. All fearing the Lord and walking His ways are blessed. The addressee shall eat hands’ labors, is blessed and shall be well. No defeated plunderers or wasted-work episode is supplied.

The wife is as a fruitful vine on house sides and children as olive plants around the table; thus the man fearing the Lord shall be blessed. The comparisons do not specify a witnessed household’s privacy or mutual fidelity.

The speaker asks the Lord’s blessing from Sion and that the addressee may see Jerusalem’s good throughout life and children’s children, closing peace upon Israel. Requests for descendants and civic good remain requests, without a universal fertility or longevity guarantee.

The story inside

Opening: Fearers and walkers are blessed with future well-being. Development: Wife and children appear as vine and olive comparisons. Conclusion: Jerusalem good and grandchildren remain requested blessings.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Fearers and walkers are blessed with future well-being.
2
Wife and children appear as vine and olive comparisons.
3
Jerusalem good and grandchildren remain requested blessings.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 66165–66165
Blessed are all they that fear the Lord: that walk in his ways.
Lines 66167–66168
For thou shalt eat the labours of thy hands: blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee.
Lines 66170–66171
Thy wife as a fruitful vine, on the sides of thy house. Thy children as olive plants, round about thy table.
Lines 66173–66173
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.
Lines 66175–66176
May the Lord bless thee out of Sion: and mayst thou see the good things of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.
Lines 66178–66178
And mayst thou see thy children’s children, peace upon Israel.