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Selected Verse: Psalms 127:3 - King James
Verse |
Translation |
Text |
Ps 127:3 |
King James |
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
Posterity is often represented as a blessing from God (Gen 30:2, Gen 30:18; Sa1 1:19-20). Children are represented as the defenders (arrows) of their parents in war, and in litigation. |
Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord - They are an inheritance derived from the Lord. They are bestowed by him as really as success is in building a house, or in guarding a city. The idea is, that everything which we value, or which we desire, is a gift from God, and is to be received as from him, and to be acknowledged as his gift. The general idea here, as in the previous verses, is that of entire dependence on God.
And the fruit of the womb is his reward - Or rather, "a reward;" that is, they are of the nature of a reward for a life of devotion to God; they are among the blessings which God promises, and are evidences of his favor. Our translation by inserting the words "is his" obscures the sense, as if the meaning were that they belong to God as his "reward" for what he does for us. The reverse of this is the true idea - that they are a blessing with which he rewards or favors his people. Of course, this is not universally true, but the promise is a general one, in accordance with the usual promises in the Bible in regard to the result of piety. Children are to be reckoned among the divine favors bestowed on us, and for their lives, their health, their virtues, and the happiness derived from them, we are, as in other things, dependent on him - as in building a house, in guarding a city, or in the rest and comfort derived from toil. |
Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
With הנּה it goes on to refer to a specially striking example in support of the maxim that everything depends upon God's blessing. פּרי הבּטן (Gen 30:2; Deu 7:13) beside בּנים also admits of the including of daughters. It is with בּנים (recalling Gen 30:18) just as with נהלת. Just as the latter in this passage denotes an inheritance not according to hereditary right, but in accordance with the free-will of the giver, so the former denotes not a reward that is paid out as in duty bound, but a recompense that is bestowed according to one's free judgment, and in fact looked for in accordance with a promise given, but cannot by any means be demanded. Sons are a blessed gift from above. They are - especially when they are the offspring of a youthful marriage (opp. בּן־זקנים, Gen 37:3; Gen 44:20), and accordingly themselves strong and hearty (Gen 49:3), and at the time that the father is growing old are in the bloom of their years - like arrows in the hand of a warrior. This is a comparison which the circumstances of his time made natural to the poet, in which the sword was carried side by side with the trowel, and the work of national restoration had to be defended step by step against open enemies, envious neighbours, and false brethren. It was not sufficient then to have arrows in the quiver; one was obligated to have them not merely at hand, but in the hand (בּיד), in order to be able to discharge them and defend one's self. What a treasure, in such a time when it was needful to be constantly ready for fighting, defensive or offensive, was that which youthful sons afforded to the elderly father and weaker members of the family! Happy is the man - the poet exclaims - who has his quiver, i.e., his house, full of such arrows, in order to be able to deal out to the enemies as many arrows as may be needed. The father and such a host of sons surrounding him (this is the complex notion of the subject) form a phalanx not to be broken through. If they have to speak with enemies in the gate - i.e., candidly to upbraid them with their wrong, or to ward off their unjust accusation - they shall not be ashamed, i.e., not be overawed, disheartened, or disarmed. Gesenius in his Thesaurus, as Ibn-Jachja has already done, takes דּבּר here in the signification "to destroy;" but in Gen 34:13 this Piel signifies to deal behind one's back (deceitfully), and in Ch2 22:10 to get rid of by assassination. This shade of the notion, which proceeds from Arab. dbr, pone esse (vid., Psa 18:48; Psa 28:2), does not suit the passage before us, and the expression לא־יבשׁוּ is favourable to the idea of the gate as being the forum, which arises from taking ידברו in its ordinary signification. Unjust judges, malicious accusers, and false witnesses retire shy and faint-hearted before a family so capable of defending itself. We read the opposite of this in Job 5:4 of sons upon whom the curse of their fathers rests. |
Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
Children - The chief of these blessings. Heritage - Only from God's blessing, even as an inheritance is not the fruit of a man's own labour, but the gift of God. |
Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord - That is, To many God gives children in place of temporal good. To many others he gives houses, lands, and thousands of gold and silver, and with them the womb that beareth not; and these are their inheritance. The poor man has from God a number of children, without lands or money; these are his inheritance; and God shows himself their father, feeding and supporting them by a chain of miraculous providences. Where is the poor man who would give up his six children, with the prospect of having more, for the thousands or millions of him who is the center of his own existence, and has neither root nor branch but his forlorn solitary self upon the face of the earth? Let the fruitful family, however poor, lay this to heart; "Children are a heritage of the Lord; and the fruit of the womb is his reward." And he who gave them will feed them; for it is a fact, and the maxim formed on it has never failed, "Wherever God sends mouths, he sends meat." "Murmur not," said an Arab to his friend, "because thy family is large; know that it is for their sakes that God feeds thee." |
19 And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the LORD, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD remembered her.
20 Wherefore it came to pass, when the time was come about after Hannah had conceived, that she bare a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.
18 And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I have given my maiden to my husband: and she called his name Issachar.
2 And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?
4 His children are far from safety, and they are crushed in the gate, neither is there any to deliver them.
2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.
48 He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: thou hast delivered me from the violent man.
10 But when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah.
13 And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said, because he had defiled Dinah their sister:
3 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:
20 And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.
18 And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I have given my maiden to my husband: and she called his name Issachar.
13 And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.
2 And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel: and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb?