Scripture Daily

Context No. 4318 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 129:1-8: in context

1Many times they have afflicted me from my youth up. Let Israel now say: 2many times they have afflicted me from my youth up, yet they have not prevailed against me. 3The plowers plowed on my back. They made their furrows long. 4The LORD is righteous. He has cut apart the cords of the wicked. 5Let them be disappointed and turned backward, all those who hate Zion. 6Let them be as the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up, 7with which the reaper doesn’t fill his hand, nor he who binds sheaves, his bosom. 8Neither do those who go by say, “The blessing of the LORD be on you. We bless you in the LORD’s name.”

This psalm gives voice to God's people looking back over a long history of affliction: greatly have they afflicted me from my youth, let Israel now say, greatly have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me. The affliction was real and repeated, plowing long furrows across their back. But the refrain that anchors the psalm is this: yet they have not prevailed. Afflicted, yes; overcome, no.

What stands out is this pattern of affliction that does not defeat. God's people had suffered much, often, and from early on. Yet through it all they were not destroyed; their enemies did not finally prevail. Why? Because the LORD is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked. Their survival through repeated affliction was not their own doing but God's faithfulness, cutting them free from those who would bind and destroy them.

Like Israel, we may have been afflicted much, from early in life, again and again. But the testimony of faith is, yet they have not prevailed against me. God's people are afflicted but not overcome, struck down but not destroyed, because the righteous LORD stands with them and cuts the cords of those who would bind them. However often affliction has come, it has not had the last word.

Looking back over the afflictions I have known, can I say with God's people, they have not prevailed against me, trusting that the righteous LORD has preserved me through repeated affliction so that I am afflicted but not overcome, struck down but not destroyed?

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