Psalms 129:1-8: a reflection

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 short psalm gives voice to a people who have suffered long. Many times they have afflicted me from my youth, the psalmist says, and the phrase is repeated for emphasis, as if to say, the affliction has been constant, going back as far as memory reaches. He describes the suffering vividly: plowers have plowed on my back and made long furrows, an image of deep and repeated wounding. God's people have known long, grinding affliction.

But the psalm turns on a defiant word of faith: yet they have not prevailed against me. However long and heavy the affliction, it did not win; God's people were wounded but not destroyed, oppressed but not overcome. And the reason is God's own righteousness: the Lord is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked. The oppressors who bound God's people did not have the last word, because God himself intervened to cut them free. Affliction was real, but it was not the end of the story.

There is endurance and hope here for those who have suffered long. Perhaps you know a long-running affliction, a burden that has been with you as far back as you can remember, that has plowed deep furrows in you. This psalm speaks a stubborn faith over such suffering: they have not prevailed against me. In Christ, you may be wounded but you are not destroyed; the affliction, however long, will not have the final word, because the Lord is righteous and cuts the cords that bind his people. Hold onto that defiant hope: you are afflicted, but you are not overcome.

Lord, your people could say they had been afflicted from their youth, wounded deeply and long, yet their affliction had not prevailed against them, because you are righteous and cut the cords of the wicked. When I have suffered long, give me that same stubborn faith: wounded but not destroyed, oppressed but not overcome. Cut the cords that bind me, and let me hold onto the hope that my affliction will not have the final word. In you I am not overcome. Amen.