Psalm 126 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 126 (1928 BCP) (In convertendo) is a Song of Degrees in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (1928) Psalter. Appointed at Evening Prayer on the Twenty-seventh Day, it remembers the LORD's restoration of Sion, asks for a restoration still unfinished, and gives the Church words for faithful labour when joy has not yet displaced tears.
Prayer Book text
The Psalm begins in remembered deliverance. Its laughter is not a denial of former suffering: it is the astonishment of a people who have found that the LORD has acted for them.
WHEN the LORD turned again the captivity of Sion, * then were we like unto them that dream. 2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, * and our tongue with joy. 3 Then said they among the heathen, * The LORD hath done great things for them. 4 Yea, the LORD hath done great things for us already; * whereof we rejoice.
The thanksgiving does not make the Psalm complacent. The worshippers who say that the LORD has done great things also pray for work that remains to be done.
5 Turn our captivity, O LORD, * as the rivers in the south. 6 They that sow in tears * shall reap in joy. 7 He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed, * shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him.
Restoration remembered and still sought
The two movements belong together. It praises a concrete mercy already received, then turns that memory into petition. “Captivity” therefore should not be reduced to a private mood: the historical horizon is a scattered people restored to its land, while the prayer teaches later worshippers to seek God's continued healing.
The primary sense here is obviously that the return of the exiles was not complete; and it is most probable that the date of the Psalm is hereby fixed as that of the first migration under Zerubbabel, after the decree of Cyrus; and that the first colony, now safe at Jerusalem, joins its prayers to those of the yet distant exiles, that they may be soon united together in their own land and city and temple.
This is an interpretation, not a substitute for the Psalm's own voice; it explains why praise and pleading occur in one poem. At Evening Prayer the congregation gives thanks without presuming that grief, division, and need have ceased.
Augustine receives the historical Babylonian return as a figure of the Christian pilgrim's hope, but he first acknowledges the Psalm's language of captivity and return:
The shadow of that Sion, which was granted to the Jews, in an image, in a figure, was in captivity in Babylonia, and after seventy years that people turned back to its own city.... But when all time is past, then we return to our country, as after seventy years that people returned from the Babylonish captivity.
This is historic Christian theological reception, not a denial that Israel's restoration is the Psalm's literal setting. Christians pray it as pilgrims whose joy is real while their final home is still hoped for.
Rivers in the south
Verse 5 asks for abundance where dryness has been visible. Neale and Littledale explain the geographical force of the comparison:
The south, as the region most exposed to the scorching heats of summer, naturally has its water-courses dried up very rapidly, so that the whole land through which they pass becomes parched and arid. The simile is then that of the sudden flooding of these channels by the streams descending from the northern heights when swollen with the winter rain.
The prayer is thus not vague optimism. It asks God to make an apparently barren condition fruitful and living again. The hope is in the LORD's renewing action, not in a claim that the channel was never dry.
Tears, seed, and Christian patience
The Psalm does not praise sorrow for its own sake. Tears belong to sowing: faithful work undertaken when the harvest is not yet in hand. James uses the same agricultural patience for a community awaiting the Lord:
Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.
James does not identify every form of tears with holy sowing, nor does Psalm 126 promise that every project succeeds on its own schedule. Together they teach patient hearts grounded in the Lord's coming and in God's power to bring a harvest beyond the sower's control.
Augustine gives the Psalm an explicitly ethical and ecclesial application:
In this life, which is full of tears, let us sow. What shall we sow? Good works. Works of mercy are our seeds.... Your soil is the Church; sow as much as you can. But you have not enough to do this. Have you the will? As what you had would be nothing, if you had not a good will; so do not despond, because you have not, if you have a good will.
The interpretation does not spiritualize away grief. It names mercy, generosity, and mutual service as the patient work of people who trust God's promise of joy. The final picture is concrete: the one who goes out weeping returns bearing sheaves.
Although we sow in tears, yet shall we reap in joy. For in that resurrection of the dead, each man shall receive his own sheaves, that is, the produce of his seed, the crown of joys and of delight.
Augustine's resurrection reading is a Christian interpretation, not the only level of the Psalm. It names why the Church can pray this song without romanticizing loss: the promised joy is God's gift, and the harvest belongs to the Lord who restores captives.
Use in the Daily Office
At Evening Prayer on the Twenty-seventh Day, Psalm 126 begins the next set of Songs of Degrees. It gives a congregation a disciplined way to remember grace, ask for unfinished restoration, and persevere in mercy and prayer. Its recurring use refuses two temptations: forgetting deliverance already given, and pretending that a remembered deliverance has removed the need to ask again, “Turn our captivity, O LORD.”
See Also
- Book of Common Prayer (1928)
- The Psalter (1928 BCP)
- Daily Office (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 125 (1928 BCP)
- Psalm 127 (1928 BCP)
External Links
- Psalm 126 in the 1928 Prayer Book Psalter
- Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 126
- Neale and Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms, vol. IV
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 126, In convertendo, vv. 1–4, “The Twenty-seventh Day: Evening Prayer”; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. Title, wording, capitalization, punctuation, verse order, and appointment were compared word for word with
sources/justus1928/Psalms3.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 126, In convertendo, vv. 5–7; Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter,” 1928 BCP transcription. The complete seven-verse Psalm was checked against the named local 1928 source.
- ↑ John Mason Neale and Richard Frederick Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms: from Primitive and Mediaeval Writers; and from the Various Office-books and Hymns of the Roman, Mozarabic, Ambrosian, Gallican, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, and Syrian Rites, vol. IV, Psalms CXIX–CL, 2nd ed. (London: Joseph Masters, 1874), Psalm CXXVI, p. 206, commentary on v. 5; Internet Archive, scan of the 1874 volume. The quotation was checked against the Internet Archive full-text transcription of that identified edition.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 126, §2, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 126”. New Advent identifies the translation, editor, series, volume, publisher, and year; the quotation was checked against its transcription.
- ↑ Neale and Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms, vol. IV, 2nd ed. (London: Joseph Masters, 1874), Psalm CXXVI, p. 206, commentary on v. 5; Internet Archive, scan of the 1874 volume. The wording was verified against the full-text transcription of the named scan.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (Cambridge: University Press, 1769), James 5:7–8; Bible Gateway, “James 5:7–8, KJV”.
- ↑ Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 126, §8, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 126”. The quotation was checked against the cited text; it is Augustine's pastoral interpretation of vv. 6–7.
- ↑ Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 126, §10, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 126”. This wording and section were verified against New Advent's transcription of Tweed's 1888 translation.