Psalm 128 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 128 (1928 BCP) is a Song of Ascents in the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer (1928). Its seven verses confess that the fear of the Lord is lived in ordinary obedience, labour, household life, and concern for Jerusalem. In the 1928 Prayer Book it is appointed at Evening Prayer on the twenty-seventh day of the month, immediately after Psalms 126 and 127.[1]
Prayer Book Text
BLESSED are all they that fear the LORD, * and walk in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labours of thine hands: * O well is thee, and happy shalt thou be.
Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine * upon the walls of thine house; Thy children like the olive-branches * round about thy table. Lo, thus shall the man be blessed * that feareth the LORD.
The LORD from out of Sion shall so bless thee, * that thou shalt see Jerusalem in prosperity all thy life long; Yea, that thou shalt see thy children's children, * and peace upon Israel.
The Psalm begins with a plural blessing, but addresses each worshipper personally: fearing the Lord takes visible form in walking in his ways, receiving daily bread gratefully, and seeking more than one's private advantage. The vine and olive branches are images of fruitful household life, not a mechanical promise that every faithful person will receive identical circumstances. The final movement is decisive: blessing comes “from out of Sion,” and the household's good is completed only in Jerusalem's welfare and Israel's peace.
Scripture and the Shape of Blessing
The Prayer Book's “O well is thee” should not be reduced to ease, wealth, or immunity from sorrow. The apostolic word holds present life and the life to come together:
For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
Thus Psalm 128 gives thanks for creaturely goods—work, food, marriage, children, and peace—without making them a measure by which to judge another person's faith. Its “fear” is reverent allegiance to God, shown in a path of obedience. John Calvin makes that link explicit in his historical Reformation commentary:
There is unquestionably no religion without the fear of God, and from this fear the Prophet represents our living according to the commandment and ordinance of God as proceeding.
Calvin's reading supports the Psalm's own pairing of fear and walking: fear is neither terror nor a private feeling, but the root from which a life ordered by God's commandments grows. He also warns that the temporal blessings named by the Psalm do not exhaust the Christian hope; they direct the faithful beyond themselves to God's fatherly care and the life to come.[7]
Household, Church, and Peace
The household images must be heard as blessing and vocation, never as a warrant to demean those who are unmarried, childless, bereaved, or burdened in family life. They teach the congregation to receive persons and daily provision as gifts, and to pray for faithful fruitfulness rather than possession or status. Their horizon is public and ecclesial: “Jerusalem in prosperity” and “peace upon Israel” prevent the household from becoming a closed private good.
Augustine's Christian interpretation is a theological reading offered within the Church, not a replacement for Israel's literal prayer. He hears the Psalm in relation to Christ and his body:
Let us therefore so hear this Psalm, as considering it to be spoken of Christ: and all of us who cling unto the Body of Christ, and have been made members of Christ, walk in the ways of the Lord; and let us fear the Lord with a chaste fear, with a fear that abides forever.
In the same interpretive tradition, Augustine treats Jerusalem's good and Israel's peace as finally oriented to the enduring city of God rather than to a fragile earthly security:
These are the good things of Jerusalem: for they are. And how long shall I see the good things of Jerusalem? All your life long. If your life be for ever, you will see the good things of Jerusalem for evermore.
That reading does not dissolve the Psalm's concern for homes, children, city, and people. It places those real concerns under the durable peace promised by God, so that Christians may pray Psalm 128 both with gratitude for present gifts and with hope for the peace made complete in Christ.
Liturgical Use
In the 1928 monthly cycle Psalm 128 is prayed at Evening Prayer on the twenty-seventh day, following Psalms 126 and 127. Its place after the restoration prayed for in Psalm 126 and the dependence confessed in Psalm 127 sharpens its teaching: the blessed life is received from the Lord, expressed in faithful labour and household thanksgiving, and widened into prayer for Jerusalem and Israel.[10]
See Also
External Links
- Psalm 128 in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
- Calvin, commentary on Psalm 128:1–3
- Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 128
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: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), Psalter, Psalm 128, Beati omnes, pp. 345–528, and “The Twenty-seventh Day. Evening Prayer”; Psalm 128 in the 1928 BCP Psalter.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), Psalter, Psalm 128:1–2, Beati omnes; Psalm 128 in the 1928 BCP Psalter.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), Psalter, Psalm 128:3–5, Beati omnes; Psalm 128 in the 1928 BCP Psalter.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), Psalter, Psalm 128:6–7, Beati omnes; Psalm 128 in the 1928 BCP Psalter.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version (Cambridge: University Press, 1769), 1 Timothy 4:8; Bible Gateway, 1 Timothy 4:8, KJV.
- ↑ John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 5, trans. James Anderson (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1849), commentary on Psalm 128:1; Christian Classics Ethereal Library edition.
- ↑ Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 5, commentary on Psalm 128:2–3; Christian Classics Ethereal Library edition.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 128, §2, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 8, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent transcription.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 128, §7, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 8, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); New Advent transcription.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), Psalter, Psalms 126–128 and “The Twenty-seventh Day. Evening Prayer”; 1928 BCP Psalms 126–128.