Psalm 127
127:1. Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it. The word vain is the keynote here, and we hear it ring out clearly three times. People desiring to build know that they must labor, and accordingly they put forth all their skill and strength; but let them remember that if Jehovah is not with them their designs will prove failures. So was it with the Babel builders; they said, “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower”; and the Lord returned their words, saying, “Go to, let us go down and there confound their language.” In vain they toiled, for the Lord’s face was against them. When Solomon resolved to build a house for the Lord, matters were very different, for all things united under God to aid him in his great undertaking: even the heathen were at his beck and call that he might erect a temple for the Lord his God. In the same manner God blessed him in the erection of his own palace; for this verse evidently refers to all sorts of house-building. Without God we are nothing. Great houses have been erected by ambitious men; but like the baseless fabric of a vision they have passed away, and scarce a stone remains to tell where once they stood.
Except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Note that the psalmist does not bid the builder cease from laboring, nor suggest that watchmen should neglect their duty, nor that people should show their trust in God by doing nothing; he supposes that they will do all that they can and assures them that all creature effort will be in vain unless the Creator puts forth his power.
In Scriptural phrase a dispensation or system is called a house. Moses was faithful as a servant over all his house; and as long as the Lord was with that house it stood and prospered; but when he left it, the builders of it became foolish and their labor was lost. They sought to maintain the walls of Judaism, but sought in vain: they watched around every ceremony and tradition, but their care was idle. Of every church, and every system of religious thought, this is equally true: unless the Lord is in it, and is honored by it, the whole structure must sooner or later fall in hopeless ruin.
127:2. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. We are bound to be diligent, for this the Lord blesses; we ought not to be anxious, for that dishonors the Lord, and can never secure his favor. Some deny themselves needful rest. They threaten to brings themselves into the sleep of death by neglect of the sleep which refreshes life. They stint themselves in their meals, they eat the commonest kind of food, and the smallest possible quantity of it, and what they do swallow is washed down with the salty tears of grief, for they fear that daily bread will fail them. Hard earned is their food, scantily rationed, and scarcely ever sweetened, but perpetually smeared with sorrow; and all because they have no faith in God, and find no joy except in hoarding up the gold which is their only trust. Not thus, not thus, would the Lord have his children live. He would have them, as princes of the race, lead a happy and restful life.
For so he giveth his beloved sleep. Through faith the Lord makes his chosen ones to rest in him in happy freedom from care. The text may mean that God gives blessings to his beloved in sleep, just as he gave Solomon the desire of his heart while he slept. The meaning is much the same: those whom the Lord loves are delivered from the fret and fume of life. God is sure to give the best thing to his beloved, and we here see that he gives them sleep—a laying aside of care, a forgetfulness of need, a quiet leaving of matters with God: this kind of sleep is better than riches and honor. Note how Jesus slept amid the hurly-burly of a storm at sea. He knew that he was in his Father’s hands.
127:3. Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD. This points to another mode of building up a house, namely, by leaving descendants to keep our name and family alive upon the earth. Without this what is a man’s purpose in accumulating wealth? Yet in this matter a man is powerless without the Lord.
And the fruit of the womb is his reward, or a reward from God. He gives children, not as a penalty nor as a burden, but as a favor. They are a token for good if men know how to receive them, and educate them. Where society is rightly ordered children are regarded, not as an incumbrance, but as an inheritance; and they are received, not with regret, but as a reward. With all the straits of limited incomes, our best possessions are our own dear offspring, for whom we bless God every day.
127:4. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Children born to men in their early days, by God’s blessing become the comfort of their riper years. A man of war is glad of weapons which may fly where he cannot; good sons are their father’s arrows speeding to hit the mark which their sires aim at. What wonders a good man can accomplish if he has affectionate children to second his desires, and lend themselves to his designs! To this end we must have our children in hand while they are yet children, or they are never likely to be so when they are grown up; and we must try to point them and straighten them, so as to make arrows of them in their youth, lest they should prove crooked and unserviceable in after life. Let the Lord favor us with loyal, obedient, affectionate offspring, and we shall find in them our best helpers. We shall see them shot forth into life to our comfort and delight, if we take care from the very beginning that they are directed to the right point.
127:5. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. Those who have no children bewail the fact. The writer of this comment gives it as his own observation that he has seen the most frequent unhappiness in marriages which are unfruitful; that he has himself been most grateful for two of the best of sons; but as they have both grown up, and he has no child at home, he has without a tinge of grumbling, or even wishing that he were otherwise circumstanced, felt that it might have been a blessing to have had a more numerous family. He therefore heartily agrees with the psalmist’s verdict herein expressed. A quiver may be small and yet full; and then the blessing is obtained. In any case we may be sure that a man’s life consists not in the abundance of children that he possesses.
They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. They can meet foes both in law and in right. Nobody cares to meddle with a man who can gather a clan of brave sons about him. Does not the Lord Jesus thus triumph in his offspring? Looked at literally, this favor comes of the Lord: without his will there would be no children to build up the house, and without his grace there would be no good children to be their parents’ strength. If this must be left with the Lord, let us leave every other thing in the same hands. He will undertake for us and prosper our trustful endeavors, and we shall enjoy a tranquil life, and prove ourselves to be our Lord’s beloved by the calm and quiet of our spirit. We need not doubt that if God gives us children as a reward he will also send us the food and raiment which he knows they need.
He who is the father of a host of spiritual children is unquestionably happy. He can answer all opponents by pointing to souls who have been saved by his means. Converts are emphatically the heritage of the Lord, and the reward of the preacher’s soul-travail. By these, under the power of the Holy Spirit, the city of the church is built up and watched, and the Lord has the glory of it.
The Treasury of David by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
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