#Psalms#Psalms128http://biblebitbybit.blogspot.com/2016/02/psalms-128-v-2.html
Posted by Psalms on Friday, 12 February 2016
Psalms 128:2
For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
128:2. For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands. The general doctrine of the first verse here receives a personal application: note the change to the second person: thou shalt eat … This is the portion of God’s saints—to work and to find a reward in so doing. God is the God of laborers. We are not to leave our worldly callings because the Lord has called us by grace; we are not promised a blessing upon romantic idleness or unreasonable dreaming, but upon hard work and honest industry. He will give us daily bread, but it must be made our own by labor. All kinds of labor are here included; for if one toils by the sweat of his brow, and another does so by the sweat of his brain, there is no difference in the blessing; save that it is generally more healthy to work with the body than with the mind only. Without God it would be vain to labor; but when we are laborers together with God a promise is set before us. The promise is that labor will be fruitful, and that he who performs it will himself enjoy the recompense of it. It is a grievous ill for a man to slave his life away and receive no fair remuneration for his toil. Some never enjoy their labor, for they give themselves no time for rest. Eagerness to get takes from them the ability to enjoy. Surely, if it is worthwhile to labor, it is worthwhile to eat of that labor.
Happy shalt thou be, or, Oh, thy happinesses. Heaped up happinesses in the plural belong to that man who fears the Lord.
And it shall be well with thee, or, good for thee. In walking in God’s ways we shall be under his protection, provision, and approval; danger and destruction will be far from us: all things will work our good. In God’s view it would not be a blessed thing for us to live without exertion, nor to eat the unearned bread of dependence: the happiest state on earth is one in which we have something to do, strength to do it, and a fair return for what we have done. This, with the divine blessing, is all that we ought to desire.
The Treasury of David by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
e-Sword v 9.5.1 Copyright 2000-2009 Rick Meyers
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