Psalms 126

Subsection 3. (Psalms 126:1-6; Psalms 127:1-5; Psalms 128:1-6.)Jehovah displaying Himself for His people. The third series, while it speaks uniformly of blessing, and exalts Jehovah as the gracious Source of all, shows no less how far below the New Testament standpoint we are here, necessarily. The blessing is earthly, not heavenly nay, in things purely “natural,” as we say; that is, pertaining to the sphere of the first creation. It does not reach to the eternal state, even of the earth; and the Old Testament as a whole has but the promise of the “new earth,” no open manifestation of its blessedness. The psalms are, here again, all of remarkably simple character.

Psalms 126:1-6

The grace and faithfulness of His ways. A song of the ascents. Zion’s captivity is turned, and God’s wonderful grace to Israel seems yet almost too great to be believed. Yet it is real; and all the world is speaking of it. The nations have learned to speak of Jehovah, and of the great things He has done; and their hearts echo this with gladness: Jehovah has done great things indeed. The fourth verse prays for the full accomplishment -probably the entire return now of their scattered tribes, so that the land may receive again the streams of her population; as the dry channels of the south receive in due time the fresh and abundant water. Those dry beds speak of Israel in her time of drought, when her only rain was the tears with which she bedewed the earth; and God has to appoint to His people, because of what they are, such seasons of disciplinary sorrow. Yet not of themselves will these be fruitful. Fruit can only come from the seed which, thrown into the furrows, has in it the new life which is to reward the sower’s toil. And Israel will have had these patient sowers, the “wise,” of Daniel’s prophecy, who shall “turn many to righteousness,” and whose sheaves shall be brought in with harvest-songs. So will the grace of God’s ways be manifest, as well as His faithful dealing with His own. In this sense also does it reign through righteousness.