Psalms 127:1 - Meaning and Application

We are taught here to keep God’s providence in view in all the affairs of this life. Solomon was praised as a wise man, and he may have been tempted to trust his own judgment and plans. So his father tells him to look higher and take God with him in all his work. He was to be a man of business, so David teaches him how to handle business under the rule of religion.

Parents should shape their advice to their children’s situation and needs. We must look to God in all the matters of the household, even in the royal house, because kings’ homes are no safer than God makes them. We must depend on God’s blessing, not on our own plans, for the raising of a family. “Except the Lord build the house” means that, unless God gives success and blessing, the builders labor in vain, even if they are very skillful.

This may refer to an actual house. Unless the Lord blesses the building, the work is pointless, as with the builders of Babel or Hiel, who built Jericho under a curse. If the plan is shaped by pride and empty ambition, or if the foundation is laid in oppression and injustice (Hab 2:11, Hab 2:12), God is certainly not building there. In fact, if God is not acknowledged, we should not expect his blessing, and without his blessing everything amounts to nothing.

More likely, the verse speaks of making a family great that once was small. People try to do this through good marriages, offices, jobs, and purchases, but all of it is useless unless God raises the family up. The best-planned project fails unless God crowns it with success. See Mal 1:4.

The same is true for keeping a family or a city safe, which is what the psalmist especially mentions. If the guards of a city cannot protect it without God, then the head of a household can hardly keep his own house safe from ruin. “Except the Lord keep the city” means that watchmen, even if they stay alert and never sleep, guard in vain if God does not protect the city from fire or enemies. Guards may be killed, or the city may be betrayed and lost, through countless events that no watchman or governor can prevent.

The same is true for making a family rich. This takes time and thought, but it cannot be done without God’s favor any more than sudden success can. It is useless to rise early and stay up late, wearing yourself out in the chase after wealth. Some people are so set on the world that they do both, stealing sleep to feed their worries. They have little comfort even at meals, because they eat “the bread of sorrows.” We are already under the curse of eating bread by the sweat of our face, but they go farther, spending all their days in anxiety and darkness (Ecc 5:17). Care fills their hearts, spoils their comforts, and makes life heavy.

All this effort is to get money, yet it is all in vain unless God gives success, because riches do not always come to the wise (Ecc 9:11). Those who love God and are loved by him can live peacefully without all this strain. Solomon was called Jedidiah, which means Beloved of the Lord (Sa2 12:25). The kingdom was promised to him, so it was useless for Absalom to get up early and win people over, or for Adonijah to make such a stir and say, “I will be king.” Solomon could rest, and because he was beloved by the Lord, God gave him sleep and the kingdom too.

The lesson is clear. Excessive worry about the things of this world is empty and fruitless. We wear ourselves out for things that pass away, and often we wear ourselves out in vain (Hag 1:6, Hag 1:9). Bodily sleep is a gift from God to those he loves. We owe it to his goodness that our sleep is safe (Psa 4:8) and sweet (Jer 31:25, Jer 31:26). God gives sleep to his beloved when he gives them grace to lie down in his fear, with their souls returning to him and resting in him. He also gives it when we wake and remain with him, using the strength sleep gives us in his service.

He gives his beloved sleep in another sense too, meaning quietness of mind, contentment, and a peaceful enjoyment of what we have now, along with a calm hope for what is coming. Our duty is to keep ourselves in God’s love. Then we can be at ease whether we have little or much of this world.

The psalm also teaches, in the increase of the family, that children are God’s gift. If children are withheld, it is God who withholds them (Gen 30:2). If they are given, it is God who gives them (Gen 33:5). They are to us whatever he makes them, comforts or crosses. Solomon had many wives, against the law, but we do not read that he had more than one son. Those who want children as a heritage from the Lord must receive them in the way God has appointed, through lawful marriage to one wife. See Mal 2:15. Children are a heritage and a reward, and should be counted as blessings, not burdens, because the one who gives mouths will also give food if we trust him.

Obed-edom, who cared for the ark, had eight sons, because the Lord blessed him (Ch1 26:5). Children are a heritage from the Lord and also for the Lord. They are God’s children, as he says, “my children, whom you gave birth to for me” (Eze 16:20). They are most of our honor and comfort when we bring them up for him, as a generation belonging to God.

Children are also a good gift and a strong support to a family. “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man” who knows how to use them for safety and advantage, “so are children of the youth.” This may mean children born when their parents are young, so they grow up in time to serve them when needed. Or it may mean children who are still young, since they can still be useful to their parents and family. They can strengthen the household against its enemies.

A family with many children is like a quiver full of arrows. The arrows may differ in size, but all of them can be useful at one time or another. In the same way, children with different abilities and temperaments can each serve the family in different ways. A man who has many children can confidently face his enemy at the gate in court, and in battle he need not fear, because he has many able helpers, loyal supporters, and strong young defenders (Sa1 2:4, Sa1 2:5).

Notice here that children born in a person’s youth are like arrows in the hand. With care and wisdom, they can be aimed rightly at the target, which is God’s glory and useful service to their own generation. But once they have gone out into the world, they are like arrows out of the hand. Then it is often too late to bend them in the right direction.

Yet these arrows in the hand often become arrows in the heart. They bring lasting sorrow to godly parents, and many a time they drag their gray hairs down to the grave with grief.