Psalm 129:4

The LORD is righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) The Lord is righteous.—This expression of faith, introduced without any conjunction, is itself a revelation of the deeply-rooted religion of Israel.

Cords.—Literally, cord. As in Psalm 124:7, the net was broken and the bird escaped, so here the cord binding the slave (comp. Psalm 2:3) is severed and he goes free.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

129:1-4 The enemies of God's people have very barbarously endeavoured to wear out the saints of the Most High. But the church has been always graciously delivered. Christ has built his church upon a rock. And the Lord has many ways of disabling wicked men from doing the mischief they design against his church. The Lord is righteous in not suffering Israel to be ruined; he has promised to preserve a people to himself.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The Lord is righteous - Righteous in permitting this; righteous in what he has done, and will do, in the treatment of those who inflict such wrongs. We may now safely commit our cause to him in view of what he has done in the past. He was not indifferent then to our sufferings, or deaf to the eries of his people; he interposed and punished the oppressors of his people, and we may trust him still.

He hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked - By which they bound us. He did this in our "youth;" when we were oppressed and beaten in Egypt. Then he interposed, and set us free.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4. the cords—that is, which fasten the plough to the ox; and cutting denotes God's arresting the persecution;

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Righteous; faithful or merciful, as that word is frequently used.

Cut asunder the cords wherewith the plough was drawn; by which means they were stopped in their course. So he persists in the same metaphor of a plough. By these

cords he understands all their plots and endeavours.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord is righteous,.... Or gracious and merciful; hence acts of mercy are called righteousness in the Hebrew language; the Lord has compassion on his people under their afflictions, and delivers them; or is faithful to his promises of salvation to them, and just and righteous to render tribulation to them that trouble them, and take vengeance upon them;

he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked: alluding to the cords with which the plough is fastened to the oxen, which being cut, they cannot go on ploughing; or to the cords of whips, which when, cut cannot be used to any purpose: it designs the breaking of the confederacies of wicked men against the people of God; the confounding their counsels and schemes, and disappointing their devices; so that they cannot perform their enterprises, or carry their designs into execution, or go on with and finish their intentions. The Targum renders it,

"the chains of the wicked;''

see Isaiah 5:18.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD is {b} righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.

(b) Because God is righteous, he cannot but plague his adversary, and deliver his as oxen out of the plough.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. The Lord is righteous: he &c.] Better, Jehovah the righteous hath cut asunder. The same attribute of righteousness which compels Him to punish (Nehemiah 9:33) binds Him to deliver, for it involves faithfulness to His covenant. Cp. Psalm 51:14 note; Isaiah 45:21.

cords] The word usually denotes the straps or bands by which the yoke was fastened on to the neck of the ox (Job 39:10). If the metaphor of the preceding verse is continued, the meaning is that the plower’s harness is broken so that they can no longer continue their work. But the figure may be changed; Israel may be the ox, and the cords those which fasten the yoke of servitude upon its neck. Or ‘cords’ may be used generally as a figure for subjection. Cp. Psalm 2:3. The reference is to the deliverance of Israel from successive oppressions, but especially to the great deliverance from the captivity in Babylon, and to the escape which is the theme of Psalms 124.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - The Lord is righteous. Still, God is just. He allowed these sufferings to be inflicted on us because we deserved them; and he interposed on our behalf when we had been sufficiently punished, and cut asunder the cords of the wicked. Cut, i.e., the cords wherewith they had bound us. The "retrospect" here ends, and in the next verse the "anticipation" begins. Psalm 129:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Elsewhere it is said that the enemies have driven over Israel (Psalm 66:12), or have gone over its back (Isaiah 51:23); here the customary figurative language חרשׁ און in Job 4:8 (cf. Hosea 10:13) is extended to another figure of hostile dealing: without compassion and without consideration they ill-treated the stretched-forth back of the people who were held in subjection, as though it were arable land, and, without restraining their ferocity and setting a limit to their spoiling of the enslaved people and country, they drew their furrow-strip (מעניתם, according to the Ker מענותם) long. But מענה does not signify (as Keil on 1 Samuel 14:14 is of opinion, although explaining the passage more correctly than Thenius) the furrow ( equals תּלם, גּדוּד), but, like Arab. ma‛nât, a strip of arable land which the ploughman takes in hand at one time, at both ends of which consequently the ploughing team (צמד) always comes to a stand, turns round, and ploughs a new furrow; from ענה, to bend, turn (vid., Wetzstein's Excursus II p. . It is therefore: they drew their furrow-turning long (dative of the object instead of the accusative with Hiph., as e.g., in Isaiah 29:2, cf. with Piel in Psalm 34:4; Psalm 116:16, and Kal Psalm 69:6, after the Aramaic style, although it is not unhebraic). Righteous is Jahve - this is an universal truth, which has been verified in the present circumstances; - He hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked (עבות as in Psalm 2:3; here, however, it is suggested by the metaphor in Psalm 129:3, cf. Job 39:10; lxx αὐχένας, i.e., ענוק), with which they held Israel bound. From that which has just been experienced Israel derives the hope that all Zion's haters (a newly coined name for the enemies of the religion of Israel) will be obliged to retreat with shame and confusion.