Psalm 129:6

Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Which withereth afore it groweth up.—This clause, with its Aramaic colouring, probably contains a textual error. The context seems certainly to require the meaning “before it is plucked up,” and many scholars get this meaning out of the Hebrew verb used elsewhere of “plucking off a shoe” and “drawing a sword.” They give, which is no doubt legitimate, an impersonal sense to the active verb, “which withereth before one pulls it up.” The LXX. (received text), the Vulg., Theodotion, and the Quinta favour this rendering. On the other hand, the image of grass withering before it comes to maturity is exactly what we should expect here, growing as it does without soil (comp. the “seed on the rock” in the parable of the sower), and suggests a more complete and sudden destruction of the enemies, who perish before the abortive plans of evil can be carried out. The rendering of the Authorised Version is therefore to be retained, and is actually supported by Aquila, Symmachus, the Sexta, and in various readings of the LXX. A thatched cottage in our country might present the picture suggested by the verse, but it was much more familiar where the housetops were flat and plastered with a composition of mortar, tar, ashes, and sand, which, unless carefully rolled, would naturally become covered with weeds. Indeed, in many cases, especially on the poorest sort of houses, the roof would be little better than hard mud. For similar allusions comp. 2Kings 19:26 and Isaiah 37:27.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

129:5-8 While God's people shall flourish as the loaded palm-tree, or the green and fruitful olive, their enemies shall wither as the grass upon the house-tops, which in eastern countries are flat, and what grows there never ripens; so it is with the designs of God's enemies. No wise man will pray the Lord to bless these mowers or reapers. And when we remember how Jesus arose and reigns; how his people have been supported, like the burning but unconsumed bush, we shall not fear.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Let them be as the grass upon the housetops - The housetops, or roofs of houses, covered with sand or earth, in which seeds of grass may germinate and begin to grow, but where, as there is no depth of earth, and as the heat of the sun there would be intense, it would soon wither away. See the notes at Isaiah 37:27.

Which withereth afore it groweth up - This, even if it has any meaning, is not the meaning of the original. The idea in the Hebrew is - and it is so rendered in the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, and by Luther - "which before (one) pulls it, withers." Grass would wither or dry up, of course, if it were pulled up or cut down, but the grass here spoken of withers even before this is done. It has no depth of earth to sustain it; having sprouted, and begun to grow, it soon dies - a perfect image of feebleness and desolation; of hopes begun only to be disappointed. "This morning" (says Dr. Thomson, "Land and the Book," vol. ii., p. 574) "I saw a striking illustration of this most expressive figure. To obtain a good view of the Tyropean, my guide took me to the top of a house on the brow of Zion, and the grass which had grown over the roof during the rainy season was now entirely withered and perfectly dry."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5, 6. The ill-rooted roof grass, which withers before it grows up and procures for those gathering it no harvest blessing (Ru 2:4), sets forth the utter uselessness and the rejection of the wicked.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The house-tops there were flat, and therefore more capable of grass or green corn growing between the stones than ours are.

Which withereth afore it groweth up; which having no deep root, never comes to maturity. And so all their designs shall be abortive, and never come to perfection.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let them be as the grass upon the housetops,.... The tops of the houses in Judea were flat, and so grass grew upon them, being covered with plaster of terrace; though it was but small and weak, and being on high was exposed to the scorching sun, and soon withered (b); and Menochius says (c) he saw such roofs in the island of Corsica, flat, and having earth upon them, smoothed and pressed, on which grass grew of its own accord; but being burnt up in summertime by the sun, soon withered, as here said. But what Olaus Magnus (d) relates is somewhat extraordinary; that, in the northern Gothic countries, they feed their cattle on the tops of houses, especially in a time of siege; he describes their houses as built of stone, high and large, and covered with rafters of fir and bark of birch; upon which is laid grass earth, cut out of the fields foursquare, and sowed with barley or oats, so that their roofs look like green meadows; and that what is sown, and the grass that grows thereon, might not wither before plucked up, they very constantly and diligently water it; but in the eastern countries, which are hot, and have but little rain, grass could not retain its verdure long, as follows;

which withereth afore it groweth up; to any height, the usual height of grass: or, "before it is plucked up", as the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions; and so Jarchi. And this was their usual way of gathering in their corn; and which continues to this day, as Mr. Maundrell (e) affirms, who was an eyewitness to it in many places; where they plucked it up by handfuls from the roots, leaving the most fruitful fields as naked as if nothing had grown on them; and this they did for the sake of the straw, which was generally very short, and necessary for the sustenance of cattle; to which he thinks there is here a manifest allusion; but not corn, but grass, is here spoken of. The Targum is,

"before it flourisheth, an east wind cometh, blows upon it, and it is withered;''

and to the same purpose the Syriac version,

"which when the wind comes upon it, it fades and withers.''

This expresses the high and elevated state and condition of wicked men, the pride and haughtiness of their hearts; yet their weakness and frailty, and the danger they are exposed unto, through the wrath and vengeance of God upon them; when they consume and wither away like grass on the housetops, and never come to the happiness they are hoping and wishing for; see Isaiah 37:27.

(b) See Shaw's Travels, p. 210, 211. (c) De Republica Heb. l. 7. c. 5. p. 666. (d) De Ritu Gent. Septent. l. 9. c. 12. (e) Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 144. Ed. 7.

Geneva Study Bible

{c} Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up:

(c) The enemies who lift themselves high, and as it were approach the Sun, are consumed with the heat of God's wrath, because they are not grounded in godly humility.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. as the grass upon the housetops] Cp. Isaiah 37:27. Grass or corn springs up quickly on the flat roofs of oriental houses, but having no depth of soil (Matthew 13:5 f.) it withers prematurely away, and yields no joyous harvest.

afore it groweth up] Lit. before it has unsheathed, put out its flower-stalk and given promise of fruit. So let Zion’s enemies perish before they can mature their plots. The rendering of P.B.V., afore it be plucked up, is that of some MSS of the LXX, and the Vulg. (‘priusquam evellatur’), but though possible, is less suitable.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Let them be as the grass upon the housetops; literally, they shall be as the grass of housetops. The fiat roofs of Oriental houses are usually covered in early spring with a crop of bright-green grass. But the scorching rays of the sun soon burn this up, and it becomes dry and withered (see 'The Land and the Book,' p. 682; and comp. Isaiah 37:27). Which withereth afore it groweth up; literally, before it is unsheathed; i.e. before the blossom has left the sheath in which it is formed. Psalm 129:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The poet illustrates the fate that overtakes them by means of a picture borrowed from Isaiah and worked up (Psalm 37:27): they become like "grass of the housetops," etc. שׁ is a relative to יבשׁ (quod exarescit), and קדמת, priusquam, is Hebraized after מן־קדמת דּנה in Daniel 6:11, or מקּדמת דּנה in Ezra 5:11. שׁלף elsewhere has the signification "to draw forth" of a sword, shoe, or arrow, which is followed by the lxx, Theodotion, and the Quinta: πρὸ τοῦ ἐκσπασθῆναι, before it is plucked. But side by side with the ἐκσπασθῆναι of the lxx we also find the reading exanthee'sai; and in this sense Jerome renders (statim ut) viruerit, Symmachus ἐκκαυλῆσαι (to shoot into a stalk), Aquila ἀνέθαλεν, the Sexta ἐκστερεῶσαι (to attain to full solidity). The Targum paraphrases שׁלף in both senses: to shoot up and to pluck off. The former signification, after which Venema interprets: antequam se evaginet vel evaginetur, i.e., antequam e vaginulis suis se evolvat et succrescat, is also advocated by Parchon, Kimchi, and Aben-Ezra. In the same sense von Ortenberg conjectures שׁחלף. Since the grass of the house-tops or roofs, if one wishes to pull it up, can be pulled up just as well when it is withered as when it is green, and since it is the most natural thing to take חציר as the subject to שׁלף, we decide in favour of the intransitive signification, "to put itself forth, to develope, shoot forth into ear." The roof-grass withers before it has put forth ears of blossoms, just because it has no deep root, and therefore cannot stand against the heat of the sun.

(Note: So, too, Geiger in the Deutsche Morgenlndische Zeitschrift, xiv. 278f., according to whom Arab. slf (šlf) occurs in Saadia and Abu-Said in the signification "to be in the first maturity, to blossom," - a sense שׁלף may also have here; cf. the Talmudic שׁלופפי used of unripe dates that are still in blossom.)

The poet pursues the figure of the grass of the house-tops still further. The encompassing lap or bosom (κόλπος) is called elsewhere חצן (Isaiah 49:22; Nehemiah 5:13); here it is חצן, like the Arabic ḥiḍn (diminutive ḥoḍein), of the same root with מחוז, a creek, in Psalm 107:30. The enemies of Israel are as grass upon the house-tops, which is not garnered in; their life closes with sure destruction, the germ of which they (without any need for any rooting out) carry within themselves. The observation of Knapp, that any Western poet would have left off with Psalm 129:6, is based upon the error that Psalm 129:7-8 are an idle embellishment. The greeting addressed to the reapers in Psalm 129:8 is taken from life; it is not denied even to heathen reapers. Similarly Boaz (Ruth 2:4) greets them with "Jahve be with you," and receivers the counter-salutation, "Jahve bless thee." Here it is the passers-by who call out to those who are harvesting: The blessing (בּרכּת) of Jahve happen to you (אליכם,

(Note: Here and there עליכם is found as an error of the copyist. The Hebrew Psalter, Basel 1547, 12mo, notes it as a various reading.)

as in the Aaronitish blessing), and (since "we bless you in the name of Jahve" would be a purposeless excess of politeness in the mouth of the same speakers) receive in their turn the counter-salutation: We bless you in the name of Jahve. As a contrast it follows that there is before the righteous a garnering in of that which they have sown amidst the exchange of joyful benedictory greetings.