Psalm 129:7

Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

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

Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand - It cannot be gathered and laid up for the use of cattle, as grass can that grows in the field. It is valueless for any such purpose; or, is utterly worthless. The phrase "filleth not his hand" seems to be derived from the idea of reaping, where the reaper with one hand takes hold of the grain which he reaps, and cuts it off with the sickle in the other.

Nor he that bindeth sheaves - The man who gathers in the harvest. This was commonly performed by a different person from the reaper.

His bosom - This word would commonly refer to the bosom of the garment, in which tilings were carried; or that part above the girdle. It may be used here, however, in a larger sense - since it is incongruous to suppose that sheaves of grain would be carried thus - as meaning simply that one who gathered the sheaves would usually convey them in his arms, folding them to his bosom.

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

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand,.... Such grass never rises high enough to be mowed, nor is of that account to have such pains taken with it; nor the quantity so large as to fill a mower's hand, and carry it away in his arms;

nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom; when corn is mowed or reaped, the binders come and gather it up in their arms, and bind it in sheaves, and then bring it into the barn; but nothing of this kind is done with grass on the housetops. This represents the insignificancy and worthlessness of wicked men; who, when the harvest comes, the end of the world, will not be gathered in by the reapers, the angels, into Christ's garner into heaven as the wheat, the righteous will; but like the tares and chaff will be cast into unquenchable fire, Matthew 3:12.

Geneva Study Bible

Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. mower] Reaper (R.V.). The ‘grass’ includes corn springing from grains accidentally dropped on the roof.

bosom] The ‘lap’ or loose fold of the garment, which could be used for collecting the ears of corn. Cp. Nehemiah 5:13. Children were carried in it (Isaiah 49:22).

7, 8. An expansion of the simile (cp. Psalm 127:4-5).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand. Which is so worthless that no one takes the trouble to mow it. Nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. Much less does any one bind it into sheaves and store it away. Psalm 129:7

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.