Psalm 128:3-4 Your wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of your house: your children like olive plants round about your table.… There are trailing slatterns, like brambles and nettles, who leave conspicuous in a dwelling what they should conceal, and choke with unsightliness and discomfort what ought to be kept clear; who cause what would be attractive to offend, render what is repulsive more so, and, themselves the most forbidding objects, drive their toil-worn husbands to the seat of the scornful and the bower of sin. The woman pictured in the song is not to be seen lounging at the door, an idle gossip, with something to say to every passer-by, but attends to her duties in the interior of the dwelling, and, like her husband, fears the Lord (Proverbs 9:13, 14; Amos 6:10). The clinging vine is a symbol of attachment, grace, and fruitfulness, dressing the props and walls to which its curling tendrils hold, with leaves that shade the verandah and cool the house, and enriching them with clusters of juicy fruit "that maketh glad the heart of man" (Psalm 104:15). The pious and loving wife, the screen, the adornment, and crown of the God-fearing husband who is her support and strength, so spreads the table that, however plain, it is a feast; so pours the water that it turns to wine; so smiles that all the room shines with comfort and pleasure; so speaks that the house is full of charming music; so lives that the master is happy everywhere because most happy when at home. (E. J. Robinson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. |
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