A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM CXXIX.
_An exhortation to praise God for saving Israel in their great afflictions.—The haters of the church are cursed._ A Song of degrees. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say: Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me. The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows. The LORD _is_ righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked. Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion: Let them be as the grass _upon_ the house-tops, which withereth afore it groweth up: Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves, his bosom. Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the LORD _be_ upon you; we bless you in the name of the LORD. This is a Psalm of thanksgiving, wherein the people of Israel give thanks unto the God of Israel for his deliverances and consolations of every kind: seeing that from the beginning he had often mightily and marvellously delivered them from the hand of their enemies, as we have it recorded in the books of Judges and Kings; where we find that the Israelites were often oppressed by the cruel power and tyranny of their Gentile enemies, who afflicted them for a long time, and, as it were, ploughed upon their backs (as the Psalmist saith) and made long their furrows, and held them most cruelly under their yokes; until God sent them a Saviour, and delivered them both from the ploughers and the ploughs, and their yokes also.
At the conclusion, the Psalmist prays against them; or rather, prophesies that they shall perish, and shall be burnt up like grass upon the house-tops; as it also came to pass: for all the enemies and the nations that were adversaries unto Israel perished; but Israel remained, and was afterwards lifted up with new consolations. In the same way also all the wicked and the enemies of God and of his word, are like grass upon the house-tops; which flourishes, indeed, like a thriving garden, as if it would remain; but before it is grown up, it withers, is burnt up, and becomes of no use whatever. So also the enemies of the word, and all erroneous teachers, when they are shining in pride and magnifying themselves in their boastings against God, wither on a sudden like the falling grass; while Christians and the church of God flourish for evermore.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.