Psalms 129
“Greatly[a] have they afflicted me from my youth”—
let Israel now say—
2 “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth,
yet they have not prevailed against me.
3 The plowers plowed upon my back;
they made long their furrows.”
4 The Lord is righteous;
he has cut the cords of the wicked.
5 May all who hate Zion
be put to shame and turned backward!
6 Let them be like the grass on the housetops,
which withers before it grows up,
7 with which the reaper does not fill his hand
nor the binder of sheaves his arms,
8 nor do those who pass by say,
“The blessing of the Lord be upon you!
We bless you in the name of the Lord!”
This is one of many songs that is in the Septuagint. This psalm was originally song while making one of the three mandatory annual pilgrimages which is written about in Deuteronomy Chapter 16: The Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths. Each of these pilgrimages were to call the people of God back to their main place of worship. This was a way of returning and remembering the goodness and providence of God. The Septuagint consists of the psalms 119-133.
In our western practice of Christianity, these have been used in daily prayers, particularly in the monastic and vesper practices. These prayers are still practiced today in many monasteries and convents. They are part of the three, seven, or nine daily prayers. In these prayers it is similarly the original Hebrew prayers, it is remembering a time in which we were oppressed as a religion and now we have the freedom under God to worship.
In childhood and throughout our lives we all have been the victim of bullies and verbal abuse. Sometimes it is passive, but others times it is overt and harsh. This teasing or demeaning behaviors can have some harsh and irrevocable effects on the individual. We are currently transitioning into a more open and accepting world, but bullying and teasing are still current. We as adults have to listen and console our children and others who are subjected to this unjust behavior. We have to encourage our sons and young men to be sensitive to others needs and be affectionate to others without any stigmas or questions of their masculinity. We need to enrich our daughters in the ways of engineering and backcountry knowledge and help them to become reliable in all situations without a question of their femininity. This psalm reaches out to us to remember our youth and allows us to be emboldened to not have the same ignorance of our past to dictate that of our children. This psalm teaches us to not forget the past but to remember and then move forward.
The main portion of this psalm is hidden in the middle: THE LORD IS RIGHTEOUS. No matter what has afflicted us in the past or what we think should be of the ones that afflicted us, God is righteous and his grace will be given to us all the time. No matter what has been done to us or held from us, we cannot allow this to shape who we are in God’s eyes. He alone is righteous and give this to us. Let us remember the times of our youth: the good, bad, and the ugly. These times make us who we are because God used his righteous to keep us righteous for His sake.