Psalms 128:2-3

128:2 You ¹  will eat what you worked so hard to grow. ² 

You will be blessed and secure. ³ 

128:3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine ⁴ 

in the inner rooms of your house;

your children ⁵  will be like olive branches,

as they sit all around your table.

[128:2]  ¹ tn The psalmist addresses the representative God-fearing man, as indicated by the references to “your wife” (v. 3) and “the man” (v. 4), as well as the second masculine singular pronominal and verbal forms in vv. 2-6.

[128:2]  ² tn Heb “the work of your hands, indeed you will eat.”

[128:2]  ³ tn Heb “how blessed you [will be] and it will be good for you.”

[128:3]  ⁴ sn The metaphor of the fruitful vine pictures the wife as fertile; she will give her husband numerous children (see the next line).

[128:3]  ⁵ tn One could translate “sons” (see Ps 127:3 and the note on the word “sons” there), but here the term seems to refer more generally to children of both genders.