Psalms 128 · The Lantern

Blessed are all they that fear the Lord: and walk in his ways.

Blessed are all who fear the Lord. Just as no one can say 'The Lord is my portion' except the one who has no other portion in the world, so the one who fears anything else outside the Lord does not fear the Lord.

"Blessed are all who fear the Lord." The inspired word declared blessed not the one from Abraham's stock or from Israel's seed but the person adorned with the fear of God.

When he says, "Blessed are all who fear the Lord," he shows that they are not blessed who fear with troubled mind the dangers of the world when temporal property is lost. For those dangers make people wretched when they torment them with groundless fear. They have no advantage, but rather a dimunition. They do not know an ascent, but rather destruction.

For thou shalt eat the labours of thine hands: O well is thee, and happy shalt thou be.

Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine: upon the walls of thine house.

Your wife like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house. Solomon says that he wished to take wisdom as his bride. He says also in another place concerning wisdom: 'Love her, and she will embrace you: encompass her, and she will keep you.' Let us too, therefore, take this wife; let us hold her in our embraces, let us never let her go from our bosom, let her never flee from our…

Let us now come to the words, "Thy wife" [Psalm 128:3]: it is said unto Christ. His wife, therefore, is the Church: His Church, His wife, we ourselves are. "As a fruitful vineyard." But in whom is the vineyard fruitful?

Next: "Your sons will be as olive shoots around your table." In regards to Wisdom, the wife, rightly are the children called "sons," not "daughters." By the male sex strength of mind is often indicated.

Thy children like the olive-branches: round about thy table.

Lo, thus shall the man be blessed: that feareth the Lord.

The Lord from out of Sion shall so bless thee: that thou shalt see Jerusalem in prosperity all thy life long.

Yea, that thou shalt see thy children's children: and peace upon Israel.

Psalms128