Psalms 129 · The Lantern

A song of ascents. Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth — let Israel now say —

The Cords of the Wicked

greatly have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me.

They often attacked me from my youth: and indeed they could not prevail against me. They attacked me with base thoughts, they attacked me with anger.

"Now may Israel say." She now seemeth to be speaking of herself: for she seemed not to have commenced herself, but to have answered. But to whom hath she replied? To them that think and say, How great evils do we endure, how great are the scandals that every day thicken, as the wicked enter into the Church, and we have to endure them?

"They have often attacked me from my youth, but as a matter of fact they did not prevail against me." And in the earlier, fifth psalm of ascent there is a similar beginning. This figure of speech is called "anaphora," that is, a repetition of the same word at the beginning of a number of verses.

On my back plowmen have plowed; they lengthened their furrows.

The LORD is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked.

Let all who hate Zion be ashamed and turned back.

Let them be like grass on the roofs, which withers before it is drawn out,

with which the reaper does not fill his palm, nor the binder of sheaves his bosom;

and those passing by do not say, “The blessing of the LORD be upon you; we bless you in the name of the LORD.”

Psalms129

The Cords of the Wicked