Psalm 126
Praying to the Lord of the harvest.
When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Ps. 126:1.
When Zion’s fortunes were restored, Her captives by her cov’nant LORD, We dreamlike were, and then our tongue And mouth were filled with happy song: O thank the LORD, his goodness sure! His steadfast love shall e’er endure! The nations all proclaimed it then, “The LORD has done great things for them.” The LORD for us has done great things; Our ransomed soul with gladness rings. O thank the LORD, his goodness sure! His steadfast love shall e’er endure! Restore our fortunes, cov’nant LORD, Like streams upon the desert poured; Those who have sown in tears the grain Shall reap with shouts of joy again. O thank the LORD, his goodness sure! His steadfast love shall e’er endure! The one who goes in weeping out To sow with tears his seed about, The same with shouts of joy shall come To bring his fruitful harvest home. O thank the LORD, his goodness sure! His steadfast love shall e’er endure! —5/26/26. To “Veni Emmanuel.”
References:
Psalms 126; 107:1-3 (link)
Note: Depending on a congregation’s preferred translation, the refrain’s last line could run “His lovingkindness shall endure,” and the third verse could begin “Restore our captives.”
I love the songs of ascents (Pss. 120-134). They are all at once pithy, piquant, and poignant. They live squarely in the already/not yet interstice. They are absolute gems and I wish that English worship had the capacity to sing them exactly as they are. Hear, for instance, the Sons of Korah’s setting of Psalm 131:
I have to work so hard to write (really, adapt) anything that stirs my soul as naturally as that one line, “O Israel, hope in the LORD!” Yeats said, “a line will take us hours maybe,” yet here is the Spirit, done, a few thousand before I was born. All else is commentary. All I can ask is grace to fashion settings of silver worthy of his golden apples (Prov. 25:11).
And truth be told, the majesty of the songs of ascents is such that I tremble to touch them. Once I was not; I versified 134 ages and ages ago, and I remain unashamed of that, but I don’t know how I’d do it now. It is so tight! Look at the centrality of the Lord and his place in each line! Look at how it turns from blessing the Lord in vv. 1-2 to his own benediction in v. 3! Look to the Lord Jesus himself as the singer, calling his brothers to bless his father and his father to bless his saints! How far did the praises of the night singers echo through the sleepy streets of Jerusalem, a ceaseless lullaby, maybe, as God himself watched over her from his dwelling in her midst? What does the night of heaven look like, during which and its day the praises of the Lord God Almighty do not cease (Rev. 4:8)?
I digress. I have a great love for this psalm (126 now) and where it parks itself. It speaks of the restoration (of fortunes, as ESV? of captives, as most other translations? of all things, Acts 3:21?) as both past and future. It’s already happened; please bring it about. Come, Lord Jesus.
I said I am fearful to put my hands all over the songs of ascents. I would like to think reverent fear, as for the Father, not timorous fear, out which perfect love casts. But I hope I do honor his majesty when I leave his thought mostly untouched where another might dig in for Christ a little more. As Scripture, after all, the psalm is about him. Dr Watts, excellent as always, straightway applies it to conversion.
And I do confess it is not my own wisdom that found him in v. 6. The psalm shifts from “those” to “he” there, and I didn’t even realize what that signified until after I’d finished. “He” is Christ! He went out weeping to sow and shall come in with shouts of joy, and I suspect we are the sheaves he is bringing in. The fields are white, he did say. And the concordance for “sheaves” lends some credence to this idea, from Joseph’s dream to the prophets’ doom. I hope in my adaptation I have adequately captured the idea that the Lord Jesus is the archetypal sower/reaper without on the one hand obscuring his glory nor on the other cutting off his promise from his saints in him.
The tune (“O come, O come, Emmanuel”) is also beloved, not least for how it elevates what could be a goofy meter and rhyme scheme. (It’s so easy yet deadly to read AABB rhymes in a singsong voice.) To my ears it blends the already and the not yet in a way that is already familiar to us because of the carol’s association. That, too, longs for Christ to come while rejoicing that he has.
Surely he is coming soon. Amen! Come, Lord Jesus.