The Scottish Robin Hood

Psalm 129

A song for the ascent to Jerusalem.

1From my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me—

let Israel now say—

2from my earliest youth my enemies have persecuted me,

but they have never been able to finish me off.

3My back is covered with cuts,

as if a farmer had plowed long furrows.

4But the LORD is good;

he has cut the cords used by the ungodly to bind me.

5May all who hate Jerusalem

be turned back in shameful defeat.

6May they be as useless as grass on a rooftop,

turning yellow when only half grown,

7ignored by the harvester,

despised by the binder.

8And may those who pass by refuse to give them this blessing:

“The LORD’s blessings be upon you;

we bless you in the LORD’s name.”

During the 1660s Alexander Peden was sort of a Scottish Robin Hood. In England, Cromwell had been overthrown, the monarchy had been restored, and Scottish Presbyterian ministers, of whom Peden was one, were treated as outlaws.

Ejected from his church, imprisoned in an isolated jail, and banished to a life of slavery in America, Peden escaped to London and was “dogged by spies and hunted by dragoons.” One historian writes: “Dogs sniffed at the entrance of the cave in which he was hiding. . . . Soldiers stabbed the beds or heaps of unthreshed wheat under which he lay.” Once closely pursued on horseback, Peden prayed to God to “cast the lap of thy cloak over old Sandy [himself],” and within minutes a mist covered the hills so he could escape.

Perhaps all these experiences are why Peden loved the Psalms—especially Psalm 129. No doubt he could identify with the suffering that David had endured, and he looked for the day when the tables would be turned.

For most of us, our suffering is nothing compared to what the psalmist and Alexander Peden have gone through, but we, too, long for the day when the tables are turned. Until that day, we can sing Alexander Peden’s other favorite psalm, Psalm 32:

Thou art my hiding place, thou shalt

From trouble keep me free;

Thou with songs of deliverance,

About shalt compass me.

OLD SCOTTISH PSALTER

A Word on Words

Regarding verse 6: “As the roofs of the common dwellings are flat, and instead of being built of stone or wood, are coated with plaster or hardened earth, a slight crop of grass frequently springs up. Such vegetation, having no soil into which it can strike its roots, and being exposed to a scorching sun, rarely attains to any great height, or continues long. It is a feeble stunted product and soon withers away.”

WILLIAM JOWETT