Nurtured And Sent

Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine,

flourishing within your home.

Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees

as they sit around your table.

That is the LORD’s blessing

for those who fear him. Psalm 128:3-4

IN PSALMS 127 AND 128, Solomon uses images that were familiar to his original readers to describe what the blessing of a happy family looks like. In Psalm 127 he uses the imagery of building a house and watching over a city. He assures parents who are busy building and protecting that these tasks are not all up to us. We can go to sleep at night instead of staying up late to work because we know that the Lord is active in the lives of our families even while we slumber.

In Psalm 128, he uses a different kind of imagery, saying that wives in happy families are like fruitful vines. He’s drawing the picture of a wife who is planted next to her loving husband, where she flourishes. He compares children in happy families to young olive trees, tender young saplings that need to be nurtured. Back in 127:4, he describes children as “arrows in a warrior’s hands.” So, combining these two images, the reader can see that these tender shoots are to be nurtured so they become strong and can be sent out into the world like arrows. Arrows don’t remain in the quiver. They are created to be propelled out into the world to fulfill their purpose.

In the final verses of Psalm 128, we discover that this happy family is not an island. The psalmist prays, “May you see Jerusalem prosper as long as you live” (128:5). At the heart of this family’s happiness is their participation in the larger family of God. Together they are engaged to see the purposes of God advance and the Kingdom of God expand in the world.

Lord, we long for this life of blessing that belongs to families who fear you —a father who fears the Lord and trusts him to build the house, a mother who flourishes, and children who are being nurtured so that one day they might be shot like arrows into a world that is in such need of you.