Psalm 127:2 It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he gives his beloved sleep. (to children): — The beginning of the psalm is plain enough. Many a house has been built beautiful and strong; and perhaps the very night before the family were to go into it a fire burned it all down. The same with a city; the guards kept watch, but the enemy got in and the town was burned and destroyed. When people see things like that they say, "We can't prevent accidents happening; it is God that does it; it is all in God's hands." Then the poet goes on to say something more. "You toil as hard as you can; you rise early and sit up late; and you are doing all that in order that you may get bread to eat; and do you know that in all that work of yours you cannot do without God's help? It, would never get you your food if God didn't give it you. God is not asleep when you are sleeping.,' It is not only our food and our houses God gives us when we are asleep, but the better things He gives us too. When I was not thinking of it many of the sweetest friendships that have made life better and brighter have come to me — they were not sought for. Where men give themselves to be guided by God the best things come to them. I didn't plan them; they were dropped into my life somehow. When people are converted it is constantly most unexpectedly. (W. G. Elmslie, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. |
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