Psalms 129:6

The poet illustrates the fate that overtakes them by means of a picture borrowed from Isaiah and worked up (Psa 37:27): they become like "grass of the housetops," etc. שׁ is a relative to יבשׁ (quod exarescit), and קדמת, priusquam, is Hebraized after מן־קדמת דּנה in Dan 6:11, or מקּדמת דּנה in Ezr 5:11. שׁלף elsewhere has the signification "to draw forth" of a sword, shoe, or arrow, which is followed by the lxx, Theodotion, and the Quinta: πρὸ τοῦ ἐκσπασθῆναι, before it is plucked. But side by side with the ἐκσπασθῆναι of the lxx we also find the reading exanthee'sai; and in this sense Jerome renders (statim ut) viruerit, Symmachus ἐκκαυλῆσαι (to shoot into a stalk), Aquila ἀνέθαλεν, the Sexta ἐκστερεῶσαι (to attain to full solidity). The Targum paraphrases שׁלף in both senses: to shoot up and to pluck off. The former signification, after which Venema interprets: antequam se evaginet vel evaginetur, i.e., antequam e vaginulis suis se evolvat et succrescat, is also advocated by Parchon, Kimchi, and Aben-Ezra. In the same sense von Ortenberg conjectures שׁחלף. Since the grass of the house-tops or roofs, if one wishes to pull it up, can be pulled up just as well when it is withered as when it is green, and since it is the most natural thing to take חציר as the subject to שׁלף, we decide in favour of the intransitive signification, "to put itself forth, to develope, shoot forth into ear." The roof-grass withers before it has put forth ears of blossoms, just because it has no deep root, and therefore cannot stand against the heat of the sun. (Note: So, too, Geiger in the Deutsche Morgenlndische Zeitschrift, xiv. 278f., according to whom Arab. slf (šlf) occurs in Saadia and Abu-Said in the signification "to be in the first maturity, to blossom," - a sense שׁלף ma…

This psalm relates to the public concerns of God's Israel. It is not certain when it was penned, probably when they were in captivity in Babylon, or about the time of their return. I. They look back with thankfulness for the former deliverances God had wrought for them and their fathers out of the many distresses they had been in from time to time (Psa 129:1-4). II. They look forward with a believing prayer for and a prospect of the destruction of all the enemies of Zion (Psa 129:5-8). In singing this psalm we may apply it both ways to the Gospel-Israel, which, like the Old Testament Israel, has weathered many a storm and is still threatened by many enemies. A song of degrees.

129:6-8 Grass on a rooftop had shallow roots and would scorch easily. A crop was ignored by the harvester when the yield was low. The enemies who had sown hurt among God’s people would gain little.