Psalm 126

Background to the Psalm

The year was 538 B.C. The Jews had been exiled to Babylon seventy years earlier after several warnings from God concerning their sinful ways. 

It was a sorrowful time. “By the rivers of Babylon …”

A Psalm for those going through challenges. God is at work. God is fighting for us. God’s timing is still God’s timing.

A Psalm of two parts

1. Thanksgiving
2. Expectation – God will do it again

Thanksgiving

1

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed.

“We were like those who dreamed”

Hopes had been dashed. They had hoped to go home soon but it was not to be.

Unexpected. An impossible situation. Perhaps the enemy said to them with some sarcasm, “keep dreaming”

See Psalm 137:1-4

By the rivers of Babylon …

Hold that dream! With God nothing shall be impossible. 

2 – 3

Our mouths were filled with laughter,

    our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,

    “The Lord has done great things for them.”

The Lord has done great things for us,

    and we are filled with joy.

God is able to turn our mourning into dancing. May God fill our mouths with laughter and our tongues with songs of joy.

Key:

The Lord has done great things

Not our strategy, not our behaviour, but God’s grace.

God is always at work even when we don’t see it

Cyrus, the new king, made a proclamation allowing all the Jews to go home (Ezra 1:1-4).

“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:”

Then it was said among the nations …

Let us testify to God’s goodness in our lives

Let us live our lives in such a way that it brings glory to God.

See also Isaiah 51:11

 

Expectation

Restore our fortunes, Lord,

    like streams in the Negev.

Those who sow with tears

    will reap with songs of joy.

Those who go out weeping,

    carrying seed to sow,

will return with songs of joy,

    carrying sheaves with them.

 

There was more to be done. Jerusalem was still in ruins

Their past gives them faith for the future

“Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev.”

A prayer for Gods sudden outpouring of blessing

Important imagery

Negev was a desert-like place but bursts with life in the spring

“Those who sow in tears”

The hard work of sowing when things are difficult (tears)

God does for us what we can’t do but God will not do for us what we can do.

God aids, he gives wisdom, he blesses our efforts, but …

For our church, the challenges are ahead, that which we could not do for ourselves, God did

But there is sowing to be done

We have planned but now we must act

Our assurance is vs. 6 – He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.”

The church who does the difficult work will see God multiply its effort

 

 

 

 

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