Homilist Psalm 127:1-5 Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman wakes but in vain.… I. HUMAN LABOUR WITHOUT GOD. 1. Its possibility. 2. Its fruitlessness. (1) It does not secure the approbation of the great Master. (2) It does not yield moral satisfaction. II. HUMAN REPOSE (ver. 2). 1. A generally recognized blessing. (1) Bodily. The labouring world hails the hour when its exhausted frame can lie down to sleep. (2) Mental. To have the mind free from the harassing cares and painful annoyances of life. All desire this. 2. The repose of a true worker is a special blessing. The bodily repose He gives to His "beloved" in the stillness of the night has a special value — the pillow so soft, and the bed so guarded. The mental repose He gives is also of a far higher kind. It is the repose of conscience, the repose of a soul centring all its loves and hopes in Him. III. HUMAN OFFSPRING (vers. 3-5). The tutor of Alexander the Great once proposed the question, whether a large family be a good or an evil? And he answered his own question thus, "Everything depends on the character of the children. If of an excellent disposition, blessed is the father that hath many of them, if of a bad disposition, the fewer the better, and, still better, none!" (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: {A Song of degrees for Solomon.} Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. |
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