Psalm 129 is a psalm of thanksgiving for Hashem's providence and His safeguarding of Israel from all their enemies. The chapter opens with a portrayal of the afflictions that have accompanied us from our very inception as a nation, continues with gratitude that despite everything they have never succeeded in destroying us, and concludes by describing the fate of the wicked, who will not endure - like grass on rooftops that has neither permanence nor blessing.
שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת רַבַּת צְרָרוּנִי מִנְּעוּרַי יֹאמַר נָא יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ - A Song of Ascents: Much have they distressed me from my youth, let Israel now say.
Radak compares the era of exile to the lifespan of a person: the beginning of exile corresponds to youth, while the prolonged exile represents old age - we are already growing old in exile. The verse thus declares: already from the very start of exile, while we were still in our "youth," our enemies afflicted us with severe distress. And regarding this, "let Israel now say" - let us give thanks and praise to Hashem that He did not consume us in exile.
"Much" (Rabbat) - according to Radak, simply means: they distressed me greatly, multiplying my afflictions. Metzudat David explains: rabbat refers to rabbat am (a populous nation) - a multitude of nations have distressed me and brought suffering upon me ever since my childhood.
The Malbim explains that the psalm speaks of Hashem's providence and His protection of Israel against all their foes. "Much have they distressed me" - it is a vast and momentous thing how they distressed me from my youth, and the people of Israel recount and say: come and see that already from our youth we have been under siege. This is a metaphor of a besieged city that an enemy surrounds for long years - and we have been under siege for thousands of years.
רַבַּת צְרָרוּנִי מִנְּעוּרָי גַּם לֹא יָכְלוּ לִי׃ - Much have they distressed me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me.
From the beginning of exile there have been manifold troubles, and to this day they continue to accompany us without ceasing - yet despite all this, "they have not prevailed against me." They could not defeat us then, and they cannot overcome us now. Nearly every country took it upon itself as a project to abuse the Jews within its midst, and only rare lands were kingdoms of benevolence to the Jews residing in them - yet this reality never caused the Jewish people to perish. In a homiletic sense, one can also read lo yachlu li as related to lechallot - they were unable to annihilate me.
The repetition of the phrase "Much have they distressed me from my youth" twice is, in Radak's view, a repetition for emphasis and reinforcement - to underscore just how numerous the troubles were, and to deepen the thanksgiving offered to Hashem.
The Malbim explains the underlying meaning: ever since Israel became a nation, from the very beginning of our journey, they have risen against us to destroy us. The very existence of Israel by virtue of its Divine form inevitably compels the nations to harass them and provoke wars against them. A gentile finds it difficult to see the Jew in his elevated stature; it is hard for him to see someone who is in any way above him, and therefore he makes every effort to prove that the Jew is base and lowly, that the Jew is not the Chosen People. "Behold, it is a nation that dwells alone and is not reckoned among the nations" - and this itself drives the nations to try even harder to humiliate and bring down Israel: "Who do you think you are? I will show you that we are better than you." And nevertheless, the Holy One, blessed be He, came to our aid so that they could not prevail against us.
The work Shirat Yonah quotes the Panim Yafot explaining that "Much have they distressed me from my youth" refers to the Egyptian exile. These were the years of the Jewish people's youth, as it is written: "I remember for you the kindness of your youth" - at the time of the Exodus from Egypt we were still considered a youth, and back then they afflicted us greatly. And regarding this memory, "let Israel now say" - every Jew declares each day: "So that you remember the day you went out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life", and this remembrance is articulated with the mouth.
The Egyptians distressed and afflicted us relentlessly, and the holy Zohar states that there was never an exile as harsh as the exile in Egypt. Had we remained there just a little longer, there would never have been any further exiles at all - and because we left slightly before the time, we must complete it through thousands of years of exile. Even so, "yet they have not prevailed against me" - ultimately, they did not succeed.
עַל גַּבִּי חָרְשׁוּ חֹרְשִׁים הֶאֱרִיכוּ לְמַעֲנִיתָם׃ - Upon my back the plowers plowed; they lengthened their furrows.
Our Sages say concerning the Egyptian exile that the infants were swallowed up into the earth, and the Egyptians would bring plows and plow over them. Afterward, "and you attained fine ornaments" - those very infants who had been swallowed up in the earth would emerge from the ground in droves and return to their homes. Look at the immense torment they inflicted upon us there.
And regarding all of this severe torment, a wonderful explanation is offered: "They lengthened lema'anitam" - their afflictions (inuyeihem) were what caused them not to lengthen our stay. In reality, we were supposed to remain for four hundred years; how is it that we left after two hundred and ten? "Because of their affliction" (lema'anitam) - on account of their harsh afflictions, the intensity of the subjugation fulfilled the required count. The suffering they inflicted upon us turned out to be for our benefit.
Therefore, when Moshe Rabbeinu came with a grievance before the Holy One, Blessed be He - "Why have You done evil to this people?" - Hashem took issue with him on this very point: for this is precisely what accelerates their liberation and brings their redemption closer. Were it not for the situation where "No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us: Make bricks", they would have remained there for another one hundred and ninety years - and who knows what would have remained of them spiritually? They had already reached the fiftieth gate of impurity, beyond which redemption would have been impossible. I am looking out for their welfare and adding a bit more subjugation to free them quickly, and you come and say to Me, "Why have You done evil?"
The plain meaning of the verse "Upon my back the plowers plowed" describes the extent of the suffering they inflicted upon us, as if plowing across our very backs - a metaphor for the immense suffering, backbreaking labor, humiliation, and disgrace. This is similar to what is written in Yeshayahu: "And you placed your back like the earth, and like the street for passersby", as though trampling over their backs.
The Radak explains that ma'anit is the line the plowman plows with the oxen - the furrow, the trench in which the oxen tread. When the line is long, the burden on the oxen is extremely grueling. When the furrow is short, they walk, rest a little, turn around, and head back in the other direction. But "they lengthened their furrows" - the furrow was long, and the ox had to trudge on and on without strength or endurance, endlessly. This is an expression of our suffering, which seemed to drag on without end: they gave us no respite from the labor and the torment.
The Malbim adds an important point: when we say "yet they have not prevailed against me", do not imagine that this was due to my own strength and might. On the contrary, I was like an open field, like a level plain. In a mountainous region, it is difficult for an enemy to conquer, and all the more so in a fortified city; but in a flat, open area like a field, the enemy comes and plows as he pleases, lengthening the furrow at will, with no mountain or hill to obstruct him. In other words, naturally speaking, I had no chance of surviving. Furthermore, the Malbim explains that "my back" (gabi) does not refer strictly to the back, but to the body as a whole, as in "your bodies are like clay" (chomer gabeychem) in Iyov - upon my body the plowers plowed; they tormented my physical being.
יְהֹוָה צַדִּיק קִצֵּץ עֲבוֹת רְשָׁעִים׃ - Hashem is righteous; He has cut the cords of the wicked.
The Malbim explains: Come and see that everything is from Him, blessed be He. Hashem is the Righteous One, and He is the One Who cut the cords of the wicked. The oxen could no longer pull the plow, because the Holy One, blessed be He, cut the cords - the straps of the yoke, the rope binding the oxen to the plow - and consequently, they ceased plowing upon my back.
And this is the theme once again: I did nothing on my own. "Yet they could not prevail against me" was not due to my own strength, but because the Holy One, blessed be He, the Righteous One, cut those cords and severed their bands. King David presents here an allegory for the tribulations of Klal Yisrael, giving expression both to his personal distress and to the afflictions of Israel as a whole.
יֵבֹשׁוּ וְיִסֹּגוּ אָחוֹר כֹּל שֹׂנְאֵי צִיּוֹן׃ - May all who hate Zion be ashamed and turned backward.
When the Holy One, blessed be He, cuts the ropes from upon us, then "they will be ashamed and turned backward": all their schemes to destroy us will be overturned upon them - they will retreat, and they will also be ashamed when they see how everything is reversed.
The Radak raises a difficulty: After all, everyone loves Zion; everyone comes to conquer it, so why call them "haters of Zion"? He explains: The nations do not hate Zion; rather, they love it so much that they wage war against one another over it - the Crusaders fought with Islam over the Land of Israel. Rather, the meaning is "those who hate the children of Zion," those who dwell in Zion, namely the people of Israel.
The Malbim explains why the verse specifies "haters of Zion" rather than "haters of Israel": because they hate the sanctity of Israel and their stronghold. A certain pious man once said before the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, if we were not attached to You, no one would persecute us. Why are we persecuted? Not merely because we are Jews, but because we cleave to Hashem, blessed be He, because we have a God, and because we were privileged to receive the Torah. Mount Sinai is called Sinai because from there hatred descended to the nations of the world - that the nations of the world hate us - all because Hashem chose us and we serve Him with devotion.
Zion, as we explained, is the place of the Shechinah and sanctity - as distinct from Jerusalem, which is the dwelling place of the general populace; Zion is the Temple Mount, the Beit HaMikdash, the most sacred sites. And they hate the Jewish people who possess the sanctity of Zion. Regarding this we say: "Let them be ashamed" - let them be ashamed within themselves, for they have no portion in Hashem, blessed be He, while we alone are connected to Him. The nations have no share in Him; Hashem does not perform miracles for the nations. "Can any among the vanities of the nations bring rain?" - show me a single non-Jew who brought down rain through his prayer; show me one instance where a Gentile prayed and effected something in Heaven. Nothing at all. And "let them be turned backward" - through the punishments that the Holy One, blessed be He, will inflict upon them for all the misery they inflicted upon us.
יִהְיוּ כַּחֲצִיר גַּגּוֹת שֶׁקַּדְמַת שָׁלַף יָבֵשׁ׃ - Let them be like grass on the rooftops, which withers before it is plucked.
Grass used to sprout on the roofs of houses: roofs were often made of thatch and straw, and we find likewise in the Gemara in Shabbat regarding a gutter in which weeds sprouted, discussing whether one is permitted to crush them with his feet so that the water can flow and not leak into the house. Even today, one can see places where grass grows on rooftops.
Yet this grass has no permanence: because it is in an elevated spot and exposed to the sun, it quickly withers - and even before someone comes to pull it out, it has already dried up. This is the meaning of "which withers before it is pulled up": even before you pluck it and draw it out of its place, it is already parched. As Scripture says, "In the morning it blossoms and sprouts, by evening it is cut down and withers" - in the morning we saw it green, and by evening nothing remains of it. Radak explains that the word shalaf denotes drawing out and removing something from its place, as in "a man drew off (shalaf) his shoe."
The Malbim explains: rooftop grass does not last long, and so it was cleared away before all other weeds - and this is an allegory for the wicked. This does not necessarily mean that an individual evildoer will not live a long life, for an evil person can certainly live to ninety, but rather that the reign and dominion of wickedness do not endure. The Holy One, blessed be He, ensures that the wicked are overthrown and does not allow evil rule to govern without limit. Just as rooftop grass is scorched from above by the sun and withers before it is even pulled, so too the future of the wicked will be cut off. Therefore, "let them be ashamed" - for they are like that grass which perishes so swiftly, "and turned back" - meaning they will face a providential punishment from Hashem, Who will bring upon them a blazing sun to scorch and consume them, causing them to wither prematurely.
שֶׁלֹּא מִלֵּא כַפּוֹ קוֹצֵר וְחִצְנוֹ מְעַמֵּר׃ - With which the reaper does not fill his hand, nor the binder of sheaves his arm.
The verse means that it never even reaches the point of harvest. According to Radak, chitzno refers to the arm, as in "and your sons shall be carried in arms (bechotzen)" and "I shook out my arm (chitzni ne'arti)" - my arm. Me'amer refers to the one who gathers sheaves. In other words, the harvester will never gather enough to fill his hand from the harvest, nor the collector his arm from gathering the sheaves.
The Malbim explains: rooftop grass, even if you hasten to pull it before it withers, never grows enough for a harvester to fill his palm in a single grasp, a handful, because there is simply no substance to it. In a field, by contrast, there is a large yield and one must fill his hands repeatedly. Here, the grass is also scattered, a blade here and a blade there, and even if you gather from roof after roof, you will not find enough in total for the sheaf-binder to fill his vessel - for in the Malbim's view, chitzno refers to his vessel: you will not even have a vessel-full.
And the lesson behind the parable: even while the wicked still endure and dwell in tranquility, "all workers of iniquity shall be scattered" - they never stand as a unified front. This is Hashem's kindness to us, that the wicked do not unite; for had they united, woe to Israel. The Arab League always ends in discord, the Iranians are perpetually at odds with the Iraqis, and they with the Saudis, and they with the Kuwaitis, and they with the Egyptians - "every man's hand and sword against his fellow." "And I will set Egyptians against Egyptians" - the Holy One, blessed be He, incites internal strife among them, and that is what protects us from their power.
This is our good fortune here in the Holy Land as well: only rarely do all the enemies of the Jewish people manage to unite, and only rarely can they set aside their inflated egos to wage a unified war against those who guard the covenant and fear Hashem. It is Hashem's kindness that they fight among themselves, divided and fractured, factions devouring their own leaders - and this is what allows us to endure, so that the dogs bark, the caravan moves on, and Hashem's nation continues to thrive.
וְלֹא אָמְרוּ הָעֹבְרִים בִּרְכַּת יְהֹוָה אֲלֵיכֶם בֵּרַכְנוּ אֶתְכֶם בְּשֵׁם יְהֹוָה׃ - Neither do those who pass by say, "The blessing of Hashem be upon you; we bless you in the Name of Hashem."
Radak explains that it was customary for passersby to call out to the reapers, "The blessing of Hashem be upon you." The context is clear: the harvest was the culmination of an entire year's labor, which is why grand celebrations were held during the harvest and the vintage, even among the nations - all the toil of the year had finally yielded tangible results: we gathered, we brought it in, there is produce and sustenance. Therefore, when a person walked by and saw people harvesting, he would bless them: May Hashem bless you, may you enjoy abundance and blessing. Just as Boaz greeted the harvesters, "Hashem be with you."
And what is the meaning of "We bless you in the Name of Hashem" after it was already said, "The blessing of Hashem be upon you"? The Radak, as is his usual approach, explains this as poetic repetition (kefel inyan), for the Radak does not feel bound to find a distinct meaning for duplicate phrases. But the Malbim does not take this approach, as we will see immediately.
And what does all this have to do with rooftop grass? The verse is telling us: while it is customary to say to reapers, "The blessing of Hashem be upon you," here, regarding the reaper of rooftop grass - where there is not even a handful, nothing remains of it, and it never comes to a real harvest - passersby never say, "The blessing of Hashem be upon you." One who sees someone gathering grass from the rooftops does not bless him: What blessing could one speak of? What abundance is there here? It can barely be gathered, and it has already completely dried up.
And so he says regarding the nations: all their doctrines and beliefs are vanity and emptiness, like rooftop grass, and so too will they perish like rooftop grass. This is the parable for the wicked who plowed upon our back - the Holy One, blessed be He, will overthrow them, and they will perish like rooftop grass. In contrast to them, the Radak notes, he compared Israel to a seed of blessing: "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy" - a seed of abundance, of endurance, and of blessing.
The Malbim is precise: it all depends on the nature of the harvest. If it was an abundant and blessed harvest, passersby would say, "The blessing of Hashem be upon you" - may the blessing and abundance you already have increase even more. But in a year of drought, they would say, "We bless you in the Name of Hashem" - from now on, may blessing descend upon you. Yet regarding the reaper of rooftop grass, they said neither this nor that: neither "The blessing of Hashem be upon you" for the present, nor "We bless you in the Name of Hashem" for the future - for rooftop grass is a curse, not a blessing.
Psalm 129 is the song of thanksgiving of the Jewish people: From our youth, from the Egyptian exile until today, they have severely distressed us and plowed upon our back as in an open field where there is neither mountain nor hill to hinder them - and yet, "they have not prevailed against me." And this was not through our own strength or might, but rather, "Hashem is righteous; He cut the ropes of the wicked" - He severed the yoke of the plow from upon us. Those who hate Zion, who hate our sanctity and our devotion to Hashem, are destined to be shamed and turned back, becoming like rooftop grass that withers before it is plucked, which fills neither reaper's palm nor binder's arm, and upon which no blessing is said. Israel, however, is a seed of blessing: "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy." May Hashem bring this upon all the nations, and bless His people Israel, Amen and Amen.