Thijs Booij, «Psalm 127,2b: a Return to Martin Luther», Vol. 81 (2000) 262-268

In Ps 127,2b )n# (s\e4na4)) tells about the manner of giving (H. Irsigler); it does so by denoting the state of the dydy when he is receiving God’s gift. The particle Nk, as related to Ntn, means ‘according to that’, referring to the notion of toil. The tenor of v. 2b is to underscore that it is God who ‘builds the house’, ‘keeps the city’. What humans receive is not the outcome of toil, not a divine reward for it, but an expression of favour, a gift just like that. Translation: ‘To his beloved one He gives it in sleep’.

        (2) The relation to the verb. In Ps 127,2 the relation between Nk and Nty is of a special kind. Its character may be deduced from texts speaking of divine retribution³⁴:

wykrd lkk #y)l ttnw
and render to each according to all his ways (1 Kgs 8,39).

        If the word order is inversed here and the correspondence stressed, the clause reads as follows³⁵: #y)l Nt Nk wykrd lkk — ‘according to all his ways, give everyone so’ (i.e., according to those ways).

Ml(pk Mhl Nt
Give them according to their work (Ps. 28,4).

        Reworded in the above manner: Mhl Nt Nk Ml(pk — ‘according to their work, give them so’ (i.e., according to that).

        Ps. 127,2b, as we saw, is about God’s way of giving, but the idea of retribution is involved. Those addressed in v. 2 did not necessarily think, in ‘practical atheism’ (Ps 14,1), that what they tried to attain would be just the outcome of their labour or, in the last analysis, of chance. They rather felt it to be a fair reward³⁶, a thing they hoped to receive by divine rule in accordance with their toiling. The text flatly denies such neat agreement, saying, ‘According to that (i.e., according to your toiling) He gives to his beloved in sleep’³⁷.

        Obviously, the content of v. 2b could also be worded as follows: ‘The things you hope to acquire by your toiling, those same things God gives (Nty Nk) his beloved in sleep’. So it is quite in order to translate ‘To his beloved one He gives it in sleep’³⁸.

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        The meaning of v. 2b can now be defined more clearly within the context. Verses 1 and 2 are a rhetorical unity³⁹. Their essence is that human activity is in vain )w#$, ‘delusion, vanity’) if God and his favour are not behind it. In v. 1 the author shows this by two examples; in v. 2 he intensifies the message by addressing those he has in mind and stressing the notion of exertion. The phrase Mybc(h Mxl lk) (‘eating bread of toil’) of v. 2, taken literally, seems not quite in keeping with )w#$: if the toil has yielded bread, why should it have