Israel's Song of Survival
A Song of Ascents.
Israel speaks as a survivor with scars, describing attackers who plowed long furrows across its back and still did not win. The curse asked for is agricultural: let them be rooftop grass, withered before harvest, that no passerby stops to bless.
129 1"They have greatly afflicted me from my youth"—let Israel now say. 2"They have greatly afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me. 3Plowmen plowed on my back; they made their furrows long." 4Our Father is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked.
5May all who hate Zion be ashamed and turned back. 6Let them be like the grass on the rooftops, which withers before it grows up, 7with which the harvester does not fill his hand, nor the one bundling grain his arms, 8while those who pass by do not say, "The blessing of our Father be upon you! We bless you in the name of our Father."
