DUNCAN/Greatly afflicted
If you have your Bible, I’d invite you to turn with me to Psalm 129. As we go through this psalm, I want us to pay attention to the subject matter, the content, and the material that God gives us to sing in the hymnbook of the Bible, the Psalter. The psalms express the whole range of spiritual experience for Christians and this psalm specifically remembers the afflictions of God’s people. In psalm 129, we see that God does not instruct His people to try and forget their afflictions, but instead, to take them to Him in song and prayer.
God Tells His People to Sing About Their Persecution and Suffering
First, God tells His people to sing about their persecution and suffering. Is that a strange thing to you? This psalm gives us a command to sing about the troubles, the sufferings, the physical abuse, and the persecution we have endured. You see, Israel was literally born in suffering. This psalm deliberately takes Israel back to the experience of Egypt. Where was it where Israel had felt the cruel stripes of the oppressor on her back? It was the lashes of slave masters in Egypt. Christianity, like Israel, was born in suffering and persecution. And here, God tells His people to sing about it. Why? So that we will not forget it and so that we will not despair in it because all of God’s people will know this reality in their lives.
This psalm also provides us a key to understanding Matthew’s quotation of Hosea 11:1. Look at Psalm 129 verse 1. “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth,” and then that line is repeated in verse 2. The beginnings of Israel are depicted here as Israel’s youth or childhood. It’s a reference back to the exodus and to the trials of Egypt. Look with me at Hosea chapter 11 verse 1. “When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called My son.” There you see the prophet Hosea doing the same thing that the psalmist is doing here, looking back to the experience of Egypt and seeing that as the birthplace — as the childhood of the nation of Israel. You see, God had but one Son without sin, but none without suffering. Jesus not only identified with His people in their suffering, but He also experienced their suffering.
Jesus’ Identification With Our Suffering
Second, this passage pictures the suffering of the children of Israel but only Jesus ultimately fulfills the picture that is painted here. “Greatly have they afflicted me in my youth,” verse 1. “The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long furrows.” What does that remind you of? Not only Isaiah’s words, “By His stripes we are healed,” but the actual scourging of Jesus recounted to us in the Gospels.
Do you remember when the apostles come out of prison having been beaten, rejoicing that it had been their privilege to suffer for the sake of the name of Christ? Well, this is because Jesus has taken our place in His suffering. He has fulfilled the sufferings that are pictured here in psalm 129, and He has given us the privilege to join Him. How does Paul say it? “For it has been granted to you, Philippians, it has been granted to you not only to believe but also to suffer for His sake.” Jesus identifies with us, He takes our place in suffering, and then He allows us the privilege of joining in and experiencing suffering like His. Is that our attitude when we encounter suffering for the sake of Christ?
A Picture of the One People of God In All Ages
Third, we’re reminded that Zion is a picture of the one people of God in all ages. Zion is not simply the capital of Israel. Jerusalem is the place where the throne of David and the Ark of the Covenant reside together. It is a picture of the place where God’s people in all ages meet to worship Him. And where does Jesus say that is in Matthew 18? It is wherever there are two or more gathered in His name — “There I am.” Jesus is the place where God’s people in all ages gather to come before the heavenly Father. And who is it that gathers around Jesus? The Church; the people of God. Zion is a part of that reality, but Old Testament Zion is but a foreshadowing and a picture of that reality. And so, when we meet Zion in this psalm we’re not just talking about the capital city of Israel; we’re talking about a picture of the people of God.
And what does Jesus say to His disciples? “You are a city on a hill.” It is the mountain for our abode. What does the book of Hebrews say? “We come to Mt. Zion.” All the nations will stream into her and even the Gentile converts say of her, “All my springs are in you.” And where have all the people of the world come? To Jesus. Men and women, boys and girls from every tribe, tongue, people and nation. Zion is a picture of the Church and that means that what we have in this psalm is a picture of the Church’s confidence in God amid suffering and persecution in the resistance of unbelievers against the Church.
Celebrating God’s Promises to Abraham
Lastly, I want you to see that this psalm celebrates God’s promise to Abraham. In Genesis 12 verses 1 to 3 what does God say to Abraham? “Those who bless you I will bless, but those who curse you I will curse.” And what does this psalm say? “May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward! Let them be like the grass on the housetops which withers before it grows up.” That’s an interesting picture, isn’t it? In Israel, people would put the beams of their house together and then they would sod it to make it watertight. Sometimes, because there was seed still left in the sod, grass would pop up on their roof, but it wouldn’t last long because it didn’t have anywhere to take root, and the sun would burn it up. It would pop up, little shoots of grass, and then it would be gone. And that’s a picture here for those who oppose God’s people.
For the believer, when we face persecution and suffering from those who oppose the Gospel, from those who oppose Christ, rather than being caught in the gall of bitterness about what we’re experiencing, we may just want to fear for them because this psalm says in verse 4 – “The LORD is righteous and He has cut the cords of the wicked.” The enemies of the people of God will not last, but by God’s grace, He has appointed that His people will last forever. And so, we can bear up under our sufferings and even sing about it every once in a while.
Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III is Chancellor & CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) in Jackson.