Faithful Steward Ministries and FSM Women's Outreach

3 Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him.

4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth.

5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.

PSALM 127

PSALM 127:3

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COMMENT

Every once in a while, I have to double-take when I see a title in my inbox. Today’s study was like that the other day. The article talks about a worldly person who does not know anyone with a child under the age of three who is not living in a daily hell. (She needs to come to my church for a day.) I mean, kids have been known to raise a little hell, drive their parents crazy on occasion, yet the Bible makes it clear they are a BLESSING FROM GOD. I can not imagine what that person would think of my grandson, who at 2 1/2 has been diagnosed with a form of autism. He can have huge mood swings (I tell him they are hissy fits), but I love that little guy, though all the ups and downs. Would she think him a burden not worthy of life? What a shame so many miss the joy God gives to parents who genuinely love their children without reservation.

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CONTEXT

127:3–5 Appreciating God’s Gift of Children

GOD GIVES CHILDREN. JOHN CALVIN: The majority of people dream that after God had once ordained this at the beginning, children were from that time forward begotten solely by a secret instinct of nature and that God had stopped to interfere in the matter. And even those who are endued with some sense of piety, although they may not deny that he is the Father and Creator of the human race, yet do not acknowledge that his providential care descends to this particular case, but rather think that people are created by a certain universal motion. With the view of correcting this preposterous error, Solomon calls children the heritage of God, and the fruit of the womb his gift; for the Hebrew word skr, sachar, translated “reward,” signifies whatever benefits God bestows on humankind, as is plainly manifest from many passages of Scripture. The meaning then is that children are not the fruit of chance, but that God, as it seems good to him, distributes to every person their share of them. Moreover, as the prophet repeats the same thing twice, heritage and reward are to be understood as equivalent; for both these terms are set in opposition to fortune, or human strength. The stronger a person is they seem so much the better fitted for procreation. Solomon declares on the contrary that those become fathers to whom God bestows that honor. COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.

PIERCING THE HEART. KONRAD PELLIKAN: God gives wine and prosperous strength to the children whom he gave. In fact he desires to signify this by the simile of the arrows in the hand of the warrior. For these are strong, fly far, and properly dispatch [the target] to which they are sent; so he sings they will be valiant, active, and gifted in the right hand which children the Lord will give to his elect. The Hebrew says “sons of his youth,” where the Vulgate has “offspring” no doubt then a variant reading from which the holy fathers sweated the most how they would show that the children of offspring were the apostles. True children of God are effective archers, through which they pierce the hearts of the enemies of God: so the sons of one’s youth can be called, by whom God does new works in the world, just as the apostles, apostolic and heroic people, beyond the lot of the rest of human beings who love earthly things. COMMENTARY ON THE BIBLE.

THE TESTIMONY OF CHILDREN. THE ENGLISH ANNOTATIONS: Their children will be ready to plead for them, and to right them, when they are wronged by others; or their enemies cannot shame them, with objecting to them the want of children, which in those days was a reproach both to man and woman, because some curse was thought to lie on those who had none. So Elizabeth speaks of herself, having been sterile to that time, and now with child. ANNOTATIONS ON PSALM 127:5.

Herman J. Selderhuis and Timothy George, eds., Psalms 73–150: Old Testament, vol. VIII, Reformation Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2018), 307–308.

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STUDY

Are Children Hell?

“Hard” is not hell; it leads to treasures in heaven.