Psalms 127:2

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows. Here he turns round to these spoken of in , and by a spirited apostrophe addresses worldly men. "To sit up late" - namely, toiling; answering to "rise up early" for toil. Compare ; also Solomon's proverb, , as to the God-fearing good wife. But the sitting is rather in contrast to the rising up to toil: it expresses resting, as opposed to toiling. So ; ; . Sitting at work was unusual in the less artificial modes of life which prevailed in Israel, as compared with our European and modern ways. The Hebrew is, 'It is vain for you being in the morning to rise, and being late to sit.' So the Syriac version, 'early, to rise, and late to sit.' Translate, therefore, 'and to be late in sitting' down - i:e., resting. So Gejer. "The bread of sorrows" is bread eaten amidst hard labours, "in the sweat of the brow" (; ).

(For) so he giveth his beloved sleep. "So" means, agreeably to that, as in . So many good things as ye seek to secure by ceaseless toil and care, God gives to those whom He loves, and who love Him, as it were in sleep (as He gave them to Solomon, 1 Kings 3:5) - i:e., without "sorrows" or exceeding toil (; ). So Hengstenberg. In this translation what God gives to His beloved ones () is not, as the English version, "sleep," but the gain which others vainly seek by mere labour, without dependence on God's blessing. This, in the main, is the right view, as the context proves. But the absence of 'in' (in the Hebrew) before "sleep" and the ancient versions, support the English version, only explain it-While the godless are late in snaring down - i:e., resting, and with all their toil fail to realize lasting wealth because they seek it independently of God; on the contrary, God gives to His beloved ones sleep undisturbed by cares, and with the sleep the blessing of wealth in a way they know not how. The latter is to be understood as implied, though not expressed. Compare . It is not industry that is discouraged, but anxious labour without believing dependence on God, as contrasted with that labour which, when its day's work is past, leaves the result with God, and so can resign itself to balmy sleep, 'tired nature's kind restorer,' the gift of God to His beloved ones especially. The sleep of 'the sluggard' is not commended here, or elsewhere in Scripture. beloved ones especially. The sleep of 'the sluggard' is not commended here, or elsewhere in Scripture. Compare Proverbs 6:9; Proverbs 31:15.