Psalms 128:3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine “He will bless thee also in thy wife, and make her as fruitful as the vine, which spreads itself, laden with full clusters, over all the sides of thy house; and in thy hopeful children too, who shall grow up and flourish like the young olive-plants that are set in thy arbour, round about thy table.” Thus Bishop Patrick interprets the verse, and certainly the text, in its most obvious and literal sense, seems to countenance his interpretation. Mr. Harmer, however, in his Observations on Divers Passages of Scripture, questions the propriety of it, remarking that it does not appear, from the accounts of any travellers, that it was ever the custom of the Jews to conduct vines along the sides of their houses, and that we find no such arbours in the Levant as the bishop supposes, composed of young olive-plants, in the midst of which tables were set. He therefore understands the words thus: “Thy wife shall be in the sides, or private apartments of thy house, fruitful as a thriving vine:” considering the sides of the house as referring to the wife, not to the vine; and the table, in the other clause, to the children only, not to the olives. Cocceius, however, and Rabbi Kimchi, agree with Bishop Patrick, as does Dr. Hammond also, whose words are, “Vines, it seems, were then planted on the sides of houses, as now they are among us, and not only in vineyards, and to that the psalmist here refers. So likewise of olive-plants it is observable, not only that tables were dressed up with the boughs of them, ramis felicis olivæ, but that, in the eastern countries, they were usually planted, as in arbours, to shade the table, entertainments being made without doors, in gardens, under that umbrage, which gave all the liberty of the cool winds and refreshing blasts. An image whereof we have Genesis 18:4, Wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; and a full expression Esther 1:5, The king made a feast in the court of the garden of the king's palace.” Dr. Horne also, after weighing what Mr. Harmer had advanced against it, adopts this interpretation, observing that Mr. Merrick, in his Annotations, produces some very good arguments in favour of it. The doctor's comment is, “The vine, a lowly plant, raised with tender care, becoming, by its luxuriance, its beauty, its fragrance, and its clusters, the ornament and glory of the house to which it is joined, and by which it is supported, forms the finest imaginable emblem of a fair, virtuous, and fruitful wife. The olive-trees planted by the inhabitants of the eastern countries around their tables, or banqueting-places in their gardens, to cheer the eye by their verdure, and to refresh the body by their cooling shade, do no less aptly and significantly set forth the pleasure which parents feel at the side of a numerous and flourishing offspring.”