Psalms 128:3 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

By the sides — No doubt the inner part of the house is meant (see Psalms 48:2) — the gynecœum or woman’s quarter — or perhaps the sides of the inner court or quadrangle. This is no more out of keeping with the figure of the vine than the table is with that of olive plants. Though the Hebrews had not yet developed the fatal habit of secluding their women, as later Orientals have done, still there was a strict custom which allotted a more private tent (Genesis 18:9) or part of a house to them. And doubtless we are here also to think of the good housewife who is engaged within at the household duties, and is not like the idle gossip, sitting “at the door of her house on a seat in the high places of the city” (Proverbs 9:14). The vine and olive are in Hebrew poetry frequent symbols of fruitfulness and of a happy, flourishing state. (See Psalms 52:8; Jeremiah 11:16.) The comparison of children to the healthy young shoots of a tree is, of course, common to all poetry, being indeed latent in such expressions as “scion of a noble house.” (Comp. Euripides, Medea 1,098: “a sweet young shoot of children.”)