Psalm 128

“It shall be well with you”

Psalm 128 is a Wisdom psalm, expressing a vision of human flourishing for those who fear the Lord and “walk in his ways.” The vision of flourishing ripples outward from the personal (vv. 1–2), to the familial (vv. 3–4), to the communal (vv. 5–6).

As you know, the Old Testament doesn’t have a robust eschatological vision. There is no heaven in the Old Testament. The rewards and blessings of God, rather, concern this life and this world. Psalm 128 is a great example of this. Walk in the ways of God and “it shall be well with you.”

As you also likely know, the logic of the obedience/blessing vision of this-worldly flourishing is where the prosperity gospel gets a lot of its traction. We could read Psalm 128 naively or triumphalistically, even judgmentally. But such readings do not go unchallenged in the Old Testament. The Psalms themselves raise the questions, to say nothing of the books of Job and Ecclesiastes.

This is one of the reasons Second Temple Judaism became more eschatological in orientation. You see this start to emerge in the book of Daniel. And by the time the lights come up on the New Testament, we begin to see some new things show up. Heaven, hell, judgment, and the afterlife.

We also see the emergence of Satan. That flourishing is scarce and difficult is increasingly blamed upon the oppressive and malevolent rule of “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4).

The point is that Scripture recognizes that the promises of Psalm 128 can be delayed and contested. Those who walk in the ways of the Lord may suffer in this world. As Jesus said, in this world the faithful will mourn. They will hunger and thirst for a righteousness that seems absent and elusive. And yet, these are the ones Jesus calls happy and blessed.

That said, we don’t need to set the Wisdom tradition up on the eschatological shelf, perpetually delaying its realization. As I recently argued in my series on well-being and ontology, there is a relationship between flourishing and the ground of our being. Take, for example, the vision of familial flourishing from Psalm 128. Are there not virtues that correlate with healthy marriages and families? True, in this world virtues are no guarantee of happy outcomes. But kindness, fidelity, humility, and love are good soil in which to plant a home. There is an integral relation between our sophiological ground and our flourishing. Yes, the blessing is contested and often delayed. But if you walk in his ways, it shall be well with you.