What Does Psalm 128:2 Mean in the King James?
For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Flourishing here is not abstract success; it is the toil of your hands arriving as food you can receive.
THE MEANING
Your effort reaches you as nourishment: what your hands labor to bring forth becomes what you eat. Flourishing and well-being are pictured as present, embodied good, not a distant reward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that your work is only depletion: the verse pictures its yield returning to you as nourishment and good.
THE ROOT
יְגִיעַ
yegia
GROWS FROM
יגע
y-g-ʿ
To toil, exert oneself, and grow weary.
“labour” in this verse is yegia. The root holds both the exertion and the weariness of work, and here that toil becomes something you eat. The image closes a circle English can flatten: bodily effort returns as nourishment, making flourishing the experience of receiving labor’s fruit.
ALSO GROWS
yaga: To toil or grow weary.
יָגַע
This verb names the exertion behind the verse’s noun for labor.
yagea: Weary or exhausted.
יָגֵעַ
The same root carries the cost of the work, so the nourishment in the verse answers more than effort in the abstract.
yegia: Toil, labor, or the product of labor.
יְגִיעַ
This is the word used in the verse: the very toil of your hands is what reaches you as food.
THE PATTERN
When the work of your hands reaches you as provision, flourishing takes the tangible form of receiving its fruit.
Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward.And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.THE THREAD
Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.Psalm 128:2 uses יְגִיעַ (yegia, toil) beside כַּפֶּיךָ (kappekha, your palms); Genesis 31:42 uses the same toil word beside כַּפַּי (kappai, my palms). The Psalm turns that visible hand-labor toward the table: its fruit can be eaten, and flourishing takes the shape of receiving it.
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