Ps. 129 is a song celebrating national deliverance. The psalmist speaks of the trials through which Israel as a nation had passed and of how the Lord interposed on their behalf and brought confusion to their enemies. It is a song of the countryside and has many allusions to agricultural pursuits. The precise historical incident that may have been the occasion of this psalm is a matter of conjecture. The psalmist is not so much concerned with the incident as with the lesson to be drawn from it.
On the superscription see Introduction to Ps. 120; see also pp. 625, 627.
Many.
Or, “in abundant measure,” that is, “often.”
From my youth.
See Jer. 2:2; Hosea 2:3, 15; 11:1. Israel had spent her “youth” in cruel bondage in Egypt and now looks back to the Lord’s deliverance from that dark land.