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Gustave Doré’s engraving of David standing crowned and bowed as he mourns Absalom

Psalm 127

One of the psalms St Athanasius said to pray when you dedicate your home, and yourself, to God, in a letter from the 300s.

  • 5Verses
  • 2Situations

St Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus

When to pray it

In the 300s, St Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a letter to his friend Marcellinus about praying the Psalms. In it he matched psalms to what people go through. He named this one more than once.

Something new has begun in your home, and you want to give it, and yourself, to God with thanks.

When you dedicate your house, both your soul, which receives the Lord, and the home you live in, give thanks and say Psalm 30, and Psalm 127 from the Songs of Ascents.

Letter to Marcellinus

For this, the quiz gives Psalm 30, and this psalm beside it.

You can feel yourself climbing: forgetting what's behind you and straining toward what's ahead.

When you sense yourself climbing higher in how you live, so that you can say with Paul, "forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead", you have the fifteen Songs of Ascents to say at every step forward.

Letter to Marcellinus

He gave all fifteen Songs of Ascents for this, Psalms 120 to 134.

5 verses, Berean Standard Bible

The whole psalm

Psalm 127

Its own heading A song of ascents. Of Solomon.

  1. 1Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the LORD protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain.
  2. 2In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat— for He gives sleep to His beloved.
  3. 3Children are indeed a heritage from the LORD, and the fruit of the womb is His reward.
  4. 4Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are children born in one’s youth.
  5. 5Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. He will not be put to shame when he confronts the enemies at the gate.

Psalm 127 is 126 in the Greek numbering Athanasius used, which Orthodox Bibles and some older Catholic ones still follow.

When life is good, and you want to thank Him and grow

Close to this

All 53 situations, in one guide.

Your turn

Which Psalm are you living right now?

A few honest taps about your life right now, and the psalm an early Church Father gave for exactly that.

  • 3 min
  • 7 questions
Start

Suggest a correction. Corrections that are applied are recorded in the public changelog.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Athanasius’s advice is paraphrased from his Greek.