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Psalm 128:2

For you will eat the labor of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you.

1A Song of Ascents. Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways.
2For you will eat the labor of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you.
3Your wife will be as a fruitful vine in the innermost parts of your house, your children like olive shoots around your table.
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← Psalm 128:1Psalm 128:3 →
Notice

Eating what your hands have worked for makes happiness concrete here: the blessing includes having enough and getting to enjoy what your labor produces.

Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.

What have you enjoyed this week that came from the work of your hands?

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Where does the gap between your labor and its rewards make this verse hard to receive?

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How does the surrounding emphasis on fearing YHWH shape your reading of this promise?

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Connect

Where else Scripture says this

12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.

This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Isaiah 3:10Tell the righteous that it will be well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their deeds.Both link things going well with eating the fruit of one’s actions, within a setting that honors righteous living.
Psalm 1:3He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.Both describe a flourishing life through tangible images: a fruitful tree in Psalm 1 and food from one’s labor in Psalm 128.
Isaiah 62:8The LORD has sworn by his right hand, and by the arm of his strength, “Surely I will no more give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners will …Both describe people enjoying what they labored for; Isaiah names the threat of enemies taking that provision.
Isaiah 65:21–23They will build houses and inhabit them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.Both picture the good of enjoying work’s results, whether eating what hands produce or inhabiting houses and eating vineyard fruit.
Genesis 2:15The LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it.The shared thread is human work under God’s care: Genesis describes tending a garden, while the psalm describes enjoying labor’s yield.
Ecclesiastes 5:18–19Behold, that which I have seen to be good and proper is for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor, in which he labors under the sun, all …Both connect eating and enjoying one’s labor with a good life received under God’s care.
Deuteronomy 28:4You shall be blessed in the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your animals, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your …Both portray blessing through tangible provision, with the psalm naming food from labor and Deuteronomy naming the fruit of the ground.
Ruth 3:1Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, shall I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you?Both speak of life going well for someone; Naomi seeks that welfare for Ruth, while the psalm describes it as blessing.
Deuteronomy 28:11The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land which the …Both connect the LORD’s blessing with material provision, including what the land produces and what a person’s labor yields.
Ecclesiastes 8:12Though a sinner commits crimes a hundred times, and lives long, yet surely I know that it will be better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him.Both associate fearing God with life going well, though Ecclesiastes acknowledges the troubling sight of a sinner living long.
1 Corinthians 15:58Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.Both speak of labor having value, though Paul addresses work in the Lord and the psalm describes enjoying material provision.
Proverbs 31:31Give her of the fruit of her hands! Let her works praise her in the gates!Both connect hands with the fruit of work and affirm the good of a worker receiving that fruit.
Where this verse fits

Gratitude. an ordinary day. job loss or money fear.

What the Bible says about gratitude →What the Bible says about money →
One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Enjoy one unhurried meal your work helped provide

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Encouragement

This wisdom song describes a blessed life under God’s care, without setting a timetable for prosperity. Its picture of happiness includes enjoying the fruit of your work.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 128:2. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.

Keep goingPsalm 128 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).