Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:3-5, ESV
Verses 3-5 focus on another meaning of building; that is, to raise a family. Children are not our achievement but His gift (3). So is a completed house and a guarded city (1–2).[1]
For those wishing to sever marriage from children or who might have a problem with children being God’s gift, Martin Luther says this:
“The purpose of marriage is not pleasure and ease but the procreation and education of children and the support of a family. People who do not like children are swine, dunces, and blockheads, not worthy to be called men and women, because they despise the blessing of God, the Creator and Author of marriage.”[2]
Although Luther’s bluntness makes us smile and I agree with the main thrust of his argument, I don’t wish to be among those who celebrate one purpose of marriage—procreation—and then turn around and denigrate another of its purposes—pleasure and enjoyment (e.g. Prov. 5:18-20; Eccl. 9:9; Song of Solomon).
But that aside and returning to historical context of our text, Old Testament scholar Leslie Allen notes that:
“The psalm concentrates upon the particular value of sons born to a man not too late in life: they would be old enough to protect their father in his declining years. If he were wrongly accused in the law court just inside the city gate, they would rally around, ensuring that he was treated justly and defending his interests in a way denied loners in society, such as widows and orphans. They were God’s arrows against injustice within the local community.”[3]
The ancient Near East scenario was akin to the classic TV western Bonanza or John Wayne’s The Sons of Katie Elder. Although the world has changed much since the wild west of the pre-industrial revolution, our nation’s sense of masculinity still has the imprint of towering figures like John Wayne. Although he no longer holds the place of America’s favorite movie star (he held that spot until as late as 1995), he was “emblematic of strong, silent manhood, of courage and honor in a world of timidity and moral indifference.”[4] Gratefully, despite pervasive gender confusion in our day, our culture’s shared sense of masculinity has evolved to include nurture and emotional health as part of what it means to be a healthy man and father.
Child Psychologist Michael Thompson, in his 2006 PBS documentary Raising Cain, took the pulse of the emotional development of boys growing up in America. He observed that boys desperately needed fathers and father-figures in their lives to show them a better model of manhood. He found that so many of our nation’s boys were filled with sadness, pain, and loss. And many were trying to raise themselves in a vacuum. In a world with so many conflicting messages, they needed men to teach them life skills and how to be a man.
His research[5] showed that when they reached puberty, they experienced a “culture of cruelty” from their peers. Many of us know well—through personal experience or as a result of raising boys—that sixth, seventh and eighth graders can be so cruel. Thomson found that during these middle years one in four boys is bullied. Many then enter into the “the culture of the streets,” which is the gang version of manhood and very a distorted grab at what it means to be a man. Thompson further observed that this distorted view was actually a “mask of masculinity,” where boys “posture” themselves and get together and beat their chests. And often this includes a life full of addictions to mask deep emotional pain. And for too many of our nation’s children, this leads to incarceration.[6]
Thompson concludes his documentary by saying we need “a better understanding of the psychology of boys” and concludes with these outstanding observations:
- Boys as much as girls have an emotional life.
- Boys have their own way of learning which must be accommodated in “the classroom” (whether virtual or in-person—this was pre-pandemic!). Space will not allow more detail here, but, on average, what Thomson was recommending is a more physical, active, and hands-on educational experience.
- Boys need to have a father or father-figure—an adult male who can model manhood and teach boys that there are many ways to be a man and that being a man means being responsible, caring and emotionally available.
As noted, the psalm concentrates on sons, who had the power to protect their older parents or defend the family’s honor, but the first part of the psalm includes all children, male and female alike: “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.” (3) And the message as a whole is that strong families are blessings to the places that they live. Our children—whether boys or girls—are God’s arrows, cared for and raised in our “quiver,” and then sent out to make a difference in the world. But that world can be a wild and scary place, and some of our communities need a lot of help. Here’s a passage that’s meant a lot to me over the years, reminding me that God’s got my back—and he’s there for you too:
“The Lord will guide you continually, watering your life when you are dry and keeping you healthy, too. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. Your children will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as the people who rebuild their walls and cities.”
Isaiah 58:11-12, NLT
[1]Carson, D. A. (1994). New Bible Commentary: 21st century edition. Rev. ed. of: The new Bible commentary. 3rd ed. / edited by D. Guthrie, J.A. Motyer. 1970. (4th ed.) (Ps 127:1). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA: Inter-Varsity Press.
[2] Martin Luther. “Martin Luther, The Later Years and Legacy,” Christian History, Issue 39.
[3] Leslie Allen, Word Biblical Commentary, Psalm 101-150 (Waco: Word) 1983, 181.
[4] Kristen Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (New York: Liveright, 2020), 105.
[5] Raising Cain, 2006.
[6] Working at National Fatherhood Initiative for twelve years, part of that time as Senior Director of Corrections Programming, I was especially sensitized to Thomson’s observations about how too many of our boys were ending up in prison. Further, growing up in the poorest county in southern NJ, I had a front-row seat to our country’s overdependence on “just build more prisons” as the best way to deal with crime. Since our rural county with small towns was economically depressed and less densely populated than North Jersey, we were a convenient place to grow and house our state’s growing prison population. We had four prisons, a county jail that was often 50% over capacity, two halfway houses, and a detention center. The total prison-related population was about 10K or 7% of the county’s population!