Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 128:3

"Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine, In the innermost parts of thy house; Thy children like olive plants, Round about thy table." — Psalms 128:3 (ASV)

Your wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of your house - It is not uncommon in the East, as elsewhere, to train a vine along the sides of a house. This is done partly to save ground, partly because it provides good exposure for fruit, partly as an ornament, and partly to protect it from thieves.

Such a vine, in its beauty and abundant clusters, becomes a beautiful emblem of the mother of a numerous household. One of the blessings most desired and valued in the East was a numerous posterity. This, in the case of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was among the chief blessings God promised them—a posterity that would resemble in number the sands of the sea or the stars of heaven. Compare Genesis 15:5; Genesis 22:17; Genesis 32:12.

These two things—the right to the benefits of one’s labor (Psalms 128:2) and a numerous family—are the blessings first specified as constituting the happiness of a pious household.

Your children like olive plants round about your table - Compare the notes at Psalms 52:8. Beautiful; producing abundance; sending up young plants to take the place of the old when they decay and die.

The following extract from “The Land and the Book,” vol. I, pp. 76-77, provides a good illustration of this passage:

“To what particular circumstance does David refer in the 128th Psalm, where he says, Your children shall be like oliveplants round about your table? Follow me into the grove, and I will show you what may have suggested the comparison. Here we have come upon a beautiful illustration. This aged and decayed tree is surrounded, as you see, by several young and thrifty shoots, which spring from the root of the venerable parent. They seem to uphold, protect, and embrace it.

We may even fancy that they now bear that load of fruit which would otherwise be demanded of the feeble parent. Thus do good and affectionate children gather round the table of the righteous. Each contributes something to the common good and welfare of the whole—a beautiful sight, with which may God refresh the eyes of every friend of mine.”