Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 129:1

"Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth up, Let Israel now say," — Psalms 129:1 (ASV)

Many a time. —Or more literally, much. (See margin.)

From my youth. —Here, of course, not the youth of a person, but of the nation. The poet glances back even to the Egyptian bondage. (See Hosea 2:15, "as in the days of her youth, and as in the days when she came up out of the land of Egypt; " compare to Ezekiel 23:3; Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 22:21, recalling all the long series of oppressions suffered by the race.)

May Israel now say. —There is in the original no adverb of time: "let Israel say."