John Calvin 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)

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine on the sides of thy house. Here again it is promised, as in the preceding Psalm, that God will make those who honor him fruitful in a numerous offspring. The majority of mankind indeed desire to have children, and this desire may be said to be implanted in them by nature; but many, when they have obtained children, soon become weary of them.

Again, it is often more agreeable to be without children than to leave a number of them in circumstances of destitution. But although the world is carried away by irregular desires for various objects, between which it is perpetually fluctuating in its choice, God gives this, His own blessing, preference over all riches, and therefore we ought to value it highly.

If a man has a wife of amiable manners as the companion of his life, let him value this blessing no less than Solomon did, who, in Proverbs 19:14, affirms that it is God alone who gives a good wife. In like manner, if a man is a father of a numerous offspring, let him receive that good gift with a thankful heart.

If it is objected that the Prophet, by speaking this way, detains the faithful on the earth by the allurements of the flesh, and hinders them from aspiring towards heaven with free and unencumbered minds, I answer that it is not surprising to find him offering to the Jews under the Law a taste of God’s grace and paternal favor, when we consider that they were like children.

He has, however, so tempered or mixed it that by it they might rise in their contemplations to the heavenly life. Even today God, though more sparingly, testifies His favor by temporal benefits, in agreement with that passage in Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:8):

Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

But by this, He does not place any hindrance or obstacle in our way to keep us from elevating our minds to heaven; rather, by this means, ladders are erected to enable us to climb up there step by step. The Prophet, therefore, very properly reminds the faithful that they already receive some fruit of their integrity when God gives them their food, makes them happy in their wives and children, and condescends to take care of their life. But his design in commending the present goodness of God is to animate them to press on eagerly on the path that leads to their eternal inheritance.

If the earthly felicity described in this Psalm is not always the lot of the godly, and if it sometimes happens that their wife is harsh-tempered, or proud, or of depraved morals, or that their children are dissolute and wayward, and even bring disgrace upon their father’s house, let them know that their being deprived of God’s blessing is due to their having rejected it by their own fault. And surely, if each person duly considers his own vices, he will acknowledge that God’s earthly benefits have been justly withheld from him.