Bible Strands
Psalms 127:2
In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat—for He gives sleep to His beloved.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Solomon addresses the assembly of Israel in a song of ascents, positioned between the futility of unaided building (v. 1) and the gift of children (v. 3). The speaker is not condemning labor but locating it under a higher agent.
The words — שָׁוְא (shav', H7723) is the thesis word, meaning "vanity" or "emptiness," and it opens the verse just as it closes v. 1, binding the two stanzas together. The noun הַעֲצָבִים (ha.'a.tza.Vim, H6089), "labors," is the concrete object of that vanity—what is wasted when effort replaces trust.
The thread — Ecclesiastes 5:12 echoes the same logic: the worker's sleep is sweet, while the rich man's abundance robs him of it. Psalms 4:8 and Job 11:18 both tie the act of lying down in safety to divine presence rather than human achievement.
Why it lands — The verse does not forbid rising early; it refuses to let the reader treat their own diligence as the cause of their survival. It asks the reader to name the actual provider of rest and to stop auditing their effort as if it were the guarantor of the next meal.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
Cross-references
- Ecclesiastes 5:12 The sleep of the worker is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich man permits him no sleep.
- Psalms 4:8 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
- Job 11:18 You will be secure, because there is hope, and you will look around and lie down in safety.
- Psalms 3:5 I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the LORD sustains me.
- Jeremiah 31:26 At this I awoke and looked around. My sleep had been most pleasant to me.
- Ecclesiastes 2:20 So my heart began to despair over all the labor that I had done under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 1:14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.
- Ezekiel 34:25 I will make with them a covenant of peace and rid the land of wild animals, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the forest.
- Proverbs 31:15 She rises while it is still night to provide food for her household and portions for her maidservants.
- Psalms 39:5 You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah