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Your wife will be like a fruitful vine flourishing within your house, your sons like olive shoots sitting around your table.
Psalms 128:3 · Berean Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB Your wife will be as a fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of your house; your children like olive plants, around your table.
  • KJV Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
  • NKJV Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine In the very heart of your house, Your children like olive plants All around your table.
  • NASB Your wife will be like a fruitful vine Within your house, Your children like olive plants Around your table.
  • NLT Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home. Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

His wife is like a fruitful vine and his children like olive shoots around the table. It portrays a flourishing, God-blessed household as part of the good life.

Overview

The picture of blessing extends to a fruitful wife and children gathered at the family table, images of vitality, growth, and joyful fellowship. The home becomes a place where God's favor is visibly enjoyed. While not every believer receives this in the same measure, it reflects God's good design and points to the abundant life found in Christ.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 9

  • Ezek 19:10Your mother was like a vine in your vineyard, planted by the water; it was fruitful and full of branches because of the abundant waters.
  • Ps 52:8But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in the loving devotion of God forever and ever.
  • Rom 11:24For if you were cut from a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into one that is cultivated, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
  • Gen 49:22Joseph is a fruitful vine—a fruitful vine by a spring, whose branches scale the wall.
  • Prov 5:15–18Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.
  • Jer 11:16The LORD once called you a flourishing olive tree, beautiful with well-formed fruit. But with a mighty roar He will set it on fire, and its branches will be consumed.
  • Hos 14:6–7His shoots will sprout, and his splendor will be like the olive tree, his fragrance like the cedars of Lebanon.
  • Ps 144:12Then our sons will be like plants nurtured in their youth, our daughters like corner pillars carved to adorn a palace.
  • Ps 127:5Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. He will not be put to shame when he confronts the enemies at the gate.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (5)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Psalms videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Psalms 128:3YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on PsalmsMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.

How Psalms 128:3 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.