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Your wife will be like a fruitful vine Within your house, Your children like olive plants Around your table.
Psalms 128:3 · New American 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.
  • BSB Your wife will be like a fruitful vine flourishing within your house, your sons like olive shoots sitting around your 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.
  • 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 19:10“‘Your mother was like a vine, in your blood, planted by the waters. It was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.
  • Ps 52:8But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in God’s house. I trust in God’s loving kindness forever and ever.
  • Rom 11:24For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
  • Gen 49:22“Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a spring. His branches run over the wall.
  • Prov 5:15–18Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well.
  • Jer 11:16Yahweh called your name, “A green olive tree, beautiful with goodly fruit.” With the noise of a great tumult he has kindled fire on it, and its branches are broken.
  • Hos 14:6–7His branches will spread, and his beauty will be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon.
  • Ps 144:12Then our sons will be like well-nurtured plants, our daughters like pillars carved to adorn a palace.
  • Ps 127:5Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They won’t be disappointed when they speak with their enemies in 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.