For thou shalt eat the labours of thy hands: blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee.

“"You shall eat the labours of your fruits" [Psalm 128:2]. And ye, O thou, you many who are One, "You shall eat of the labours of your fruits." He seems to speak perversely to those who understand not: for he should have said, you shall eat the fruit of your labours. For many eat the fruit of their labours. They labour in the vineyard; they eat not the toil itself; but what arises from their labour they eat. They labour about trees that bear fruit: who would eat labours? But the fruit of these labours, the produce of these trees; it is this that delights the husbandman. What means, "You shall eat the labours of your fruits"? At present we have toils: the fruits will come afterwards. But since their labours themselves are not without joy, on account of the hope whereof we have a little before spoken, "Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation;" [Romans 12:12] at present those very labours delight us, and make us joyful in hope. If therefore our toil has been what could be eaten, and could also delight us; what will be the fruit of our labour when eaten? "They who went weeping on their way, scattering their seed," did eat their labours; with how much greater pleasure will they eat the fruits of their labours, who "shall come again with joy, bearing their sheaves with them"?..."Blessed are you, and well shall it be with you." "Blessed are you," is of the present: "well shall it be with you," is of the future. When you eat the labours of your fruits, "blessed are you;" when you have reached the fruit of your labours, "well shall it be with you." What has he said? For if it be well with you, you will be happy: and if you will be happy, you will also have all well with you. But there is a difference between hope and attainment. If hope be so sweet, how much sweeter will reality be?”

“For thou shall eat the labour of thine hands,.... That is, thou that fearest the Lord, and walkest in his ways. It is an apostrophe, or address to such, even to everyone of them; instancing in one part of the blessedness that belongs to them, enjoyment of what their hands have laboured for; which may be understood both in a literal and spiritual sense: man must labour and get his bread with the sweat of his brow; he that will not work should not eat, he that does should; and a good man may have a comfortable enjoyment of the good of his labour; than which, as to temporal blessings, there is nothing better under the sun, Ecc 5:18; and, in a spiritual sense, good men labour in prayers at the throne of grace, there lifting up holy hands to God, wrestling with him for a blessing, which they enjoy; they labour in attendance on the word and ordinances, for the meat which endures to everlasting life; and they find the word and eat it, and Christ in it, whose flesh is meat indeed; and feed by faith on it, to the joy and comfort of their souls; happy shall thou be, and it shall be well with thee; or, to thy soul, as the Syriac version; happy as to temporal things, and well as to spiritual ones: such having an apparent special interest in the love, grace, mercy, and delight of God; in his providence, protection, and care; in the supplies of his grace, and in his provisions for his people, in time and eternity. It is well with such that felt God, in life and at death, at judgment and for ever: and the Targum is, "thou art blessed in this world, and it shall be well with thee in the world to come;'' and so Arama.”