The decline of family formation
The opening verse of this passage speaks directly to one of the more disturbing features of our current society. Over the past five decades, there has been a steady decline in family formation. I refer to a number of metrics. Less people are getting married. Those who do marry are doing so at a later and later age in life. Finally, and most concerning of all, people are having fewer and fewer children.
In the pre-industrialized world, birth control was not nearly as available as it is today, abortion was almost unheard of, and more people lived according to traditional faith values. All these factors contributed to the fact that the average family was larger than today.
Young men and women today generally cite a number of reasons they are delaying marriage and family formation. They will say they are focused on their education and want to wait until they are first financially secure. They argue that children are a significant financial burden. Another argument one hears from young adults is that they want a few years to focus on their own personal development before taking such important steps.
Trust God, build a family
Psalm 127 teaches us that these perspectives are not entirely consistent with faith in God. The opening verses of Psalm 127, leading up to the passage cited here, remind us that human plans to secure ourselves materially are worthless if God is not on board.
In other words, don’t think that all your plans to secure yourself are what really protect you. The connection between this message and the verses that follow could not be more relevant to the current cultural problem I raised. All the reasons to delay family formation are human designs to insulate oneself from the natural difficulties that come with raising a young family. But all these plans forget the most important ingredient. “Unless the Lord builds the house,” unless God wants you to be financially stable, it won’t work.
Our passage, verses 3-5, are a reminder to young people of the correct perspective on family formation.
First, recognize that children are a gift from God. They are a reward, not a burden. Will there be times when it is difficult to take a vacation or buy expensive clothes because you chose to marry and have children at a young age? Of course. But that is a blessing. Next, the psalmist teaches us the added value of “children of one’s youth.” This refers to children born when the parents are still relatively young.
Younger parents have more energy to care for their children. They are closer in age to them and understand them better. Most importantly, young parents have a much greater likelihood of being a significant presence in the lives of their grandchildren down the road. The advantages of having children at a young age are numerous.
Children are God’s portion
There is another important message about having children that is implied by a single word in this passage. Verse 3 states:
The Hebrew word for “portion” is nachala. In almost all translations the English for nachala is “heritage” or “gift.” “Gift” is almost certainly an inaccurate translation. The word nachala appears 220 times in the Bible. Its meaning is unambiguous. In almost all cases, nachala refers to a plot of land that is owned. This is the word that is used repeatedly in the book of Numbers and in the book of Joshua in the many verses that describe the dividing up of the promised land into “portions” to be owned in perpetuity by the various tribes and families. The reason that so many translations render nachala as “heritage” is because a nachala is a permanent possession, the kind of possession that is bequeathed to the next generation.
In almost all translations, the phrase nachalat Adonai is translated as “a heritage from the Lord” or “a gift from the Lord.” Aside from the issue I just raised regarding the precise meaning of nachala – “portion” or “possession” – there is another problem with these translations. Even if we correctly translate nachala as “portion,” nachalat Adonai still would not mean “portion from the Lord.”
Nachalat portion of
Adonai (YHVH) the Lord
If the psalmist intended to say “portion from the Lord,” he would have needed to add the prefix me, meaning “from,” to “the Lord.” The phrase would have been nachala me’Adonai.
Confused by the Hebrew? Let me keep this simple. Nachalat Adonai, means “portion of the Lord” or “possession of the Lord.” To say that children are nachalat Adonai does not mean that God gave children to people as possessions for them. It means that children are God’s possessions!
The message is powerful and relevant to the overall message of the psalm. People who are worried about worldly concerns and allow those concerns to stand in the way of having children must understand that children belong to God. They are His possessions. Like an ancestral plot of land that one owns, they are His legacy and assurance for the future. But they are His!
Just as a person cares for their own precious possessions, God will take care of the children He brings into the world. We must not allow our own human calculations stand in the way of God’s legacy.
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