Tehillim 128 and How the Words of David HaMelech Are Being Fulfilled Today in Hebron

Tehillim 128—How the Words of David HaMelech Are Being Fulfilled in Hebron

Tehillim 128:3 "Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the chambers of your home. Your sons, like olive saplings around your table." During our latest visit to Hebron for Shabbat preceding Rosh Chodesh Nisan, together with Rabbi Yitzchak Kogan (shlita), our tour of Hebron was led by Reb Shmuel Muchnik—one of Hebron's longtime Russian-speaking settlers, a well-known and highly respected artist. When we climbed up to the graves of Ruth and Yishai, Reb Shmuel showed us a remarkable sight and illustrated it with the words of David HaMelech (Tehillim 128:3): "Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the chambers of your home. Your sons, like olive saplings around your table." Reb Shmuel then explained: "Descriptions, comparisons, and allusions drawn from the natural world of Eretz Yisrael are frequently found in Tanakh and in the writings of the Sages. In this case, in the second half of the passage, the sons seated at their father's table are compared to olive shoots growing around the stump of an old tree. Indeed, even today, when an old olive tree begins to yield less fruit, it is cut down, leaving a low and very wide stump. Before long, shoots of young olive trees begin to grow upward around it, and from the side, this resembles sons sitting at their father's table." (Reb Shmuel Muchnik, an artist and resident of Hebron, took this photograph of olive trees growing around an olive stump near the graves of Ruth and Yishai in Hebron)