Psalms 127 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Key Background

The link to Solomon fits the two examples, since he built both the temple and the walls of Jerusalem, and the Hebrew word for house can mean a building, a household or a family line all at once. Cities depended on watchmen posted through the night, an unglamorous job that everyone understood as necessary and yet limited. In a society with no courts of appeal and no state pension, grown sons standing with their father when he faced accusers at the city gate were his legal defence and his security in old age, which is what the image of a full quiver is about.