Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south.
The Psalm begins, Psalms 126:1 (KJV): “When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.” God had already “turned again” the captivity of Zion. This Psalm was written after the decree of Cyrus to allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple.
I can imagine the dreamlike state the Jews would have been in. I’ve experienced those times – times when the answers to our prayers and the things God had done for us were more than we could have imagined, impossible to have been contrived on our own, and could only have been attributed to the working of God on our behalf. I recall a time when, driving from the Tacoma area to our home in Astoria, my wife said, “It feels like God is about to burst a dam of blessings open.” And He did!
-We laughed.
-We rejoiced.
-We spoke of it to others[1]
But then the Psalmist said, “Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams of the south.”
We know that the process of the Jews returning to their homeland was not without challenges. They needed answers to prayers, in those times of reconstruction, time and time again. Indeed, to this very day, there is reason to pray for God to “turn again the captivity of Zion.” Israel is in no way what God has promised her to one day be.
And so it is with us. We can rejoice in what God has done, but we cannot rest in what God has done. As in revival, we need to be turned again and again and again.
The dream, in fact, does not turn into reality until we enter eternity.
[1] And speak of it to this day.
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