Except the LORD

Nisi Dominus Frustra. Edinburgh has carried those words on its arms for centuries, and they are the middle of your verse with the rest knocked off: unless the Lord, in vain. A city put a warning about its own construction over the door of the place where the building gets decided.

So build the house, or do not let us build it, because they labour in vain that build it. The plans are out and the money is moving and we would like to know whether you are in this; the psalm never says the work is optional and never says the work is enough. Except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Keep the city. We will keep waking; the waking is our part and nobody here is asking to be excused it. What we ask is that it should not turn out to have been theatre.

Then the next line, which we have been avoiding for years. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. Give us the sleep. The work will not be finished, so give it tonight, on the unfinished thing, as evidence that the house was never resting on the hours we put in.

Children come next, and arrows, a full quiver, a man answering his enemies in the gate. Sons and daughters are called an heritage and a reward, which is to say received. Line the halves up and this is a song about the two things a driven man cannot manufacture, the sleep at one end and the household at the other. He gives both, to people who keep working, and the vanity is never in the labour. It is in the belief that the labour holds the roof up.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 337 is Everlasting Kingdom (Psalm 145:13).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two