For you shall eat the labor of your hands: happy shall you be, and it shall be well with you.
Read Chapter 128
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
3. "Thou shalt eat the labours of thy fruits" (ver. 2). And ye, O thou, ye many who are One, "Thou shall eat of the labours of thy fruits." He seemeth to speak perversely to those who understand not: for he should have said, thou shall eat the fruit of thy labours For many eat the fruit of their labours. They labour in the vineyard; they eat not the to; itself; but what ariseth from their labour they eat. They labour about trees that bear fruit who would eat labours? But the fruit of these labours, the produce of these trees; it is this that delighteth the husbandman. What meaneth, "Thou shall eat the labours of thy fruits"? At present we have toils: the fruits will come afterwards. But since their labours themselves are not without joy, on account of the hope whereof we have a little before spoken, "Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation;" at present those very labours delight us, and make us joyful in hope. If therefore our toil has been what could be eaten, and could also delight...
Hands. The idle are not entitled to blessings, which God will bestow on the industrious who fear him, preserving them from evils, Leviticus xxvi. 16., and Deuteronomy xxviii. 30. (Calmet) (2 Corinthians iii. 10.)
Some have explained karpon, "fruits: "though it here means hands. (Berthier)
