As a kid I heard the old hymn, Bringing in the Sheaves, and wondered what a sheave might be? At first I thought we were singing about sheep, but then I heard a line about the harvest, so I guessed the tune referred to picking apples or something. Lyrics over the head of a boy who ate bread from the grocery store.

Several years later I watched Romanian peasants piling hay into sheaves. They reaped a bountiful harvest on their hillside farms, and stacked their crop in this old-fashioned way.

The phrase originates in Psalm 126. The poem praises God for restoring the people of Israel after their exile to Babylon. They returned to their land with delight and laughter, praising God for the great recovery. The psalmist wrote:

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seeds to sow, will return with songs of joy, bringing sheaves with them.

Sow in tears, reap with joy. It’s a wonderful promise, one fulfilled by our Father again and again. Sheaves of grace come to those who wait. Today I might be in a time of tears, but the Lord produces magnificent harvests from seeds of despair.

Psalm 126 in Through the Bible in 2024

Wheatsheaves in a Field (1885) by Vincent van Gogh