Psalms 107:37 Meaning and Explanation
“And sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Vineyards take years before a first real crop. Naming them here tells us something about the horizon of this settlement: these are people planting for a future they expect to be present for. The verse quietly answers a question about how God's care usually reaches us, and the answer involves seed, soil, and patient work.
The settled people go to work, sowing grain and planting vines that produce a harvest. God's provision here arrives through ordinary agriculture, with human labor and divine blessing running together.
The Context of Psalms 107:37
This line belongs to the psalm's closing meditation, verses 33 through 43. God has turned wilderness into springs in verse 35 and settled the hungry there in verse 36, giving them a city to prepare. Verse 37 describes what settlement looks like in practice. Verse 38 follows with the LORD blessing them so that they multiply greatly and their cattle do not decrease. The mood shifts in verse 39, where the same people are brought low again, which shows that the psalm is tracing a long cycle rather than a single happy ending.
What Does Psalms 107:37 Mean?
Two kinds of planting appear, and they belong to different timescales. Sowing fields produces grain within a season, food for the coming year. Planting vineyards commits land and effort to vines that take several years to bear well and then keep bearing for decades. Putting both in one line describes a community thinking short and long at once. The closing phrase, 'which may yield fruits of increase,' points at outcome without guaranteeing it by human effort alone. Verse 38 names God as the one who blesses. The KJV word 'increase' carries the sense of produce gathered in, the visible return on planted ground.
Fields and vineyards are covenant vocabulary in Israel's Scripture. The promised land is repeatedly described with grain, wine, and oil, and the law regulates how both are sown, harvested, gleaned, and shared with the poor and the stranger. Prophets use the failure of vineyards as a picture of national loss and their flourishing as a picture of restored peace, where each person sits under his own vine and fig tree. Verse 37 places this settled agricultural life inside a thanksgiving psalm, which treats farming as one of the ordinary channels through which the goodness praised in verse 1 actually arrives.
Jesus told more than one parable set in a vineyard and used sowing as his picture for how the word of God takes root in people. He called himself the vine and spoke of a Father who tends the branches so they bring forth more fruit. The vocabulary of Psalm 107:37, planting and yielding increase, becomes in the Gospels a way of describing lives that produce something for God. The connection stays honest because the psalm already treats fruitfulness as a joint work: people plant, and the increase comes as blessing.
Psalms 107:37 in the Original Language
tevuah (תְּבוּאָה), 'increase' -- the produce that comes in from a field or vineyard, what a harvest actually yields. Hebrew builds the word on a root meaning to come in, so the crop is pictured as something arriving at the household after the season of waiting.
Bible Verses Related to Psalms 107:37
“He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly; and suffereth not their cattle to decrease.”
- Psalm 107:38
“And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.”
- Isaiah 65:21
“And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.”
- Amos 9:14
“I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”
- 1 Corinthians 3:6
Where Psalms 107:37 Echoes in Scripture
Isaiah 65:21 describes the restored people building houses and inhabiting them, planting vineyards and eating the fruit of them. The pairing with verse 36 of this psalm is close, since both texts move from settlement to vineyards, and both treat the enjoyment of one's own harvest as a mark of God's favor. Isaiah writes it as promise for a future city. Psalm 107 sings it as something God has already done for people he brought out of the desert.
How to Apply Psalms 107:37 Today
Long work deserves respect. Vineyards reward people who keep tending ground that shows nothing for several seasons, and much of our most important labor has that shape: raising children, building a marriage, learning a craft, staying faithful in a hard place. This verse encourages us to plant anyway. It also guards against two errors. Trusting the harvest to effort alone forgets verse 38, where God gives the blessing. Waiting passively for a harvest forgets that someone has to sow. Steady work with open hands fits the psalm on both sides.
Reflection & Prayer
What are we planting right now whose harvest is years away, and are we tending it with any regularity? A prayer for slow ground: Lord, I have put things in the soil that show nothing yet. Keep my hands steady through the waiting, guard me from measuring the work by this week's return, and grant the increase in your time. Amen.