Psalm 129:3 portrays Israel's suffering with the vivid metaphor of plowers plowing across a person's back and making long furrows. In the psalm itself the speaker represents Israel, repeatedly afflicted by enemies from its youth. The image describes national oppression and is not originally a direct prediction of the Messiah's scourging.

Matthew 27:26 records Pilate having Jesus scourged before handing Him over for crucifixion. Christians have naturally seen a visual correspondence between the furrowed back of Psalm 129 and the wounds produced by Roman scourging. Matthew, however, does not cite Psalm 129 as fulfilled prophecy. The connection should therefore be presented as typological imagery: Jesus, as Israel's Messiah and representative, personally endures the kind of violent affliction poetically associated with Israel in the psalm.