1Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers;
2but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night.
3He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.
4The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
5Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.
1 Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night.
3 He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.
4 The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.
KJVKing James Version
1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
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JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
1 BOOK I HAPPY IS the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in His law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf doth not wither; and in whatsoever he doeth he shall prosper.
4 Not so the wicked; but they are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the LORD regardeth the way of the righteous; but the way of the wicked shall perish.
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Psalms 26:4-5(v1)I have not sat with deceitful men, neither will I go in with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.
Proverbs 4:14-15(v1)Don’t enter into the path of the wicked. Don’t walk in the way of evil men. Avoid it, and don’t pass by it. Turn from it, and pass on.
Jeremiah 17:8(v3)For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf…
Proverbs 13:20(v1)One who walks with wise men grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
Psalms 119:1-2(v1)Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to Yahweh’s law. Blessed are those who keep his statutes, who seek him with…
Show all 100 cross-references
Jeremiah 15:17(v1)I didn’t sit in the assembly of those who make merry and rejoice. I sat alone because of your hand, for you have filled me with indignation.
Matthew 7:13-14(v1)“Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it.…
Luke 11:28(v1)But he said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it.”
Ezekiel 47:12(v3)By the river on its bank, on this side and on that side, will grow every tree for food, whose leaf won’t wither, neither will its fruit…
Joshua 1:8(v2)This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to…
Psalms 92:14(v3)They will still produce fruit in old age. They will be full of sap and green,
Psalms 1:6(v1)For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.
Psalms 119:92(v2)Unless your law had been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
Psalms 34:8(v1)Oh taste and see that Yahweh is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
Proverbs 1:15(v1)My son, don’t walk on the path with them. Keep your foot from their path,
Deuteronomy 28:2-68(v1)All these blessings will come upon you, and overtake you, if you listen to Yahweh your God’s voice. You shall be blessed in the city, and…
Psalms 119:11(v2)I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
Psalms 112:1(vv1–2)Praise Yah! Blessed is the man who fears Yahweh, who delights greatly in his commandments.
Romans 7:22(v2)For I delight in God’s law after the inward man,
Psalms 119:97-99(v2)How I love your law! It is my meditation all day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for your commandments are always with…
John 15:6(v3)If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are…
Leviticus 26:27-28(v1)“ ‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you…
Job 21:16(v1)Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
Psalms 36:4(v1)He plots iniquity on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He doesn’t abhor evil.
Ephesians 6:13(v1)Therefore put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Genesis 49:6(v1)My soul, don’t come into their council. My glory, don’t be united to their assembly; for in their anger they killed men. In their self-will…
Ezekiel 19:10(v3)“ ‘Your mother was like a vine in your blood, planted by the waters. It was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.
Psalms 119:115(v1)Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God.
Proverbs 13:15(v1)Good understanding wins favor, but the way of the unfaithful is hard.
Genesis 39:23(v3)The keeper of the prison didn’t look after anything that was under his hand, because Yahweh was with him; and that which he did, Yahweh…
Psalms 106:3(v1)Blessed are those who keep justice. Blessed is one who does what is right at all times.
Psalms 81:12(v1)So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels.
Joshua 1:7-8(v3)Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Don’t turn…
Jeremiah 17:7(v1)“Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose confidence is in Yahweh.
Psalms 26:12(v1)My foot stands in an even place. In the congregations I will bless Yahweh.
Proverbs 2:12(v1)to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things,
2 Timothy 2:19(v6)However God’s firm foundation stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let every one who names the name of the…
Proverbs 3:34(v1)Surely he mocks the mockers, but he gives grace to the humble.
Ezekiel 17:8(v3)It was planted in a good soil by many waters, that it might produce branches, and that it might bear fruit, that it might be a good vine.” ’
Proverbs 4:19(v1)The way of the wicked is like darkness. They don’t know what they stumble over.
Revelation 22:2(v3)in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit…
Psalms 119:15-16(v2)I will meditate on your precepts, and consider your ways. I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word.
Psalms 84:12(v1)Yahweh of Armies, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
Proverbs 9:12(v1)If you are wise, you are wise for yourself. If you mock, you alone will bear it.
Jeremiah 15:16(v2)Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your name, Yahweh, God…
Revelation 22:14(v1)Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city.
Psalms 144:15(v1)Happy are the people who are in such a situation. Happy are the people whose God is Yahweh.
Psalms 119:35(v2)Direct me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in them.
John 10:14(v6)I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own;
Romans 5:2(v1)through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Job 21:18(v4)How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
Proverbs 15:9(v6)The way of the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh, but he loves him who follows after righteousness.
Matthew 13:6(v3)When the sun had risen, they were scorched. Because they had no root, they withered away.
Nahum 1:7(v6)Yahweh is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him.
John 20:29(v1)Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.”
Proverbs 1:22(v1)“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?
Psalms 146:9(vv1, 6)Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but he turns the way of the wicked upside down.
Psalms 32:1-2(v1)Blessed is he whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom Yahweh doesn’t impute iniquity, in whose…
Psalms 104:34(v2)Let my meditation be sweet to him. I will rejoice in Yahweh.
1 Peter 4:3(v1)For we have spent enough of our past time doing the desire of the Gentiles, and having walked in lewdness, lusts, drunken binges, orgies,…
Psalms 128:2(v3)For you will eat the labor of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you.
John 13:17(v1)If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
Genesis 39:3(v3)His master saw that Yahweh was with him, and that Yahweh made all that he did prosper in his hand.
1 Kings 16:31(v1)As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal…
2 Chronicles 31:21(v3)In every work that he began in the service of God’s house, in the law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his…
Psalms 2:12(v1)Give sincere homage to the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish on the way, for his wrath will soon be kindled. Blessed are all those who…
Psalms 115:12-15(v1)Yahweh remembers us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear…
Psalms 146:5(v1)Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Yahweh, his God:
Ezekiel 20:18(v1)I said to their children in the wilderness, ‘Don’t walk in the statutes of your fathers. Don’t observe their ordinances or defile…
Deuteronomy 33:29(v1)You are happy, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by Yahweh, the shield of your help, the sword of your excellency? Your enemies will…
Job 10:3(v1)Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked?
Psalms 40:8(v2)I delight to do your will, my God. Yes, your law is within my heart.”
Proverbs 19:29(v1)Penalties are prepared for scoffers, and beatings for the backs of fools.
Isaiah 3:10(v3)Tell the righteous “Good!” For they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.
Genesis 5:24(v1)Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, for God took him.
Psalms 64:2(v1)Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from the noisy crowd of the ones doing evil;
2 Chronicles 22:3(v1)He also walked in the ways of Ahab’s house, because his mother was his counselor in acting wickedly.
Psalms 5:5(v5)The arrogant will not stand in your sight. You hate all workers of iniquity.
Matthew 3:12(v4)His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the…
Job 31:5(v1)“If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hurried to deceit
Psalms 37:18-24(v6)Yahweh knows the days of the perfect. Their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be disappointed in the time of evil. In the days…
Isaiah 44:4(v3)and they will spring up among the grass, as willows by the watercourses.
Psalms 119:1(v2)Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to Yahweh’s law.
John 10:27(v6)My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
1 John 5:3(v2)For this is loving God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous.
Matthew 25:46(v5)These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
1 Timothy 4:15(v2)Be diligent in these things. Give yourself wholly to them, that your progress may be revealed to all.
Job 23:12(v2)I haven’t gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
Psalms 35:5(v4)Let them be as chaff before the wind, Yahweh’s angel driving them on.
Psalms 119:47-48(v2)I will delight myself in your commandments, because I love them. I reach out my hands for your commandments, which I love. I will meditate…
Proverbs 14:12(v6)There is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.
Job 14:9(v3)yet through the scent of water it will bud, and sprout boughs like a plant.
Psalms 119:72(v2)The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of pieces of gold and silver.
Malachi 3:18(v5)Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who doesn’t serve him.
Matthew 16:17(v1)Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
Luke 23:51(v1)(he had not consented to their counsel and deed), from Arimathaea, a city of the Jews, who was also waiting for God’s Kingdom:
Psalms 139:1-2(v6)Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar.
Matthew 21:34(v3)When the season for the fruit came near, he sent his servants to the farmers, to receive his fruit.
Isaiah 27:11(v3)When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding.…
Matthew 7:13(v6)“Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it.
100 distinct cross-references across this passage (130 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (28 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv1–6IF the reading of these my Commentaries confer as…
IF the reading of these my Commentaries confer as much benefit on the Church of God as I myself have reaped advantage from the composition of them, I shall have no reason to regret that I have undertaken this work. Having expounded here, in our small school, the Book of Psalms, about three years ago, I thought that I had by this means sufficiently discharged my duty, and had resolved not to publish to the world what I had familiarly taught those of my own household. And, in fact, before I had undertaken to expound this book in my lectures, at the request of my brethren, I said what was true, that I had kept away from this subject, because that most faithful teacher of the Church of God, Martin Bucer, had labored in this field with such singular learning, diligence, fidelity, and success, that at least there was not so great need that I should put my hand to the work. And had the Commentaries of Wolphangus Musculus at that time been published, I would not have omitted to do them justice, by mentioning them in the same way, since he too, in the judgment of good men, has earned no small praise by his diligence and industry in this walk. I had not yet come to the end of the book, when, lo! I am urged by renewed solicitations not to suffer my lectures, which certain persons had carefully, faithfully, and not without great labor, taken down, to be lost to the world. My purpose still remained unaltered; only I promised what for a long time I had been thinking of, to write something on the subject in the French language, that my countrymen might not be without the means of being enabled to understand so useful a book when perusing it. Whilst I am thinking of making this attempt, suddenly, and contrary to my first design, it occurred to me, by what impulse I know not, to compose in Latin, only as it were in the way of trial, an exposition of one Psalm. When I found that my success corresponded to my desire far beyond what I had ventured to anticipate, I was encouraged, and accordingly began to make the same attempt in a few other Psalms. On perceiving this, my intimate friends, as if in this way they held me bound, urged me with the greater confidence not to desist from my course. One reason which made me comply with their solicitations, and which also had from the commencement induced me to make this first attempt, was an apprehension that at some future period what had been taken down from my lectures, might be published to the world contrary to my wishes or at least without my knowledge. I can truly say, that I was drawn to execute this work rather from such an apprehension, than led to it from my own free will. At the same time, as I continued to prosecute the work, I began to perceive more distinctly that this was by no means a superfluous undertaking, and I have also felt from my own individual experience, that to readers who are not so exercised, I would furnish important assistance in understanding The Psalms. The varied and resplendid riches which are contained it this treasury it is no easy matter to express in words; so much so, that I well know that whatever I shall be able to say will be far from approaching the excellence of the subject. But as it is better to give to my readers some taste, however small, of the wonderful advantages they will derive from the study of this book, than to be entirely silent on the point, I may be permitted briefly to advert to a matter, the greatness of which does not admit of being fully unfolded. I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not inappropriately, “An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul;” for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated. The other parts of Scripture contain the commandments which God enjoined his servants to announce to us. But here the prophets themselves, seeing they are exhibited to us as speaking to God, and laying open all their inmost thoughts and affections, call, or rather draw, each of us to the examination of himself in particulars in order that none of the many infirmities to which we are subject, and of the many vices with which we abound, may remain concealed. It is certainly a rare and singular advantage, when all lurking places are discovered, and the heart is brought into the light, purged from that most baneful infection, hypocrisy. In short, as calling upon God is one of the principal means of securing our safety, and as a better and more unerring rule for guiding us in this exercise cannot be found elsewhere than in The Psalms, it follows, that in proportion to the proficiency which a man shall have attained in understanding them, will be his knowledge of the most important part of celestial doctrine. Genuine and earnest prayer proceeds first from a sense of our need, and next, from faith in the promises of God. It is by perusing these inspired compositions, that men will be most effectually awakened to a sense of their maladies, and, at the same time, instructed in seeking remedies for their cure. In a word, whatever may serve to encourage us when we are about to pray to God, is taught us in this book. And not only are the promises of God presented to us in it, but oftentimes there is exhibited to us one standing, as it were, amidst the invitations of God on the one hand, and the impediments of the flesh on the other, girding and preparing himself for prayer: thus teaching us, if at any time we are agitated with a variety of doubts, to resist and fight against them, until the soul, freed and disentangled from all these impediments, rise up to God; and not only so, but even when in the midst of doubts, fears, and apprehensions, let us put forth our efforts in prayer, until we experience some consolation which may calm and bring contentment to our minds. “Jusqu’a ce que nous sentions quelque allegement qui nous appaise et contente.” –Fr.
“Et nous acquiert tranquillite de conscience devant luy.”— Fr. “And acquires for us tranquillity of conscience before him.”
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Now, if my readers derive any fruit and advantage from the labor which I have bestowed in writing these Commentaries, I would have them to understand that the small measure of experience which I have had by the conflicts with which the Lord has exercised me, has in no ordinary degree assisted me, not only in applying to present use whatever instruction could be gathered from these divine compositions, but also in more easily comprehending the design of each of the writers. And as David holds the principal place among them, it has greatly aided me in understanding more fully the complaints made by him of the internal afflictions which the Church had to sustain through those who gave themselves out to be her members, that I had suffered the same or similar things from the domestic enemies of the Church. For although I follow David at a great distance, and come far short of equaling him; or rather, although in aspiring slowly and with great difficulty to attain to the many virtues in which he excelled, I still feel myself tarnished with the contrary vices; yet if I have any things in common with him, I have no hesitation in comparing myself with him. In reading the instances of his faith, patience, fervor, zeal, and integrity, it has, as it ought, drawn from me unnumbered groans and sighs, that I am so far from approaching them; but it has, notwithstanding, been of very great advantage to me to behold in him as in a mirror, both the commencement of my calling, and the continued course of my function; so that I know the more assuredly, that whatever that most illustrious king and prophet suffered, was exhibited to me by God as an example for imitation. My condition, no doubt, is much inferior to his, and it is unnecessary for me to stay to show this. But as he was taken from the sheepfold, and elevated to the rank of supreme authority; so God having taken me from my originally obscure and humble condition, has reckoned me worthy of being invested with the honorable office of a preacher and minister of the gospel. When I was as yet a very little boy, my father had destined me for the study of theology. But afterwards when he considered that the legal profession commonly raised those who followed it to wealth this prospect induced him suddenly to change his purpose. Thus it came to pass, that I was withdrawn from the study of philosophy, and was put to the study of law. To this pursuit I endeavored faithfully to apply myself in obedience to the will of my father; but God, by the secret guidance of his providence, at length gave a different direction to my course. And first, since I was too obstinately devoted to the superstitions of Popery to be easily extricated from so profound an abyss of mire, God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life. Having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein, that although I did not altogether leave off other studies, I yet pursued them with less ardor. I was quite surprised to find that before a year had elapsed, all who had any desire after purer doctrine were continually coming to me to learn, although I myself was as yet but a mere novice and tyro. Being of a disposition somewhat unpolished and bashful, which led me always to love the shade and retirement, I then began to seek some secluded corner where I might be withdrawn from the public view; but so far from being able to accomplish the object of my be desire, all my retreats were like public schools. In short, whilst my one great object was to live in seclusion without being known, God so led me about through different turnings and changes, that he never permitted me to rest in any place, until, in spite of my natural disposition, he brought me forth to public notice. Leaving my native country, France, I in fact retired into Germany, expressly for the purpose of being able there to enjoy in some obscure corner the repose which I had always desired, and which had been so long denied me. But lo! whilst I lay hidden at Basle, and known only to a few people, many faithful and holy persons were burnt alive in France; and the report of these burnings having reached foreign nations, they excited the strongest disapprobation among a great part of the Germans, whose indignation was kindled against the authors of such tyranny. In order to allay this indignation, certain wicked and lying pamphlets were circulated, stating that none were treated with such cruelty but Anabaptists and seditious persons, who by their perverse ravings and false opinions, were overthrowing not only religion but also all civil order. Observing that the object which these instruments of the court aimed at by their disguises, was not only that the disgrace of shedding so much innocent blood might remain buried under the false charges and calumnies which they brought against the holy martyrs after their death, but also, that afterwards they might be able to proceed to the utmost extremity in murdering the poor saints without exciting compassion towards them in the breasts of any, it appeared to me, that unless I opposed them to the utmost of my ability, my silence could not be vindicated from the charge of cowardice and treachery. This was the consideration which induced me to publish my Institute of the Christian Religion. My objects were, first, to prove that these reports were false and calumnious, and thus to vindicate my brethren, whose death was precious in the sight of the Lord; and next, that as the same cruelties might very soon after be exercised against many unhappy individuals, foreign nations might be touched with at least some compassion towards them and solicitude about them. When it was then published, it was not that copious and labored work which it now is, but only a small treatise containing a summary of the principal truths of the Christian religion, and it was published with no other design than that men might know what was the faith held by those whom I saw basely and wickedly defamed by those flagitious and perfidious flatterers. That my object was not to acquire fame, appeared from this, that immediately after I left Basle, and particularly from the fact that nobody there knew that I was the author. Wherever else I have gone, I have taken care to conceal that I was the author of that performance; and I had resolved to continue in the same privacy and obscurity, until at length William Farel detained me at Geneva, not so much by counsel and exhortation, as by a dreadful imprecation, which I felt to be as if God had from heaven laid his mighty hand upon me to arrest me. As the most direct road to Strasburg, to which I then intended to retire, was shut up by the wars, I had resolved to pass quickly by Geneva, without staying longer than a single night in that city. A little before this, Popery had been driven from it by the exertions of the excellent person whom I have named, and Peter Viret; but matters were not yet brought to a settled state, and the city was divided into unholy and dangerous factions. Then an individual who now basely apostatised and returned to the Papists, discovered me and made me known to others. Upon this, Farel, who burned with an extraordinary zeal to advance the gospel, immediately strained every nerve to detain me. And after having learned that my heart was set upon devoting myself to private studies for which I wished to keep myself free from other pursuits, and finding that he gained nothing by entreaties, he proceeded to utter an imprecation that God would curse my retirement, and the tranquillity of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw and refuse to give assistance, when the necessity was so urgent. By this imprecation I was so stricken with terror, that I desisted from the journey which I had undertaken; but sensible of my natural bashfulness and timidity, I would not bring myself under obligation to discharge any particular office. After that, four months had scarcely elapsed, when, on the one hand, the Anabaptists began to assail us, and, on the other, a certain wicked apostate, who being secretly supported by the influence of some of the magistrates of the city, was thus enabled to give us a great deal of trouble. At the same time, a succession of dissensions fell out in the city “Cependant surveindrent en la ville seditions les unes sur les autres.” — Fr.
“C’est, ascavoir de ne vouloir point apparoistre ou suyvre les grandes assemblees.”—Fr “That is, not wishing to appear before, or wait upon, the great assemblies.”
“Qu’en considerant tout le discours de la vie de David.“ — Fr.
“Que se tenir quois en vivant paisiblement et honnestement.” — Fr.
“Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me,” (Psalm 41:9.)
“For it was not an enemy that reproached me; but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company,” (Psalm 55:12, 13, 14.)
Others circulated ridiculous reports concerning my treasures; others, of the extravagant authority and enormous influence which they say I possess; others speak of my delicacies and magnificence. But when a man is content with scanty food and common clothing and does not require from the humblest more frugality than he shows and practices himself, shall it be said that such an one is too sumptuous, and lives in too high a style? As to the power and influence of which they envy me, I wish I could discharge this burden upon them; for they estimate my power by the multitude of affairs, and the vast weight of labors with which I am overwhelmed. And if there are some whom I cannot persuade whilst I am alive that I am not rich, my death at length will prove it. I confess, indeed, that I am not poor; for I desire nothing more than what I have. All these are invented stories, and there is no color whatever for any one of them; but many nevertheless are very easily persuaded of their truth, and applaud them; and the reason is, because the greatest part judge that the only means of cloaking their enormities is to throw all things into disorder, and to confound black and white; and they think that the best and shortest way by which they can obtain full liberty to live with impunity just as they please, is to destroy the authority of Christ’s servants. In addition to these, there are “the hypocritical mockers in feasts,” of whom David complains, (Psalm 35:16;) and I mean by these not only lick-dish characters who seek a meal to fill their belly, “Et je n’enten pas seulement les frians qui cherchent quelque lippee pour farcir leur ventre.” — Fr.
“Mais encore ce n’estoit pas assez d’estre traitte ainsi inhumainement par mes voisins, si non qu’en un pays lointain vers la mer glacee le temps se troublast aussi je ne scay comment par la phrenesie d’aucuns, pour puis apres faire lever contre moy comme un nuee de gens qui sont trop de loisir et n’ont que faire s’ils ne s’escarmouschent a empescher ceux qui travaillent a edification.”—Fr.
Geneva, July 22, 1557.
1. Blessed is the man. In the Septuangint, the reading is μακαριος ἀνηρ, blessed is the man. Both Calvin and our English translators have adopted this rendering. But the Hebrew word אשרי, rendered blessed, is in the plural number, and האיש, ha-ish, the man, in the singular. Accordingly, the words have been considered as an exclamation, and may be literally rendered, O, the blessedness of the man! A beautiful and emphatic form of expression.
As the prophet, in the first place, enjoins the godly to beware of temptations to evil, we shall follow the same order. His affirmation, that they are blessed who have no fellowship with the ungodly, is what the common feeling and opinion of mankind will scarcely admit; for while all men naturally desire and seek after happiness, we see how securely they can indulge themselves in their sins, yea, that those of them who have departed farthest from righteousness, in the gratification of their lusts, are accounted happy, because they obtain the desires of their heart. The prophet, on the contrary, here teaches that no man can be duly animated to the fear and service of God, and to the study of his law, until he is firmly persuaded that all the ungodly are miserable, and that they who do not withdraw from their company shall he involved in the same destruction with them. But as it is no easy matter to shun the ungodly with whom we are mingled in the world, so as to be wholly estranged from them, the Psalmist, in order to give the greater emphasis to his exhortation, employs a multiplicity of expressions.
In the first place, he forbids us to walk in their counsel; in the second place, to stand in their way; and, lastly, to sit in their seat.
The sum of the whole is, that the servants of God must endeavor utterly to abhor the life of ungodly men. But as it is the policy of Satan to insinuate his deceits, in a very crafty way, the prophet, in order that none may be insensibly deceived, shows how by little and little men are ordinarily induced to turn aside from the right path. They do not, at the first step, advance so far as a proud contempt of God but having once begun to give ear to evil counsel, Satan leads them, step by step, farther astray, till they rush headlong into open transgression. The prophet, therefore, begins with counsel, by which term I understand the wickedness which does not as yet show itself openly. Then he speaks of the way, which is to be understood of the customary mode or manner of living. And he places at the top of the climax the seat, by which metaphorical expression he designates the obduracy produced by the habit of a sinful life. In the same way, also, ought the three phrases, to walk, to stand, and to sit, to be understood. When a person willingly walks after the gratification of his corrupt lusts, the practice of sinning so infatuates him, that, forgetful of himself, he grows hardened in wickedness; and this the prophet terms standing in the way of sinners. Then at length follows a desperate obstinacy, which he expresses by the figure of sitting. Whether there is the same gradation in the Hebrew words רשעים, reshaim, חטאים, chataim, and לצים, letsim, that is to say, a gradual increase of evil, I leave to the judgment of others. C’est a dire, un accroissement de mal comme par degrez. — Fr.
Il est bien conjoint avec le verbe signifiant une profession de vivre et un train tout accoustume. — Fr.
Et s’adonner de soy-mesme a impiete. — Fr.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv1–6When a man hath given once place to evil…
When a man hath given once place to evil counsel, or to his own concupiscence, he beginneth to forget himself in his sin, and so falleth into contempt of God, which contempt is called the seat of the scorners.
Or, praises, according to the Hebrews: and were chiefly instituted to praise and give thanks to God for his benefits. They are called the Psalms or Songs of David, because the most part were made by him.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv1–6Psa 1:1 Blessed [is] the man that walketh not…
Psa 1:1 Blessed [is] the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
The Book of Psalms] So Christ calleth it, Luk 20:42. The Hebrew word signifieth hymns, or praises, because the greater part of these psalms serve to set forth the praise of God. This title seemeth to be taken from Psa 145:1, called David’s Hymn, or Psalm of praise; so highly prized by the ancient Hebrews that they pronounce him an heir of heaven who shall three times a day devoutly repeat it. The Greeks call this Book the Psalter (Athanas., Chrysost.); and deservedly give it many high commendations; as that it is the soul’s anatomy, the Jaw’s epitome, the gospel’s index, the garden of the Scriptures, a sweet field and rosary of promises, precepts, predictions, praises, soliloquies, &c.; the very heart and soul of God, the tongue and pen of David, a man after God’s own heart; one murmur of whose Michtam, or Maschil, one touch of whose heavenly harp, is far above all the buskin raptures, garish phantasms, splendid vanities, pageants, and landscapes of profaner wits; far better worthy to be written in letters of gold than Pindar’s seventh ode in the temple at Rhodes (though Politian judged otherwise, liken wretch as he was), and far more fit to have been laid up, as a rare and precious jewel, in that Persian casket, embroidered with gold and pearl, than Homer’s Iliad, for which it was reserved by Great Alexander. But that cock on the dunghill never knew the worth of this peerless pearl; as did our good King Alfred, who himself translated the Psalter into his own Saxon tongue; and as the Emperor Andronicus, who caused this Book to be bound up in a little volume by itself, to serve as his manual, and attend him in his running library (Turk. Hist.); for therein he found amulets of comfort, more pleasant than the pools of Heshbon, more glorious than the tower of Lebanon, more redolent than the oil of Aaron, more fructifying than the dew of Hermon, as one expresseth it. All the latitude of the Holy Scriptures may be reduced to the Psalms, saith Austin, after Athanasius. Luther calleth them Parva Biblia, et summarium utriusque Testamenti, a little Bible, a summary of both Testaments. The Turks disclaim both the Old and New Testament, and yet they swear as solemnly by the Psalms of David as by the Koran of Mahomet. Anciently they were sung in the temples, and in the primitive Christian Church happy was that tongue held that could sound out aliquid Davidicum, any part of a psalm of David. Nicephorus telleth us that as they travelled and journeyed they used to solace themselves with psalms, and that thereby there was at a certain time a Jew converted. St Paul calleth them spiritual songs, Col 3:16, both because they were indited by the Holy Spirit, and for that they do singularly suit with men’s spirits; for they are so penned that every man may think they speak De se, in re sua, of himself, and to his particular purpose, as Athanasius observeth. And, lastly, because they do after a special manner spiritualize and sanctify those that sing them in the right tune; which is, Sing with grace in your hearts unto the Lord, as the apostle there setteth it; and elsewhere hinteth unto us that there is no small edification by the choice of a fit psalm, 1Co 14:26.
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Ver. 1. Blessed] Heb. Oh the blessedness, the heaped up happiness, both of this life and a better, fitter to be believed than possibly could be discoursed. The Hebrew comes from a root that signifieth to go right forward, sc. in the way that is called holy, having Oculum ad metam, an eye upon the mark, viz. true and real happiness, such as all men pretend to, but he only attaineth to who is here described. Sulla was by his flatterers surnamed Felix, because high and mighty; and Metellus likewise, Quod bona multa bono modo invenerat, because rich by right means (Policrat. lib. 8, cap. 4). But he that first called riches Bona was a better husband than divine; and they that seek for a felicity in anything here below seek for the living among the dead. The philosophers’ discourses of this subject are but learned dotages; David saith more to the point in this short psalm than any or all of them put together; they did but beat around the bush, God hath here put the bird into our hands.
Is the man] Heb. that man, with an article, with an accent, and by an excellency, as Jer 5:1, that eminent and eximious man, who is rationally spiritual and spiritually rational; that man in Christ, 2Co 12:2, who hath learned Christ, and doth live Christ, walking as he walked, 1Jn 2:6, and "not in the counsel of the ungodly," &c. "But his delight is in the law of the Lord," &c. Magnus atque admirabilis vir, si modo viri nomine designare illum fas est, as Chrysostom saith of Babylas, the martyr, that is, a great and an admirable man, if a man we may call him, and not an earthly angel rather. He must indeed be content to pass to heaven as a concealed man, because the world knoweth him not, 1Jn 3:1, but those that have senses exercised to discern good and evil may easily know him as he stands here described, 1. To depart from evil, Psa 1:1 2. To do good, Psa 1:2.
Walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly] Or restless. The counsel of such should be far from us, Job 21:16; Job 22:18. The Jews cast their whole nation or people into three ranks, Reshagnim (the word here used), that is, the profane rabble; Tsadichim, righteous men; and Chasidim, good, or gracious men. See Rom 5:7. To these two latter are opposite here sinners and scorners; these last being the worst of wicked persons, and, therefore, set last in this gradation, as some will have it. The Septuagint here render them pests or botches, and elsewhere incorrigible, wicked (with a witness), proud, prevaricating, &c., ‘Aκολαστος, Pro 20:1; κακος, Pro 9:12; υπερηφανος, Pro 3:34; παρηνομουν, Psa 119:51. Beware of this sin, saith Father Latimer; for I never knew but one scorner that repented; he who is sitting down in this chair of pestilence (as having tired himself in ways of wickedness, and will not be better advised, Pro 9:7-8, but, with Lot’s sons-in-law, jeereth what he should fear) will not easily be raised out of it.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv1–6The Hebrew words are very emphatical, Blessedness belongs to…
The Hebrew words are very emphatical, Blessedness belongs to that man, or, Oh the blessedness of that man Thrice blessed is that man; who is here described negatively, and in the next verse positively.
That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, i.e. that doth not lead his life according to their counsel, or course, or manner of living; that doth not associate himself with them, nor follow their evil instigations or examples. Walking notes choice of it, and continuance or process in it; otherwise good men do sometimes step aside into an evil action. For the explaining of the phrase, see Gen 49:6; 2Ch 22:3-5; Pro 1:15; 4:14; Mic 6:16.
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Nor standeth; which notes a more settled abode, hardness, and obstinacy in it.
In the way, i.e. in their course or manner of conversation; in the practice of those things which they choose and use to do; which is called a man's way, Psa 5:8; 25:4; 2Pe 2:2,15.
Of sinners; emphatically so called here, as also Psa 26:9; Ecc 9:2; Mat 26:45; Luk 7:37; Joh 9:16,31, who give up themselves to the power and practice of sin, making it their great business and their delight.
Nor sitteth in the seat; which notes their association or incorporation of themselves with them; a constant and resolved perseverance in their wicked courses, with great content and security; and a great proficiency and eminency in the school of wickedness, and an ability and readiness to instruct others therein. Of the scornful; of those who are not only diseased, but reject, despise, and scorn all remedies; who make a mock of sin, and of God's threatenings and judgments against sinners; who deride all wholesome reproofs and counsels, and make it their trade to scoff at goodness and good men. Divers have observed a gradation in this verse; the following clause still exceeding the former, for standing is more than walking, and sitting more than standing. And
the way or course may seem to be worse than the counsel or design, and the seat is worse than the way; and sinners, in Scripture use, are worse than the ungodly, and the scornful are the worst of sinners. But I would not lay great stress upon such observations.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn vv1, 4The psalmist begins with the character and condition of…
The psalmist begins with the character and condition of a godly man, that those may first take the comfort of that to whom it belongs. Here is,
I. A description of the godly man's spirit and way, by which we are to try ourselves. The Lord knows those that are his by name, but we must know them by their character; for that is agreeable to a state of probation, that we may study to answer to the character, which is indeed both the command of the law which we are bound in duty to obey and the condition of the promise which we are bound in interest to fulfil. The character of a good man is here given by the rules he chooses to walk by and to take his measures from. What we take at our setting out, and at every turn, for the guide of our conversation, whether the course of this world or the word of God, is of material consequence. An error in the choice of our standard and leader is original and fatal; but, if we be right here, we are in a fair way to do well.
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1. A godly man, that he may avoid the evil, utterly renounces the companionship of evil-doers, and will not be led by them (Psa 1:1): He walks not in the council of the ungodly, etc. This part of his character is put first, because those that will keep the commandments of their God must say to evil-doers, Depart from us (Psa 119:115), and departing from evil is that in which wisdom begins. (1.) He sees evil-doers round about him; the world is full of them; they walk on every side. They are here described by three characters, ungodly, sinners, and scornful. See by what steps men arrive at the height of impiety. Nemo repente fit turpissimus - None reach the height of vice at once. They are ungodly first, casting off the fear of God and living in the neglect of their duty to him: but they rest not there. When the services of religion are laid aside, they come to be sinners, that is, they break out into open rebellion against God and engage in the service of sin and Satan. Omissions make way for commissions, and by these the heart is so hardened that at length they come to be scorners, that is, they openly defy all that is sacred, scoff at religion, and make a jest of sin. Thus is the way of iniquity down-hill; the bad grow worse, sinners themselves become tempters to others and advocates for Baal. The word which we translate ungodly signifies such as are unsettled, aim at no certain end and walk by no certain rule, but are at the command of every lust and at the beck of every temptation. The word for sinners signifies such as are determined for the practice of sin and set it up as their trade. The scornful are those that set their mouths against the heavens. These the good man sees with a sad heart; they are a constant vexation to his righteous soul. But, (2.) He shuns them wherever he sees them. He does not do as they do; and, that he may not, he does not converse familiarly with them. [1.] He does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He is not present at their councils, nor does he advise with them; though they are ever so witty, and subtle, and learned, if they are ungodly, they shall not be the men of his counsel. He does not consent to them, nor say as they say, Luk 23:51. He does not take his measures from their principles, nor act according to the advice which they give and take. The ungodly are forward to give their advice against religion, and it is managed so artfully that we have reason to think ourselves happy if we escape being tainted and ensnared by it. [2.] He stands not in the way of sinners; he avoids doing as they do; their way shall not be his way; he will not come into it, much less will he continue in it, as the sinner does, who sets himself in a way that is not good, Psa 36:4. He avoids (as much as may be) being where they are. That he may not imitate them, he will not associate with them, nor choose them for his companions. He does not stand in their way, to be picked up by them (Pro 7:8), but keeps as far from them as from a place or person infected with the plague, for fear of the contagion, Pro 4:14, Pro 4:15. He that would be kept from harm must keep out of harm's way. [3.] He sits not in the seat of the scornful; he does not repose himself with those that sit down secure in their wickedness and please themselves with the searedness of their own consciences. He does not associate with those that sit in close cabal to find out ways and means for the support and advancement of the devil's kingdom, or that sit in open judgment, magisterially to condemn the generation of the righteous. The seat of the drunkards is the seat of the scornful, Psa 69:12. Happy is the man that never sits in it, Hos 7:5.
2. A godly man, that he may do that which is good and cleave to it, submits to the guidance of the word of God and makes that familiar to him, Psa 1:2. This is that which keeps him out of the way of the ungodly and fortifies him against their temptations. By the words of thy lips I have kept me from the path of the deceiver, Psa 17:4. We need not court the fellowship of sinners, either for pleasure or for improvement, while we have fellowship with the word of God and with God himself in and by his word. When thou awakest it shall talk with thee, Pro 6:22. We may judge of our spiritual state by asking, "What is the law of God to us? What account do we make of it? What place has it in us?" See here, (1.) The entire affection which a good man has for the law of God: His delight is in it. He delights in it, though it be a law, a yoke, because it is the law of God, which is holy, just, and good, which he freely consents to, and so delights in, after the inner man, Rom 7:16, Rom 7:22. All who are well pleased that there is a God must be well pleased that there is a Bible, a revelation of God, of his will, and of the only way to happiness in him. (2.) The intimate acquaintance which a good man keeps up with the word of God: In that law doth he meditate day and night; and by this it appears that his delight is in it, for what we love we love to think of, Psa 119:97. To meditate in God's word is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with a close application of mind, a fixedness of thought, till we be suitably affected with those things and experience the savour and power of them in our hearts. This we must do day and night; we must have a constant habitual regard to the word of God as the rule of our actions and the spring of our comforts, and we must have it in our thoughts, accordingly, upon every occasion that occurs, whether night or day. No time is amiss for meditating on the word of God, nor is any time unseasonable for those visits. We must not only set ourselves to meditate on God's word morning and evening, at the entrance of the day and of the night, but these thought should be interwoven with the business and converse of every day and with the repose and slumbers of every night. When I awake I am still with thee.
II. An assurance given of the godly man's happiness, with which we should encourage ourselves to answer the character of such. 1. In general, he is blessed, Psa 5:1. God blesses him, and that blessing will make him happy. Blessednesses are to him, blessings of all kinds, of the upper and nether springs, enough to make him completely happy; none of the ingredients of happiness shall be wanting to him. When the psalmist undertakes to describe a blessed man, he describes a good man; for, after all, those only are happy, truly happy, that are holy, truly holy; and we are more concerned to know the way to blessedness than to know wherein that blessedness will consist. Nay, goodness and holiness are not only the way to happiness (Rev 22:14) but happiness itself; supposing there were not another life after this, yet that man is a happy man that keeps in the way of his duty. 2. His blessedness is here illustrated by a similitude (Psa 1:3): He shall be like a tree, fruitful and flourishing. This is the effect, (1.) Of his pious practice; he meditates in the law of God, turns that in succum et sanguinem - into juice and blood, and that makes him like a tree. The more we converse with the word of God the better furnished we are for every good word and work. Or, (2.) Of the promised blessing; he is blessed of the Lord, and therefore he shall be like a tree. The divine blessing produces real effects. It is the happiness of a godly man, [1.] That he is planted by the grace of God. These trees were by nature wild olives, and will continue so till they are grafted anew, and so planted by a power from above. Never any good tree grew of itself; it is the planting of the Lord, and therefore he must in it be glorified. Isa 61:3, The trees of the Lord are full of sap. [2.] That he is placed by the means of grace, here called the rivers of water, those rivers which make glad the city of our God (Psa 46:4); from these a good man receives supplies of strength and vigour, but in secret undiscerned ways. [3.] That his practices shall be fruit, abounding to a good account, Phi 4:17. To those whom God first blessed he said, Be fruitful (Gen 1:22), and still the comfort and honour of fruitfulness are a recompense for the labour of it. It is expected from those who enjoy the mercies of grace that, both in the temper of their minds and in the tenour of their lives, they comply with the intentions of that grace, and then they bring forth fruit. And, be it observed to the praise of the great dresser of the vineyard, they bring forth their fruit (that which is required of them) in due season, when it is most beautiful and most useful, improving every opportunity of doing good and doing it in its proper time. [4.] That his profession shall be preserved from blemish and decay: His leaf also shall not wither. As to those who bring forth only the leaves of profession, without any good fruit, even their leaf will wither and they shall be as much ashamed of their profession as ever they were proud of it; but, if the word of God rule in the heart, that will keep the profession green, both to our comfort and to our credit; the laurels thus won shall never wither. [5.] That prosperity shall attend him wherever he goes, soul-prosperity. Whatever he does, in conformity to the law, it shall prosper and succeed to his mind, or above his hope.
In singing these verses, being duly affected with the malignant and dangerous nature of sin, the transcendent excellencies of the divine law, and the power and efficacy of God's grace, from which our fruit is found, we must teach and admonish ourselves, and one another, to watch against sin and all approaches towards it, to converse much with the word of God, and abound in the fruit of righteousness; and, in praying over them, we must seek to God for his grace both to fortify us against every evil word and work and to furnish us for every good word and work.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv1–6Blessed is the man,.... This psalm begins in like…
Blessed is the man,.... This psalm begins in like manner as Christ's sermon on the mount, Mat 5:3; setting forth the praises and expressing the happiness of the man who is described in this verse and Psa 1:2. The words may be rendered, "O, the blessednesses of the man", or "of this man" (l); he is doubly blessed, a thrice happy and blessed man; blessed in things temporal and spiritual; happy in this world, and in that to come. He is to be praised and commended as a good man, so the Targum:
"the goodness, or, Oh, the goodness of the man;''
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or as others,
"Oh, the right goings or happy progress, or prosperous success of the man (m),''
who answers to the following characters; which right walking of his is next observed, and his prosperity in Psa 1:3. Some have interpreted this psalm of Christ, and think it is properly spoken of him (n);
that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly: all men are by nature and practice ungodly, without God, without the true knowledge, fear, and worship of God and are at enmity against him. It is a character that belongs to God's elect as well as others, while in a state of nature; and is sometimes used illustrate the love of Christ in dying for them, and the grace of God in the justification of them, Rom 4:5. But here it describes not such who are wicked in heart and life in common only, but the reprobate part of mankind, profligate and abandoned sinners, such as Jude speaks of, Jde 1:4; and for whom the law is made, and against whom it lies, Ti1 1:9. The word (o) here used signifies such who are restless and continually in mischief; who are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, ever casting up mire and dirt: they are always disquieted themselves, and are ever disquieting others; nor do they cease from being so till they are laid in their graves. And to these "counsel" is ascribed, which supposes capacity and wisdom; as, generally speaking, such are wise and prudent in natural and civil things, and are wise to do evil, though to do good they have no knowledge: and counsel implies consultation and deliberation; they act deliberately in sinning, they cast about in their minds, form schemes, and contrive ways and means how to accomplish their vicious purposes; and sometimes they enter into a confederacy, and consult together with one consent, and their counsel is generally against the Lord, though it does not prosper and prevail; and against his Christ, his people, truths and ordinances: it takes in both their principles and practices; and the sum of their counsel is to indulge themselves in sin, to throw off all religion, and to cast off the fear and worship of God, Job 21:14. Now "not to walk" herein is not to hearken to their counsel, to give into it, agree with it, pursue it, and act according to it; and happy is the man, who, though he may fall in the way of it, and may have bad counsel given him by ungodly men, yet does not consent to it, take it, and act upon it. This may be applied to the times of the Messiah, and the men of the age in which he lived; and the rather, since the next psalm, in which mention is made of the counsel of the ungodly, manifestly belongs unto them. The men of that generation were a set of ungodly men, who consulted against Christ to take away his life; and blessed is the man, as Joseph of Arimathea, who, though he was in that assembly which conspired against the life of Christ, did not walk in, nor consent unto, their counsel and their deeds, Luk 23:51;
nor standeth in the way of sinners; all men are sinners through Adam's disobedience, and their own actual transgressions, and such were the elect of God, when Christ died for them; and indeed are so after conversion, for no man lives without sin. But here it intends notorious sinners, who are open, bold, and daring in iniquity; the word (p) signifies such, who in shooting miss the mark, and go aside from it, as such sinners do from the law of God; proceed from evil to evil, choose their own ways, and delight in their abominations. Now their "way" is not only their "opinion", as the Syriac version renders it, their corrupt sentiments, but their sinful course of life; which is a way of darkness, a crooked path, and a road that leads to destruction and death: and happy is the man that does "not stand" in this way, which denotes openness, impudence, and continuance; who, though he may fall into this way, does not abide in it; see Rom 6:1. The Pharisees in the time of Christ, though they were not openly and outwardly sinners, yet they were secretly and inwardly such, Mat 23:28; and the way they stood in was that of justification by the works of the law, Rom 9:31, but happy is the man, as the Apostle Paul and others, who stands not in that way, but in the way Christ Jesus, and in the way of life and righteousness by him;
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful; by whom may be meant proud and haughty persons, in opposition to the humble and lowly, as in Pro 3:34; such who are proud of their natural abilities, knowledge, and wisdom, of their honours and riches, or of their own righteousness, and despise others; or such who are desperate in wickedness, of whom there is no hope; see Pro 9:7; and Deists and atheists, who scoff at divine revelation, and mock at a future state, at death, hell, and judgment, as in Isa 28:14. Now happy is the man that does not sit or keep company with such persons; who comes not into their secret and into their assembly; does not associate himself with them, nor approve of their dispositions, words, principles, and actions; see Psa 26:4. Such were the Scribes and Pharisees in Christ's time; they derided him and his doctrines, scoffed at him when he hung upon the cross, and despised him and his apostles, and his Gospel; but there were some that did not join with them, to whom he, his ministers, and truths, were precious and in high esteem, and to whom he was the power and wisdom of God.
(l) "beatitudines illius viri", Montanus, Vatablus, Gejerus. (m) "Recti incessus, felices progressus, ac prosperi successus", Michaelis; so Piscator. (n) Justinian. in Octapl. Psalt, in loc. Romualdus apud Mabillon. Itinerar. Ital. p. 181. (o) "significat eos qui sine quiete et indesinenter impie degunt", Vatablus. (p) "qui longissime aberrant a scopo legis"; Gerjerus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv1–6This psalm was put first as a preface to…
This psalm was put first as a preface to all the rest, as a powerful persuasive to the serious study of the whole book, and of the rest of the holy scripture, taken from that blessedness which attends upon the study and practice of it. It shews us, the holiness and happiness of a good man, ver. 1-3 The sinfulness and misery of a wicked man, ver. 4, 5. The ground and reason of both, ver. 6.
Blessed - The Hebrew words are very emphatical: O the blessedness of that man! Counsel - That doth not lead his life according to their counsel, or manner of living. Standeth - Which notes a more settled abode in it. Way - In their manner of conversation. Seat - Which notes a constant and resolved perseverance in their wicked courses. Scornful - Of those who make a mock of sin, and scoff at goodness and goodmen. Divers observe a gradation in this verse; the following clause still exceeding the former, for standing is more than walking, and sitting more than standing; and sinners in scripture use, are worse than the ungodly, and the scornful are the worst of sinners.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv1–6Chronological Notes relative to the Psalms written by David,…
THE BOOK OF PSALMS
Chronological Notes relative to the Psalms written by David, upon the supposition that they were all composed in a period of about forty-seven years. See the Introduction.
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-Year from the Creation, 2942-2989.
-Year before the birth of Christ, 1058-1011.
-Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 1062-1015.
-Year since the Deluge, according to Archbishop Usher, and the English Bible, 1286-1333.
-Year from the destruction of Troy, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 123-170.
-Year before the first Olympiad, 286-239.
-Year before the building of Rome, 309-262.
-Year of the Julian Period, 3652-3699.
-Year of the Dionysian Period, 460-507.
PSALM I
The blessedness of the righteous shown, in his avoiding every
appearance of evil, 1.
In his godly use of the law of the Lord, 2.
This farther pointed out under the metaphor of a good tree
planted in a good well-watered soil, 3.
The opposite state of the ungodly pointed out, under the
metaphor of chaff driven away by the wind, 4.
The miserableness of sinners, and the final happiness of the
godly, 5, 6.
NOTES ON PSALM I
Verse 1. Blessed is the man] This Psalm has no title, and has been generally considered, but without especial reason, as a preface or introduction to the whole book.
The word אשרי ashrey, which we translate blessed, is properly in the plural form, blessednesses; or may be considered as an exclamation produced by contemplating the state of the man who has taken God for his portion; O the blessedness of the man! And the word האיש haish, is emphatic: THAT man; that one among a thousand who lives for the accomplishment of the end for which God created him.
1. God made man for happiness.
2. Every man feels a desire to be happy.
3. All human beings abhor misery.
4. Happiness is the grand object of pursuit among all men.
5. But so perverted is the human heart, that it seeks happiness where it cannot be found; and in things which are naturally and morally unfit to communicate it.
6. The true way of obtaining it is here laid down.
That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly] There is a double CLIMAX in this verse, which it will be proper to note:-
There are here three characters, each exceeding the other in sinfulness.
1. The UNGODLY רשעים reshaim from רשע rasha, to be unjust; rendering to none his due; withholding from God, society, and himself, what belongs to each. Ungodly - he who has not God in him; who is without God in the world.
2. SINNERS, חטאים chattaim, from חטא chata, "to miss the mark," "to pass over the prohibited limits," "to transgress." This man not only does no good, but he does evil. The former was without God, but not desperately wicked. The latter adds outward transgression to the sinfulness of his heart.
3. SCORNFUL, לצים letsim, from לצה latsah, "to mock, deride." He who has no religion; lives in the open breach of God's laws, and turns revelation, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of an invisible world, into ridicule. He is at least a deist, and endeavours to dissolve, as much as he can, the bonds of moral obligation in civil society. As the sinner exceeds the ungodly, so the scornful exceeds both.
The second climax is found in the words,
1. Walk;
2. Stand;
3. Sit:
which mark three different degrees of evil in the conduct of those persons.
Observe,
1. The ungodly man - one uninfluenced by God.
2. The sinner - he who adds to ungodliness, transgression.
3. The scornful - the deist, atheist, c., who make a mock of every thing sacred.
The UNGODLY man walks, the SINNER stands, and the SCORNFUL man sits down in the way of iniquity.
Mark certain circumstances of their differing characters and conduct.
1. The ungodly man has his counsel
2. The sinner has his way; and,
3. The scorner has his seat.
The ungodly man is unconcerned about religion; he is neither zealous for his own salvation, nor for that of others: and he counsels and advises those with whom he converses to adopt his plan, and not trouble themselves about praying, reading, repenting, c., c. there is no need for such things live an honest life, make no fuss about religion, and you will fare well enough at last. Now, "blessed is the man who walks not in this man's counsel" who does not come into his measures, nor act according to his plan.
The sinner has his particular way of transgressing; one is a drunkard, another dishonest, another unclean. Few are given to every species of vice. There are many covetous men who abhor drunkenness; many drunkards who abhor covetousness; and so of others. Each has his easily besetting sin; therefore, says the prophet, let the wicked forsake HIS WAY. Now, blessed is he who stands not in such a man's WAY.
The scorner has brought, in reference to himself, all religion and moral feeling to an end. He has sat down-is utterly confirmed in impiety, and makes a mock at sin. His conscience is seared; and he is a believer in all unbelief. Now, blessed is the man who sits not down in his SEAT.
See the correspondent relations in this account.
1. He who walks according to the counsel of the ungodly will soon,
2. Stand to look on the way of sinners; and thus, being off his guard, he will soon be a partaker in their evil deeds.
3. He who has abandoned himself to transgression will, in all probability, soon become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin; and sit down with the scorner, and endeavour to turn religion into ridicule.
The last correspondency we find is: -
1. The seat answers to the sitting of the scornful.
2. The way answers to the standing of the sinner; and
3, the counsel answers to the walking of the ungodly.
The great lesson to be learned from the whole is, sin is progressive; one evil propensity or act leads to another. He who acts by bad counsel may soon do evil deeds; and he who abandons himself to evil doings may end his life in total apostasy from God. "When lust has conceived, it brings forth sin; and when sin is finished, it brings forth death." Solomon the son of David, adds a profitable advice to those words of his father: "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men; avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away;" Pr 4:14-15.
As the blessedness of the man is great who avoids the ways and the workers of iniquity, so his wretchedness is great who acts on the contrary: to him we must reverse the words of David: "Cursed is the man who walketh in the counsel of the ungodly; who standeth in the way of sinners; and who sitteth in the seat of the scornful." Let him that readeth understand.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv1–6Psa 1:1. Blessed is the man — The Hebrew…
Psa 1:1. Blessed is the man — The Hebrew words are very emphatical: Blessedness belongs to that man; or, O the blessedness of that man! Blessedness here means happiness. And the character of the truly happy man is described in this Psalm both negatively, in his abstaining from sin; and positively, in his practice of a most important duty, introductory to all other duties. It is then illustrated by a beautiful similitude, borrowed from vegetation; and, lastly, contrasted with the opposite character of the ungodly. In this verse we have the negative part of his character in three particulars: 1st, He walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. The word רשׁעים, reshagnim, here rendered ungodly, according to Aben Ezra, signifies inquietos, qui nunquam in eadem constitutione permanent, the restless, who are never at one stay; according to Isa 57:20: “Those,” says Henry, “who are unsettled, aim at no certain end, and walk by no certain rule;” who may indeed be moral in their conduct toward their fellow-creatures, and outwardly unblameable, but live without a due regard to God and religion, which all unconverted persons do. Now the man that is truly pious, and therefore happy, doth not walk in the counsel of such; doth not lead his life according to their advice, or manner of living; doth not associate with them, give ear to their suggestions, or follow their example. This part of the happy man’s character is put first, because those that would keep the commandments of their God must say to evil-doers, Depart from us, Psa 119:115, and because wisdom begins in departing from evil. 2d, Nor standeth in the way of sinners — Of open and notorious sinners, to be picked up and gathered with them: but he avoids as much as may be the company of such, lest he should be insnared by them, and drawn by degrees into an imitation of their practices. He keeps at a distance from them, as he would from persons or places infected with the plague, for fear of the contagion. Or, standing in their way may imply a continuance in their manner of conversation. 3d, Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful — Of those who make a mock of sin, and of God’s threatenings and judgments against sinners: who deride all wholesome reproofs and counsels, and scoff at goodness and good men. So that there seems to be a double climax, or gradation, in this verse, each following clause exceeding the former in two respects. For standing, or delaying, in an evil course, implies a greater degree of guilt than being occasionally entangled and induced to walk therein, and sitting denotes a more settled and resolved perseverance than standing. Again, the term sinners, in Scripture language, implies more wickedness than the word ungodly, and the scornful are the worst of sinners. Observe, reader, by what steps men arrive at the height of impiety. Nemo repente fit turpissimus: No one becomes very wicked all at once. They are ungodly first, casting off the fear of God, and living in the neglect of their duty to him. But they rest not there; when the services of religion are laid aside, they come to be sinners, that is, they break out into open rebellion against God, and engage in the service of sin and Satan: omissions of duty make way for the commission of crimes, and by these the heart is so hardened that at length they come to be scorners: they openly defy all that is sacred, scoff at religion, and make a jest of sin. Thus is the way of iniquity down hill; the bad grow worse, and sinners become tempters to others and advocates for Baal.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv1–6Blessed is the man - That is, his condition…
Blessed is the man - That is, his condition is a happy or a desirable one. The word used here, אשׁר 'esher means properly, “happiness” or “blessedness.” It is found, however, only in the plural form and in the construct state, and takes the nature and force of an interjection - “ O the happiness of the man!” or “O happy man!” Deu 33:29 : “happy art thou, O Israel!” 1Ki 10:8 : “happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants!” Job 5:17 : “happy is the man whom God correcteth!” Psa 2:12 : “blessed are all they that put their trust in him!” See also Psa 32:1-2; Psa 33:12; Psa 34:8; Psa 40:4; Psa 41:1; Psa 65:4; Psa 84:4-5, Psa 84:12, et al., where it is rendered “blessed.” The word is of the most general character, and, in itself, would embrace all that is supposed to constitute real happiness. The particular kind of blessedness referred to here, as explained in the subsequent part of the psalm, consists in the fact that he avoids the companionship of the wicked; that he has pleasure in the law of the Lord; that he will be prospered in this world; and that he will not perish at lasts. The word “man” here, also, is of the most general character, and is designed to include all people, of all times and of all conditions, who possess the character referred to. The term is applicable to the poor as well as to the rich; to the low as well as to the exalted; to the servant as well as to the master; alike to the aged, the middle-aged, and the young. All who have the character here described come under the general description of the happy man - the man whose condition is a happy and a desirable one.
That walketh not - Whose character is that he does not walk in the manner specified. Prof. Alexander renders this, “Who has not walked.” But it implies more than this; it refers to more than the past. It is the characteristic of the man, always and habitually, that he does not thus walk; it has not only been true in the past, but it is true in the present, and will be true in the future. It is that which distinguishes the man. The word “walk” is often used in the Scriptures to denote a way of life or conduct - since life is represented as a journey, and man as a traveler. Psa 15:2 : “who walketh uprightly.” Compare 1Ki 9:4; Deu 19:9; Deu 28:9; Psa 81:12-13; Isa 33:15.
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In the counsel - After the manner, the principles, the plans of this class of men. He does not take counsel of them as to the way in which he should live, but from the law of the Lord, Psa 1:2. This would include such things as these: he does not follow the advice of sinners, 2Sa 16:20; 1Ki 1:12; he does not execute the purposes or plans of sinners, Isa 19:3; he does not frame his life according to their views and suggestions. In his plans and purposes of life he is independent of them, and looks to some other source for the rules to guide him.
Of the ungodly - The wicked. The word used here is general, and would embrace all kinds and degrees of the unrighteous. It is not so specific, and would, in itself, not indicate as definite, or as aggravated depravity, as the terms which follow. The general sentiment here is, that the man referred to is not the companion of wicked men.
Nor standeth - This indicates more deliberation; a character more fixed and decided.
In the way - The path where they are found, or where they usually go. His standing there would be as if he waited for them, or as if he desired to be associated with them. Instead of passing along in his own regular and proper employment, he stations himself in the path where sinners usually go, and lingers and loiters there. Thus, he indicates a desire to be with them. This is often, in fact, illustrated by men who place themselves, as if they had nothing to do, in the usual situation where the wicked pass along, or where they may be met with at the corners of the streets in a great city.
Of sinners - חטאים chaṭṭâ'iym. This word means literally, those who miss the mark; then, those who err from the path of duty or rectitude. It is often used to denote any kind or degree of sin. It is more specific than the former word rendered “ungodly,” as denoting those who depart from the path of duty; who fail in regard to the great end of life; who violate positive and known obligations.
Nor sitteth - This implies still greater deliberation and determination of character than either of the other words employed. The man referred to here does not casually and accidentally walk along with them, nor put himself in their way by standing where they are ordinarily to be found; but he has become one of them by occupying a seat with them; thus deliberately associating with them. He has an established residence among the wicked; he is permanently one of their number.
In the seat - The seat which the scornful usually occupy; the place where such men converse and sit together - as in a ball-room, or in a “club,” where wicked men hold their meetings, or where infidels and scoffers are accustomed to assemble.
Of the scornful - לצים lētsiym. This word properly means those who mock, deride, scoff; those who treat virtue and religion with contempt and scorn. Pro 1:22; Pro 3:34; Pro 9:7-8; Pro 13:1; Pro 15:12, et saepe. It denotes a higher and more determined grade of wickedness than either of the other words employed, and refers to the consummation of a depraved character, the last stage of wickedness, when God and sacred things are treated with contempt and derision. There is hope of a man as long as he will treat virtue and religion with some degree of respect; there is little or none when he has reached the point in his own character in which virtue and piety are regarded only as fit subjects for ridicule and scorn. We have here, then, a beautiful double gradation or climax, in the nouns and verbs of this verse, indicating successive stages of character. There is, first, casual walking with the wicked, or accidentally falling into their company; there is then a more deliberate inclination for their society, indicated by a voluntary putting of oneself in places where they usually congregate, and standing to wait for them; and then there is a deliberate and settled purpose of associating with them, or of becoming permanently one of them, by regularly sitting among them.
So also it is in regard to the persons with whom they associate. They are, first, irreligious men in general; then, those who have so far advanced in depravity as to disregard known duty, and to violate known obligations; and then, those who become confirmed in infidelity, and who openly mock at virtue, and scoff at the claims of religion. It is unnecessary to say that, in both these respects, this is an accurate description of what actually occurs in the world. He who casually and accidentally walks with the wicked, listening to their counsel, will soon learn to place himself in their way, and to wait for them, desiring their society, and will ultimately be likely to be feared identified with open scoffers; and he who indulges in one form of depravity, or in the neglect of religion in any way, will, unless restrained and converted, be likely to run through every grade of wickedness, until he becomes a confirmed scoffer at all religion. The sentiment in this verse is, that the man who is truly blessed is a man who does none of these things. His associations and preferences are found elsewhere, as is stated in the next verse.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v1Psalms 1-41
THE PSALTER
FIRST BOOK
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Psalms 1-41
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Psalms 1
1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor standeth in the way of sinners,
Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord;
And in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
That bringeth forth his fruit in his season;
His leaf also shall not wither;
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4 The ungodly are not so:
But are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous;
But the way of the ungodly shall perish.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Division and Composition. Four Codd. Kennic., and 3 De Rossi, as many of the Jews and the Fathers take the first and second Psalms together as one whole; comp. Wetstein on Act_13:33, where the Apostle Paul cites a passage from our second Psalm as from the first Psalm (according to the corrected reading). This however does not decide, for two Codd. De Rossi do not number our Psalm at all, and the Apostle Paul may have shared that conception, in accordance with which Basil calls it a “short preface” which the compiler placed before as an introduction (Calvin, Amyrald [Hupfeld, Riehm, Hitzig, et alii]). Besides some similarity in the structure of the strophes, there are, it is true, turns in the closing verse of the 2d Psalm which are strikingly similar in part to the beatitude with which the 1st Psalm begins, and in part to the threatening with which the 1st Psalm closes; and in the hagah, Psa_2:1, there is an antithetical reference to Psa_1:2. These facts cannot be overlooked. But with the diversity of subject and treatment which otherwise prevails, they do not even justify the conclusion of one and the same author, whom Hengstenberg supposes to be David, Hitzig the compiler of the Psalms. These are not without predecessors. Nevertheless, design may be acknowledged at any rate only with reference to the arrangement, and not with reference to the poetry. This is clear from the following facts: (1) that two Psalms, without titles, should stand at the beginning of a group of Psalms which have David’s name in their titles, the second of which carries out into a concrete historical situation the truth expressed in Psalms 1 in general terms; (2) that the entire first book is opened (1:1; 2:12) as well as closed (40:4; 41:1) by two Psalms, with אַשְׁרֵי ashrê. But Psalms 32 of the same book likewise begins with ashrê, so also Psalms 112; Psalms 119; Psalms 128 in a later book.
Again, the mention of David as the author by some of the Fathers and of the MSS. of the Septuagint has no historical foundation. The historical application of the subject to the persecution of David by Saul (Venema) or to the rebellion of Absalom, is a false use of history. So likewise the explanation from the circumstances of the Maccabean age (Rüdinger, Olshausen,1Hitzig). We would urge against so late a composition not so much the simplicity and freshness of the Psalm (Köster) as the following considerations: 1) The designation of the scorner leads to the sententious style of the age of Solomon, to which also the loose structure of the strophes points [Delitzsch]. 2) Psa_1:2 decidedly looks back to Jos_1:8, whereas Psa_1:3 is carried further out in Jer_17:5-8. Ezech. 19:10, 11 expresses only a corresponding thought in a similar form [Riehm]. The same idea is particularized, Psa_92:12. There is a possible allusion, 2Ch_22:5.
[Ewald supposes this Psalm to be an introduction to a more ancient and smaller collection of Psalms, giving the pith of many of them, the disposition with which an ancient poet selected and grouped them, and the spirit with which he would have them read. Delitzsch says that the collections of the prophecies of Isaiah and the Psalms are alike in that they both begin with a prologue. Barnes considers it as a general introduction to the book of Psalms, stating the general principle of the Jewish theocracy, “that a righteous life will be attended with prosperity and happiness, and that the life of the wicked will be followed by sorrow and ruin.”2 The true view is this: The Psalm was probably composed as an introduction to the earlier collection of the Davidic Psalms, made in the age of Solomon, perhaps under his direction, retaining its place at the head of the entire collection after it had been formed.—C. A. B.]
Of the three verses of the 1st strophe, two are of many members; those of the 2d strophe are all of two members, but they run along entirely parallel in their subject, that is: the description of the righteous and the wicked according to their respective behaviour and destiny.
Str. I. Psa_1:1. אַשְׁרֵי = Ashrê, etymologically, from the signification of the straight and direct course, gives the idea of welfare, grammatically, it is an exclamation of congratulation, or rather a declaration of recognition and of praise: beatitudines illius viri.3 The substantive renders the language more emphatic than the verb fin., Psa_41:2, or the partic, Pro_3:18. Luther aptly: “The prophet, when he sees that there are few such people on earth, suddenly bursts forth and says, ‘Blessed is the man.’ ”
The use of the plural to mark the abstract with emphasis is ancient, especially in the Hebrew (Ewald, Ausführliches Lehrbuch VII. Ausg. § 179).
Walketh—standeth—sitteth,etc.—The three perfects in Psa_1:1, the change of the verbal into a nominal sentence in Psa_1:2 a, the future (correctly called imperf. by Ewald) in Psa_1:2 b give a shading to the thought. This shading cannot be entirely expressed in translation owing to an entire difference between the Hebrew and the English conjugations. It is effaced by the remark of Aben Ezra that the Hebrew authors used for the present partly the preterite and partly the future. [The perfect is used to give the abstract present of our language, indicating an already long-continued and still enduring condition or characteristic, vid.Ges.Heb. Gram., edit. Rödiger XX. Auf. § 126. Ewald, § 135. Barnes: “It is the characteristic of the man, always and habitually that he does not thus walk.”—C. A. B.]
It is questionable whether the three members of Psa_1:1 form only three parallel clauses of like signification as poetical variations of the thought that we must have no intercourse at all with evil in any way (Musculus, Rosenm., De Wette, Hengst., Hupf.), or whether there is not illustrated in the choice of expression an intensification of the possible participation in the chief forms of iniquity (Aben Ezra, Stier, Delitzsch, Hitzig [Barnes)] somewhat after the type impii corde, peccatores opere, illusores ore. By the former view we are usually referred to the assertion of David Kimchi, that going, standing, and sitting are the three chief conditions of the human body when awake. The latter view is not shaken by the fact that we cannot ascribe to רשעrâsha’, etymologically the meaning of wild restlessness, and passionate agitation, whence follow disturbances of the peace (Geier et alii). Hitzig supposes from the Æthiopic that the fundamental meaning is forgetfulness (of God). Böttcher (Neue exeget. crit. Aehrenlese, II. 220), likewise from the Æthiopic interprets it as greasy, stained, soiled, and hence derives the idea of guilty. Hupfeld finds in the idiomatic use of the word a simple contrast to צדיק. This general meaning, extending far beyond the idea of guilty (Sachs), suits very well the use of the word in the 2d strophe of the Psalm. In any case the characteristics of rasha’im, given in Isa_57:20, remain essentially indisputable, and the statement is of a עצה = council of these same persons who might serve as a model and measure for the walk of others. This is shown by the construction of halach with ב. This expression always refers to the sphere of sinful emotions of the heart whether we are to think of the resolutions of the will formed within the heart or the counsel imparted to others. [Hupfeld states that עצה, like the Latin consilium, has a twofold meaning: 1) absolutely, a resolution formed within the heart; 2) relatively, working upon another either as example or advice. He thinks that it is here used in the relative sense especially as example.—C. A. B.] There is no occasion for the correction עדהêdah = congregation, company (Olsh.,Emendationen zum A. T., 1826). For there is no reference to place except in moshab, whether this word denotes dwelling (Köster), or seat (Sept., Vulg., Hengst., Schegg) as 1Sa_20:18; 1Sa_20:25, or session (Syriac, Arab. et al.) as Psa_107:32 [A. V., assembly.—C. A. B.] For derech is a figurative designation of manner of acting, conduct.
We cannot see why ’amad, with ב, should not retain the meaning of stand fast, persevere in, the more since, according to Hupfeld, we need not infer with De Wette from the fundamental meaning of חטא, “slip, fall,” that of “evil from weakness or ignorance;” but rather are brought to that of “sinning habitually.”
Moreover the description of the scorner in the proverbs of Solomon (appropriately explained by Hupfeld) reaches the climax of wickedness. In the pictorial description, however, we are not to take every expression as dogmatic. The translation of לֵץ by pestilence, which expression Schegg applies to the influence of the devil, has no support in the language. Neither is the fundamental meaning that of turning (Paulus), but partly of lisping and stammering, partly of laughing and mocking. [Hupfeld: “This is not a scorner of religion in our sense, nor one who says there is no God, because the religion of the Old Testament was not theory, but essentially disposit on, practice. He is one who is frivolous, disregarding the Almighty, making sport of all things, of the worst class of the wicked.” Barnes: “We have here a beautiful double gradation or climax, in the nouns and verbs of this verse, indicating successive stages of character; walking, standing, sitting; irreligious men in general, those who disregard known duty and violate human obligation, and those who openly mock at virtue and scoff at the claims of religion.” Hengstenberg says that “scorners of religion are as old as the fall. Isa_5:19; Jer_18:15.” Ewald: “He who meditates evil is already a רשע, one driven by passion, he who does the advised evil is חטא, a sinner, he who is already so accustomed to suppress a good conscience that he scorns and perverts good in society, is לץ, a scorner.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_1:2. On the contrary.—כִּי אִם, literally, “but if,” after negative sentences introduce the contrast with emphasis (Ewald, § 354 a). With Jos_1:8 in view, which is anticipated, Deu_6:6 sq.; Deu_11:18; Deu_17:19, we cannot doubt that the thôrah (literally instruction) does not mean here the revelation in general (Michaelis, Stier) but the written law of Moses [De Wette, Hupfeld, Hengst., et al.] (Psa_40:7, the volume of the book). The repetition of this word in the second member of the verse is not tautological, so that we could be induced to regard thôdah=praise (Paulus), and not the thôrah, as the subject of the meditation.
The remarks of Geier: “Repetitur denuo nomen legis ceu rei adeo caræ ac pretiosæ cujus vel solo nomine intime delectantur pii,” certainly misses the sense. Hagah might, in itself, be a poetical designation of discourse, Psa_35:28, especially as the etymology leads back to the idea of murmuring, and has formed the meaning of thinking, meditating, only from the point of view of discourse within the soul. But the latter signification is set aside, not so much by its connection with ב as by the phrase day and night; for there is no reason to understand the phrase as figurative of happy and unhappy times. But it does not mean a brooding over the letter in the sense of Judaism, nor any other kind of theoretical contemplation, as is shown partly by the mention of delight (literally inclination), partly from the context which is throughout practical (Clauss against De Wette) [Delitzsch beautifully: “The quiet soliloquy of investigation and meditation.”—C. A. B.]
[Day and night.—Hupfeld regards it as the usual formula for continual, perpetual, as in all languages, Psa_32:4; Psa_42:3.—C. A. B.] The expression “night” has a special appropriateness here, in that among the Jews the night was from 6 o’clock in the evening till 6 o’clock in the morning.
Psa_1:3. And so he is like a tree planted by brooks of water.—The perfect with vav consecutive shows that we have here not the reason of the beatitude, but a further expansion of it by a statement of the consequences of the conduct of the pious, just described. The etymology of פלגי (Alex. διέξοδοι) does not compel us (Hupfeld) to think of canals (De Wette). [Hupfeld: פּלג = cleave, divide. The usual name of brooks in Hebrew, as in Arabic and Æthiopic, for streams. Riehm: “Because brooks and streams cleave and divide the surface of the earth.”—C. A. B.] The double plural refers partly to the abundance of water, which is very important in the Orient; partly to the rich distribution of brooks for the fructification of every tree of that kind.4 Luther reminds us of the ever green date palms in the Jordan valley at Jericho, Sir_24:18; Deu_34:3.5 [Delitzsch: “In the relative clause the emphasis is not entirely upon בְעִתּוֹ (Calvin) but פִרְיוֹ is the first and בְעִתּוֹ the second emphatic word. The fruit expected, it affords, and indeed at the proper time, without ever in the course of the seasons disappointing the hopes.” “The fresh foliage is a figure of faith, which changes the water of life of the divine word into sap and strength, and the fruit is the figure of works which gradually ripen and spread their blessings around.”—C. A. B.]
כל cannot be nominative, for the intransitive meaning of the following verb (Sept., Vulg., Vatabl., Rosenm.) rests only upon the doubtful pointing of Jdg_18:5. The subject of the sentence is either in the causative signification Jehovah, or since this is too distant, and the transitive signification is the usual one, the pious. Some suppose that tree is the subject because עשה and צלח are used with it, Isa_5:4; Isa_37:31; Ezech. 17:9, 10; but such a repetition would be feeble and cold [Hupfeld].
Str. II. Psa_1:4. Not so.—These words are repeated at the end of the first member of Psa_1:4 by Sept., Vulg., and Syr. The following figure describes not only the destiny, but, at the same time, the condition of the wicked contrasted with the figure of the righteous, which likewise embraces both points. If this be overlooked, we mistake the close connection with Psa_1:5.
[Hupfeld, נדף = drive, or chase away. In the East the threshing-floors are in the open air, upon heights (Isa_17:13), on which the winds more readily blow the chaff away. (De Wette and Barnes, in loco; also RobinsonBib. Researches, I. 550, II. 83; SmithBib. Dict. ‘Agriculture.’) “Hence it is the usual figure of the rapid and traceless destruction of the enemies of God and the ungodly. Psa_35:5; Job_21:18; Hos_13:3; Mat_3:12. There is here also an illustration of their inner condition, their emptiness and nullity, in contrast with the good grain, which remains behind and abides.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_1:5. [Therefore. Hupfeld: “not a consequence of the moral condition of the unrighteous, as indicated in the figure of the chaff, but rather a logical consequence from Psa_1:4. From the general statement of the destiny of the unrighteous follows the special: that they are by Divine judgment severed from the congregation of God.”—C. A. B.]
Many of the older interpreters suppose that there is in קוּם an exclusion of the wicked from the resurrection (Sept. οὐκ ἀναστήσονται). But this is against the meaning of the word and the context. The judgment is not directly nor even exclusively the Messianic (Chald. and the Jewish exegetes), still less human judgment or judgment in civil cases (Rosenm.), but it is the Divine judgment, Psa_1:6. For it is made prominent in Jehovah, as well by the participle as the characteristic attribute, that He knoweth the way of the righteous. That this knowing is not only a theoretical knowledge, but a nosse cum affectu et effectu, is involved in the fact that it is Jehovah of whom this is declared. Therefore it gains the closer meaning of “acknowledge in loving care.” Yet this meaning is not to be brought into the vocabulary of the word (Kimchi, et al.). Since now the participle precedes, Psa_1:6 a merely confirms the consequences threatened before, the sure occurrence of which rests upon the fact that error and deception are excluded by the idea of Divine judgment. The most of the interpreters push inio the text itself that which should only be its consequences as a comforting application to the pious. Moreover, they often give to way, Psa_1:6, a different meaning from that of Psa_1:1, viz. (quite frequently), that of destiny, the way in which they are led. But they thereby sensibly weaken the last member of the verse, with its dreadful closing word, which leaves nothing for the way of the wicked but the prospect of Abaddon (Pro_15:11; Job_26:6; Job_28:22).
The Codd. and the ancient interpreters of the Vulgate do not read in Psa_1:5 in concilio, as the later editions corrected according to the Hebrew; but in consilio, according to the reading of the Septuagint, ἐν βουλῆ . The Vulgate follows the Sept. version likewise in Psa_1:4 b, only that, weakening the proper figure still more, it understands ὁ χνοῦς the dust; ὅν ἐκρίπτει ὁ ἄνεμος ἀπὸ προσώπου τῆς γὴς. According to our exegesis the verse does not treat of a sudden, still less of a premature, but rather of an inevitable ruin of the ungodly, bearing the character of just punishment brought on by Divine judgment; and the closing verse contains not only an expression embracing both sides of the fundamental thought, rounding off the Psalm, but it directs its glance to the inevitable and endless destruction of the wicked. [Delitzsch: “This same fearful תֹּאבֵד closes Psalms 112, which begins with אַשְׁרֵי.”—C. A. B.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. For ethical and religious consideration there is only one, yet a decided contrast among men, before which all other differences retire, that is: the contrast between the ungodly and the righteous. Their lot in time and eternity corresponds with their disposition towards God.
2. The ungodly, even, partially and for a while unite with one another, come together in societies, in which they converse about evil things to their heart’s desire, plunge ever deeper into sin, and mutually strengthen one another in their wickedness by evil counsels, bad examples, and cunning wiles. Yet only the righteous form a congregation, that is: a people of God, organized according to Divine order, based on Divine institutions, governed according to the word of God.
3. As long as the congregation of God remains in this world it is opposed not only by external bands of the wicked, but it has sinners in its own midst, partly because its true and living members are not yet perfect and sinless saints, partly because there are false brethren, hypocrites, apostate and wicked men mingled with the congregation in its external appearance, as it presents itself in moral and human forms under the influence of its relations to this world.
4. On this account the external society, connections, and points of contact are more extensive than the internal membership relations and influences. Yet this does not cause a perplexity of conscience, or a suppression of the righteous, or an equality in the lots of the evil and the good. But there are characteristics which mark the ungodly and the righteous, as well as a Divine saving and sifting judgment, and a reward corresponding with the moral and religious conduct of men.
5. The marks of the righteous are negatively, principally, their turning away from the counsels, the walk, and the companionship of the wicked; positively, their joy in the revealed word and will of God, and their occupation in meditating upon the testimony of the Lord given as the rule and guidance for our faith and life, and this without regard to the changes of the hours. Contrasted with this are the counsels of the wicked, wherein they disclose the thoughts of their heart, as their walk is opposed to the manner of life ordained by the law of the holy God, and their assembly is the opposite of the assembly for the worship of God. They are to be earnestly avoided; for it is much easier and more frequent for men, when in the circle of the scorner, to be ruled by the prevailing tone of the company, and even to be carried away with it, than to withstand it, and witness against it, and confess the Lord as those who love His word and His way.
6. The ungodly are not always, and especially not immediately at the beginning, in the lowest grade of wickedness, in which the scorner is, who cannot be taught or improved, but in the overflow of haughty presumption (Pro_21:24; comp. 1:22; 9:7, 8; 13:1; 15:12, etc.) hates correction, and scorns discipline, and replies with scoff and persecution, and in the intoxication of boasting, treats everything except himself with petulance, and especially makes sport and scorn of holy things. But the gradations of evil pass ever into one another, and often tread closely upon one another. Even the first steps are already in opposition to the will of God, and evil thoughts are no less worthy of condemnation and dangerous than evil deeds. Those only can be called happy who do not associate in any way with the ungodly, or their practices, devices, or efforts.
7. Piety gives the righteous the power to withdraw from the society of the wicked, and to withstand their temptations. It nourishes him in the marrow of his life, and strengthens him by the supply of heavenly nourishment; whilst by his absorption in the holy law of God, it sinks the roots of his life into the revealed ground of salvation, and by his delight in the instruction of the Lord, affords the constant supply of the streams of grace, which make the man who belongs to God to grow and mature in fruits of righteousness.
8. Consequently man is righteous, not by birth, or nature, or through his own power, skill, or activity, but by the Divine agency, through the means of grace which Divine mercy has established for us; as a tree planted by an abundant and flowing brook, if he, like the tree, take up into his own life from the means afforded him by God, that which is necessary to his life and growth. Then he has the experience described in 1Ti_4:8, of the blessings of righteousness.
9. Although the ungodly are in similar circumstances with the righteous, yet they derive no profit from this favorable circumstance. They are spiritually dead and withered. That which has matured in them has faded prematurely; for they have not appropriated to themselves the nourishment of life, and they have not formed in themselves the faculty for this appropriation. Without root and without sap they have not attained any vigor, nor brought forth any fruit, (Mat_21:19). Thus they have ripened only for distruction; unsubstantial and worthless as chaff; the sport of the wind, until scattered by the storm they go to destruction, and leave no trace behind but the way on which they are whirled away to a ruin whose misery is inconceivable; for the way proves itself a “lost way.”
10. This sad condition of the ungodly, as well as their terrible fate, may be for some time concealed from themselves and others, but both will be disclosed by the divine judgment, which has its foundations in the ever ruling righteousness of the Almighty, its execution in the judgment of the world; yet its operation already appears in history, judging and sifting in theocratic acts, yea, according to the threatening (Lev_20:2) with respect to certain kinds of wickedness, already vindicates itself in bitter earnest in the regular administration of justice. “If the Scriptures speak of the ungodly, then see to it that you do not refer it to the Jews, or the Heathen, or any other people, but tremble yourselves at this word, for it concerns you and means you.” (Luther).
11. There is here a strong encouragement on the one side to turn away from all kinds of iniquity, and on the other to continue in righteousness by a conscientious use of the means of grace in the possession of the congregation. For God desires a pure and holy congregation (Lev_11:44; Eph. 6:27), and He knows the way of the righteous. There is no reference here to the well-known heathen maxim: that it must fare well with the good, and ill with the wicked; but the emphasis is upon this fact that Jehovah, the God of historical revelation, who has ordained and called His people to be a righteous congregation, is also the experienced Guardian of the purity of this congregation, and the infallible Judge and Rewarder. There is a striking parallel in the New Testament, 2Ti_2:19. Now, since no one except Jesus Christ is perfectly righteous, the most of the ancient interpreters have by direct Messianic interpretation, referred the first strophe to Him, as the ever green tree of life; and since no one is justified by fulfilling the law in his own strength but by faith in Jesus Christ, many, especially of the Evangelical interpreters (Calov. Bib. Illust.) have referred to the close connection between the first Psalm, the summa legis, with the second Psalm, the summa evangelii.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Either blessed or lost—so God’s word declares, so God’s judgment warns.—The pious and the wicked are together in the world; but their ways are entirely different from beginning to end.—Man’s lot is not determined by chance, but by righteous and infallible judgment.—It is not enough to avoid this or that single sin, we must walk in the way of life.—The Divine law shows the way in which the pious walk, and keeps God Himself in view as knowing that way.—He who would remain in the congregation of the righteous must avoid the society of the wicked, whilst he must use diligently the means of grace entrusted to the congregation of God. All things finally redound to the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of the wicked. He who is planted where the waters of life flow, should appropriate them in order that he may grow as a tree of life, and bring forth fruit in his season.—The lot of the pious is as delightful as that of the wicked is terrible.—Tell me the way in which you walk and the company you keep, and I will declare to you the end which you will attain.—The things in which you delight will either make you blessed or destroy you.—Divine judgment comes certainly, strikes surely, judges righteously, and decides our everlasting weal or woe.—He who diligently seeks communion with God, will earnestly avoid intercourse with the ungodly.—How shall we distinguish between the righteous and the wicked? The one keeps God’s law with de-light, the other transgresses it with contempt: the one associates with scorners, the other remains in the congregation; the one prospers with God’s assistance, the other perishes by God’s judgment.—True fear of God receives the noblest praise, the best blessing.
Starke: A Christian is not only to avoid the commission of sin, but as far as possible is to avoid temptation.—Sin grows constantly: At first we pass it by, then we stand still, then we sit with seornera. Blessed are those who shun the beginning (Sir_21:2; Job_4:6).—It is true, believers have their greatest pleasure in the Gospel, yet the law is likewise agreeable to them in Christ, for they are freed from its curse, and it is their joy by it to know God’s will, and to fulfil it with the power given unto them.—Among other characteristics of a state of grace is this: that we have a heartfelt desire for the word of God, and indeed that we are no more tired of it than a sound body is of its daily bread. As with a palm tree, all that is in it is profitable, leaves, wood, and fruit, so also with the Christian, all that he does is to redound to the honor of the Divine name, and the benefit of his neighbors.—It is as foolish to rely upon the ungodly as to fear them—they are like chaff.—Choose in time, and prudently, the society in which you wish to remain forever.—Luk. Osiander: To err and fall is human, but to continue in error and sin is the work of the devil.—One thing is necessary; to hear and learn the word of God (Luk_10:42; Rom_1:16; 2Ti_3:16).—Selnekker: Piety and the fear of God mean: (1) to avoid false doctrine and a scandalous life; (2) to desire the law of the Lord; (3) to freely and openly confess and speak of it.—No one can know the nature and the will of God without the Divine word.—Where there is no fear of God nor truth, talent and intellect are mere poison.—We must, as the fig and palm trees, show the fruit before the leaves.—Four promises are given to those who desire and love the word of God: 1) The grace of God; 2) fruitfulness and usefulness in their calling; 3) a sure and constant employment; 4) blessing and success.—Geier: We all naturally seek happiness; but only those attain it, who seek it in the revealed word of God. All depends upon the way we choose (Mat_7:13).—Renschel: Avoid evil and keep God’s word, then you will be happy in this world and the next.—Frisch: Thou standest between two ways which lead to everlasting weal or woe. Open your eyes and choose the best.—The Psalm begins with blessing and glory, but it ends with woe, in order that where the hope of blessedness is not strong enough to encourage us to the service of God and piety, the fear of the unhappiness and misery to be endured may deter us from wickedness.—Rieger: The fear of God teaches the righteous to avoid evil, whether quiet as a counsel, or common as a way, or fixed as a seat.—Without attachment to the good the hate of wickedness is not constant.—What is there in an ungodly man? A counsel and trust in his deceit; a way and a defiance of the crowd which travel in it; a seat from which he will not be driven. But what will become of him? Because he has no weight of truth from the Divine word in himself, he will be driven away as chaff. Since he has made so light of it in his mockery, he will be obliged to experience how incapable he is of standing in the judgment. Since he has ever sought only the society of sinners he will not then remain in the congregation of the righteous when he most desires to retain a place with them. So long as they are in the way many may think that they are as good as those who are called righteous, who likewise have their faults; but the issue will be different from what they expect—Otto von Gerlach: The ungodly maintain their position by chance because it is calm, and outward circumstances are favorable to them; but since they have no vital power, no support in God, the first misfortune drives them away.—Tholuck: He who has nothing sure in heaven can have nothing firm on earth.—Taube: He who has pleasure in God’s word, exercises himself therein without ceasing.
[Matt. Henry: The ungodly are forward to give their advice against religion; and it is managed so artfully that we have reasons to bless ourselves from it, and to think ourselves happy if we escape being tainted and ensnared by it.—We must not only set ourselves to meditate upon God’s word, morning and evening, at the entrance of the day and the night, but these thoughts should be interwoven with the business and converse of every day, and with the repose and slumbers of every night.—Barnes: If a man desires permanent prosperity and happiness, it is to be found only in the ways of virtue and religion.—Spurgeon: Our worst things are often our best things. As there is a curse wrapped up in the wicked man’a mercies, so there is a blessing concealed in the righteous man’s crosses, losses, and sorrows. The trials of the saint are a divine husbandry, by which he grows and brings forth abundant fruit.—The righteous man ploughs the furrows of earth, and sows a harvest there, which shall never be fully reaped till he enters the enjoyments of eternity; but as for the wicked he ploughs the sea, and though there may seem to be a shining trail behind his keel, yet the waves pass over it, and the place that knew him shall know him no more forever. The very “way” of the ungodly shall perish.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[1][This Olshausen is an entirely different person from the author of the well-known commentary on the New Testament.]
[2][Wordsworth regards the two first Psalms “as distinct, and as constituting a general introduction to the whole book, and as addressed to the whole world; and as the whole book is a composite one, not due to David alone, these two Psalms, which are a prologue to it, are not identified with him. These two Psalms form a pair. The first of them looks backward to the law of Moses (Psa_1:2); the second looks forward to the Gospel of Christ. They join the two Testaments together. Both of them speak of the blessings of obedience, and of the malediction which is reserved for rebellion against God. They stand at the beginning of the Psalter, like a Gerizim and an Ebal;—and they reveal the awful transactions of the Great day of Doom, when the Judge will gather all nations before Him, and place some on the right hand and others on the left.”—C. A. B.]
[3][Hupfeld: Like the formula of the beatitudes, Mat_5:8-11—C. A. B.]
[4][Barnes supposes that there is an allusion to the Oriental method of making artificial rivulets to irrigate their land. He refers to the practice in Egypt and in the gardens of Damascus. This is, however, a great mistake The Psalmist alludes to those brooks or streams which, having their source in some perennial fountain, flow through the wadies and valleys, fertilizing the land. Wherever these brooks are found, as at Engedi and in the wady Urtas, their banks are crowded with a rich luxuriance of plan’s and trees. These were the favorite streams in the time of Solomon, and the Psalmist probably had them in mind, vid. Robinson Bib. Researches, l., 477, 505. Psa_46:4; Psa_65:9; Son_1:14; Son_4:12-16, etc. It is true these brooks were diverted into many channels in order that their blessing might be more widely diffused, as is the case with the Abana at the present day. Its waters are divided by art into a hundred water courses, using every drop of water to fertilize a hundred villages. But this is a derivative idea, and was not the Psalmist’s ideal, which was the living brooks from the perennial fountain—an allusion to the garden of Eden with the river of life and the tree of life, frequently alluded to in the Psalms vid., Psa_36:8 sq.; Psa_46:4, etc.—C. A. B.]
[5][The fertility of the plain of Jericho is caused by the large fountains of Es Sultân and Dûk, with the streams they pour forth over the land, vid. Rob. Bib. Researches, I, 556.—C. A. B.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv2–6law--all of God's word then written, especially the books…
law--all of God's word then written, especially the books of Moses (compare Psa 119:1, Psa 119:55, Psa 119:97, &c.).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv1–61. Blessed—Hebrew, blessings. The plural may stand for intensity,…
1. Blessed—Hebrew, blessings. The plural may stand for intensity, as “O, the exceeding happiness of the man!” etc., or for the variety of blessings belonging to such a character. It is treated simply as an idiom in our version, and translated ad sensum. The blessing, (Psa_1:1-3,) is followed by the cursing, (Psa_1:4-6,) as the voice from Gerizim was by that from Ebal. Deu_26:12-13; compare Mat_7:24-27. See note on Joh_4:5.
Walketh not— “Walking” figuratively denotes the habit of daily life. The description begins with negatives and advances to the positive, in order that by contrast the picture may be the more imposing.
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Ungodly—The word is usually translated wicked, and may denote any degree of moral turpitude; but as a rhetorical climax is indicated in the verse, it is supposed to denote simply a man devoid of true piety, though in other respects moral.
Standeth—The idea is that of to persist, to abide, to persevere in, as Ecc_8:3; 2Ki_23:3.
Sinners—A generic term for all who have missed the mark, wandered out of the way— transgressors.
Sitteth in the seat—A phrase indicating a finished work of unbelief. The description given of the scorner everywhere in the book of Proverbs is the best comment on the word. His iniquity is full; there is but a step between him and eternal death. The word “seat” is translated assembly in Psa_107:32, and its radical sense would justify that rendering here, though in both cases “seat” gives a better sense.
Of the scornful—Those who treat the divine law, and all godly obligation, with contempt and derision—utter mockers. This is about the farthest point in sin to which the transgressor can go. Heb_10:29; Mat_12:31. Noticeable is the threefold parallelism of “ungodly,” “sinner,” “scornful;” further severally distinguished by “counsel,” “way,” and “seat;” through which the unwary soul passes by “walking,” “standing,” “sitting.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–61. More exactly:
1. More exactly:
Happy the man who hath not walked in the counsel of wicked men,
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Nor stood in the way of sinners,
Nor sat in the session of scorners.
Blessed] Or, happy: LXX μακάριος. Cp. Mat_5:3 ff. The righteous man is first described negatively and retrospectively. All his life he has observed the precept, ‘depart from evil’ (Psa_34:14).
the ungodly] Rather, wicked men: and so in Psa_1:4-6. It is the most general term in the O.T. for the ungodly in contrast to the righteous. If the primary notion of the Hebrew word râshâ is unrest (cp. Job_3:17; Isa_57:20-21), the word well expresses the disharmony which sin has brought into human nature, affecting man’s relation to God, to man, to self.
sinners] Those who miss the mark, or go astray from the path of right. The intensive form of the word shews that habitual offenders are meant. Cp. Pro_1:10 ff.
the scornful] Better, as the word is rendered in Proverbs, scorners: those who make what is good and holy the object of their ridicule. With the exception of the present passage and Isa_29:20 (cp. however Isa_28:14; Isa_28:22, R.V.; Hos_7:5) the term is peculiar to the Book of Proverbs. There ‘the scorners’ appear as a class of defiant and cynical freethinkers, in contrast and antagonism to ‘the wise.’ The root-principle of their character is a spirit of proud self-sufficiency, a contemptuous disregard for God and man (Pro_21:24). It is impossible to reform them, for they hate reproof, and will not seek instruction (Pro_13:1; Pro_15:12). If they seek for wisdom they will not find it (Pro_14:6). It is folly to argue with them (Pro_9:7-8). They are generally detested (Pro_24:9), and in the interests of peace must be banished from society (Pro_22:10). Divine judgements are in store for them, and their fate is a warning to the simple (Pro_3:34; Pro_19:25; Pro_19:29; Pro_21:11).
The three clauses of the verse with their threefold parallelism (walk, stand, sit: counsel, way, session: wicked, sinners, scorners) emphasise the godly man’s entire avoidance of association with evil and evil-doers in every form and degree. They denote successive steps in a career of evil, and form a climax:—(1) adoption of the principles of the wicked as a rule of life: (2) persistence in the practices of notorious offenders: (3) deliberate association with those who openly mock at religion. With the first clause and for the phrase counsel of the wicked cp. Mic_6:16; Jer_7:24; Job_10:3; Job_21:16; Job_22:18 : for stood &c., cp. Psa_36:4. For both clauses cp. the concrete example in 2Ch_22:3-5. With the third clause cp. Psa_26:4-5.
1–3. The happiness of the righteous.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv1–6(1) Blessed.—The Hebrew word is a plural noun, from…
(1) Blessed.—The Hebrew word is a plural noun, from the root meaning to be “straight,” or “right.” Literally, Blessings to the man who, &c.
Walketh . . . standeth . . . sitteth.—Better, went, stood, sat. The good man is first described on the negative side. In the short summary of evil from which he has been saved, it is the custom of commentators to see an epitome of the whole history of sin. But the apparent gradation was a necessity of the rhythm. The three terms employed, however, for evil have distinctive significations. (1) The ungodly. Properly, restless, wanting in self-control, victims of ungoverned passion, as defined in Isa_57:20. (2) Sinners. General term for wrong-doers. (3) Scornful. A proverbial word, defined in Pro_21:24 : Aquila has “mockers;” Symmachus “impostors;” the LXX. “pests;” Vulgate “pest.” The words expressing the conduct and the career, “counsel,” “way,” are aptly chosen, and correspond with “went,” “stood.” Possibly “seat” should be “assembly.” (Comp. Psa_107:32.) It has an official sound, and without unduly pressing the language, we think of the graduation in vice which sometimes ends in deliberate preference for those who despise virtue. (Comp. Psa_26:4-5.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv1–6IT is remarkable that neither the first nor the…
IT is remarkable that neither the first nor the second psalm has any title. Titles are so much the rule in the first and second books of the Psalter, that, when they are absent, their absence requires to be accounted for. As thirty-eight out of the forty-one psalms in this section are distinctly assigned to David, we must suppose that the compiler did not view this psalm as his. Perhaps he did not know the author. Perhaps, if he was himself the author, he shrank from giving himself the prominence which could not but have attached to him if his name had, in a certain sense, headed the collection. Reticence would have specially become Solomon, if he was the author.
Commentators have generally recognized that this psalm is introductory and prefatory. Jerome nays that many called it "the Preface of the Holy Ghost." Some of the Fathers did not even regard it as a psalm at nil, but as a mere preface, and so reckoned the second psalm as the first. (in many manuscripts of the New Testament, the reading is "first psalm" instead of "second psalm" in Act_13:33) The composition is, as Hengstenberg observes, "a short compendium of tile main subject of the Psalms, viz. that God has appointed salvation to the righteous, perdition to the wicked; this is the great truth with which the sacred bards grapple amid all the painful experiences of life which apparently indicate the reverse.
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The psalm divides naturally into two nearly equal portions. In vers. 1-3 the character and condition of the righteous are described, and their reward is promised them. In vers. 4-6 the condition of the wicked is considered, and their ultimate destruction predicted.
Blessed is the man; literally, blessings are to the man. But the Authorized Version exactly gives the sense. (comp. Psa_2:12) That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. The margin gives, "or wicked," and this is probably the best rendering of the word used ( The righteous man is first described negatively, under three heads.
(1) He "does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly:" i.e. he does not throw in his lot with the wicked does not participate in their projects or designs;
(2) he standeth not in the way of sinners; i.e. he does not take part in their actions, does not follow the same moral paths; and
(3) he sitteth not in the seat of the scornful; i.e. has no fellowship with them in the "scorn" which they cast upon religion. The word used for scornful (xle) is Solomonian, (Pro_1:22 Pro_3:34 Pro_13:1) but in the Psalter occurs only in this place.
Vers. 1, 2. The godly man.
This psalm nobly fills the place of prologue to the whole Book of Psalms. It reminds us of our Saviour"s words when Nathanael drew near: "Behold an Israelite indeed!" With that marvellous, condensed fulness and graphic force which peculiarly mark the Scriptures, it, draws the portrait of the godly man. If we compare the Old Testament picture of an Israelite indeed with the New Testament picture of the true believers" a good man full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, "we find no discord, only a fulness, richness, tenderness, power, in the latter, Impossible before the Light of the world shone on human hearts and lives. The one is like a clear, perfect outline; the other, like the painting which adds to the outline colour, light, and shadow.
I The godly man is described NEGATIVELY, in sharp contrast with the ungodly. They are as little to his mind as he to theirs. The Revised Version here gives a stricter rendering But our English word "ungodly" expresses the real essence of all wickedness, the secret spring of sin. (comp. Psa_54:3 Psa_36:1 Jer_2:13)
1. He is not guided by this world"s maxims, walks not "in the counsel by the rule, of those who leave God out of their reckoning. N.B. The chief thing in life is the counsel plan, ruling principles, and maxims by which it is guided. E.g. one man"s aim in life is "to die rich;" another"s motto," Short life and merry;" another"s, "To me to live is Christ.
2. His conduct, therefore, openly contrasts. "Nor standeth," etc. Closely associated, it may be, in business, society, public affairs; for else he "must needs go out of the world"; (1Co_5:10) yet, as his aim is not theirs, so their means are not his means, nor their path his path. (Pro_4:14, Pro_4:15) Business life has temptations from which recluse life is free, but also opportunities for witnessing for truth and Christ.
3. His chosen company corresponds with counsel and conduct. "Nor sitteth," etc. Not frequenting their haunts, sharing their revels, making them his bosom friends. (Pro_1:15 Pro_13:20) N.B. A steady progress in sin is indicatedwalking, standing, sitting. First, stepping aside from the right path into crooked ways in compliance with evil counsel; secondly, continuing a line of conduct conscience condemns; at last, sitting down at the banquet of sinful pleasure, conscience drugged or scared, God openly despised. A picture of how many lives once bright with hope!
II POSITIVELY, by one unmistakable, distinguishing mark: delight in God"s Law.
1. The written Word is dear to him. The primary reference is, of course, to the Law of Moses, of which every letter was dear and sacred to the devout Israelite. How much dearer should the completed Scriptures be to the Christian! (1Jn_1:1-7)
2. The deep spiritual truth of God"s Word engages his profound study, is "the rejoicing of his heart". (Jer_15:16 Col_3:16) Take Psalm 119. as the consummate expression of the value of God"s Law to a mind taught by God"s Spirit. Note the great principles embodied that God rules by law; that each of us stands in direct relation to God, as subject to his Law; that this Law is plainly revealed, N.B. No Israelite, however ungodly, could call in question the fact that God spake to and by Moses, without pouring contempt on the law and constitution of his country; this was the cornerstone.
3. He loves God"s Law as the practical guide of his life. (comp. Joh_8:12, Joh_8:31, Joh_8:32)
CONCLUSION. This picture is realized in ideal perfection in our Lord Jesus. All the severity of vers. 4-6 is found in his denunciations of the impenitent cities, of guilty Jerusalem, of the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, of wilful unbelievers. (Joh_12:48) But joined to this is the tender, sympathizing compassion, gracious humility, Divine love and forgiveness which made him "who knew no sin" the "Friend of sinners to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," as well as "able to save to the uttermost". (Heb_7:25, 26 4:15 Mat_9:10-13)
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-6. The title: The Book of Psalms: the Psalms their variety and value.
In the Book of Psalms, or, strictly speaking, in the five Books of Psalms, we have illustrations of most of the varied kinds of documents of which the entire Bible is made up. In their entirety the collection forms the Hebrews" "Book of Praise," or, as Professor Cheyne puts it, "The Praises of Israel."It is probable, however, that very few, in their private devotions, read all the Psalms with equal frequency or delight. There are some "favourites," such as Ps 23 Ps 46 Ps 145, etc. The fact is that spiritual instincts are often far in advance of technical definitions, and the heart finds out that which is of permanent value over and above its historic interest, far more quickly than the intellect defines the reason thereof. Ere we pursue the study of the Psalms one by one, it may be helpful to note the main classes into which they may be grouped, as such classification will enable us the better to set in order the relation which each one bears to "the whole counsel of God." In the last of the Homiletics on Deuteronomy by the present writer, there is a threefold result indicated of communion between the Spirit of God and the spirit of man. When such fellowship is in the devotional sphere, it subserves the life of religion; when the Spirit of God impels to the going forth on a mission or the writing of a record, that is inspiration; when the Spirit of God discloses new truth or forecasts the future, that is revelation. These three divisions indicate three main groups under which the Psalms may be classified. For the most part, each one speaks for itself, and with sufficient clearness indicates to which of the three groups it belongs; and according to the group in which it is found will be the value and bearing of the psalm on the believers experience, faith, and life.
I MANY OF THE PSALMS ARE THE OUTCOME OF PRIVATE OR PUBLIC DEVOTION. It is in these that we get a priceless glimpse into the heart work of Old Testament saints, and see how constant was their habit of pouring out their souls to God. Ps 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, et alii, are illustrations of this. Whether the soul was elated by joy or oppressed with care, whether bowed down with fear or rejoicing over a great deliverance, whether the presence of God was enjoyed or whether his face was hidden, whether the spirit was soaring in rapture or sinking in dismay, amid all changes, from the overhanging of the blackest thundercloud to the beaming of the brightest sunshine, all is told to God in song, or plea, or moan, or plaint, or wail, as if the ancient believers had such confidence in God that riley could tell him anything! Many of these private prayers bear marks of limited knowledge and imperfect conception, and are by no means to be taken as models for us. But no saint ever did or could in prayer rise above the level of his own knowledge. Still, they knew that God heard and answered, not according to their thoughts, but according to his loving-kindness; hence they poured out their whole souls to God, whether in gladness or sadness. And so may we; and God will do exceeding abundantly for us above all that we ask or think.
II ANOTHER GROUP OF PSALMS CONSISTS OF THOSE WHICH ARE THE PRODUCTS OF ANOTHER FORM OF DIVINE INSPIRATION. These are not necessarily addresses to God; they are, for the most part, an inspired and inspiriting rehearsal of the mighty acts of the Lord, and a call to the people of God to join in the song of praise. Ps 33, 46, 48, 78, 81, 89, and many others, are illustrations of this. At the back of them all there is a revelation of God known, accepted, and enjoyed. And according to this great and glorious redemption are the people exhorted to join in songs of praise. There is, moreover, this distinction, for the most part, between the first group and the second the first group reflects the passing moods of man; the second reflects the revealed character and ways of God. The first group is mostly for private use, as the.moods of the soul may respond thereto; the. second group is also for sanctuary song, and indicates the permanent theme of the believer"s faith and hope, even "the salvation of God." With regard to the first group we may say, "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." As to the second, the motto might be, "The Lord hath made known his salvation: therefore with our songs we will praise him." Under this head may also be set those calmly and sweetly meditative psalms, such as Ps 23 Ps 32, in which God"s revelation of his works and ways gives its own hue to the musings of the saint. These are now the delight of believers, in public and in private worship, as the expression of an experience which is renewed in regenerate hearts age after age. None of them could possibly be accounted for by the psychology of the natural man; they accord only with the pneumatology of the spiritual man.
III THE THIRD GROUP OF PSALMS CONSISTS OF THOSE IN WHICH THERE IS A DIRECT OR INDIRECT MESSIANIC REFERENCE AND FORECAST. Of these there are three kinds.
1. There are those directly and exclusively Messianic, such as Ps 2, 45, 47, 72, 110. Of all these, the second psalm is, perhaps, throughout, as much as any of the psalms, clearly and distinctly applicable to the Coming One, and to him only. For the purpose of seeing and showing this, it may well be carefully studied. Every verse, every phrase, every word, tells; in fact, even the glorious fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is scarcely more clearly Messianic than the second psalm. Even Professor Cheyne is compelled to admit its Messianic reference, and he tells us that Ibn Ezra does so likewise. And that some of the psalms apply to the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord himself assures us. (Luk_24:44) And in an age like this, when destructive criticism is so popular, it is needful for the believing student to be the more accurate, clear, and firm.
2. Some psalms point to the era rather than to the Person of the Messiah. Such are the fiftieth and the eighty-seventh psalms. They are prophetic expositions of truths which pertain to the Messianic times, and receive their full elucidation from the developed expositions of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament; they cover the ground of the Messianic age.
3. Other psalms refer immediately to the writer himself, and have come to be regarded as Messianic because some of the words therein were quoted the Lord Jesus Christ and adopted as his own. Such a one is the twenty-second psalm, in which the writer bemoans his own sufferings and (according to the LXX) his own transgressions. But it is not possible to apply every verse of this psalm to the Lord Jesus. He, however, being in all things made like unto his brethren, was "in all points tempted like as we are;" hence the very groans of his brethren fitted his own lips. He came to have fellowship with us in our sufferings that we might have fellowship with him in his! Thus there is established a marvellously close sympathy between Jesus and his saints, since his temptations, sorrows, and groans resembled theirs, To this discriminating and believing study of the first fifty psalms, the writer ventures to invite the Christian student and expositor. We must avoid the extreme of those who, with Home, would reheard most, if not all, the psalms as Messianic; and also the extreme of those who would regard none as such. Because our Lord said that all things must be fulfilled that were written in the Psalms concerning him, we may not infer that words which were written concerning him filled up all the Psalms; nor, with the unbeliever, may we regard the claim of prophecy as invalid through any repugnance to the supernatural. Intelligent discernment and loving faith are twin sisters; may they both be our attendants during our survey of these priceless productions of Hebrew pens! And may the Spirit of God be himself our Light and our Guide! C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-6. The happy man.
The word "blessed" means" happy." The phrase used might, indeed, be rendered, "Hail to the man," etc.! The psalm itself may be called "a psalm of congratulations," for the psalmist regards the man whom he here describes as one who has great reason for gladness, and who therefore may be fittingly congratulated. Ages ago the heathen said, "Call no man happy till he is dead." But we have before us the picture of one who is certainly happy even now; who has a joy, of which neither crosses nor losses can deprive him; who will be happy as long as he lives; and who has still more happiness in store for him when death is past. It may be asked whether it is the highest kind of virtue to aim at being happy, or whether it is the noblest inducement to it to assure us that to be virtuous is to be happy? Perhaps not. But such a question could scarcely be asked unless the point of the psalm is altogether missed; for the psalmist is not speaking of the good man as happy because he is aiming at happiness, but as being so because he follows the Law of God, and finds joy therein, without seeking for joy for its own sake. And, anyway, if it be so that God has annexed joy to a life of loyalty to him, it cannot make such loyalty less desirable if it is crowned with gladness of heart. But, as we hope to point out shortly, the personal happiness is but a very small part of the "blessedness" which the good man possesses. Let us consider
I THE LIFE HERE DESCRIBED. Several marks are furnished to us here of "the Messed man.
1. Negative. He is wisely careful not to have evil companionship. He knows that "he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." Hence he shuns
(1) the ungodly those who have no fear of God before their eyes, and are perpetually restless in their self-will;
(2) the sinners those who indulge in open sin;
(3) the scornful these who ridicule religion and. laugh at such as fear the Lord. His separation from such is complete.
He will neither
(1) follow their counsel; nor
(2) sit in their seat; nor even
(3) stand in their way.
Note: If ever a man is to become wise, he must not mix promiscuously with others. We know well, in penning these words, that we are liable to the remark from some readers, "How commonplace!" We admit it. But it is just by non-attention to commonplace truth that millions are undone. We cannot reiterate too frequently, "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men.
2. Positive. In avoiding evil, he does not throw himself upon a blank. But it is remarkable that, as the antitheses of "ungodly, sinners," "scornful," we do not get "godly" "pure; "reverent." The fact is, the man whom this psalm describes will not be supremely anxious to have any companions. If he cannot have the right ones, he will do without them. And yet he will not be lonely. For the Law of Jehovah, the revealed covenant of God, wilt be before his eyes and in his heart. And herein he will have a safe guide for the pathway he should follow. In thus following God"s Law, he will have:
(1) Ample material for thought. "In his Law doth he meditate day and night" (ver. 2). "The Hebrew word torah has a much wider range of meaning than "law," by which it is always rendered in the Authorized Version. It denotes
(a) teaching, instruction, whether human (Pro_1:8) or Divine;
(b) a precept or law; a body of laws, and in particular the Mosaic Law, and so, finally, the Pentateuch. It should be taken to include all Divine revelation as the guide of life." We do not understand the psalmist as meaning that such a man will always be thinking of one topic.
But that
(a) by day he will use the Law of God as a direction-post to point the way;
(b) by night he will use it as a pillow on which to rest his head. For in the Law there are revealed to him mercy, forgiveness, sacrifice, intercession, grace, strength. He will enthrone the Word of God in the place of honour, above all other books in the world. Some may raise a difficulty hers, saying, "Yes; in the psalmist"s time that might have been so. Then the sacred books of the Hebrews comprised their national history and their religious literature. There was not so much to call off men"s thoughts from the Bible as there is now." That is so. But, nevertheless, the following facts remain: That in the Bible is the only authoritative revelation of the mind and will of God; that our Scriptures are to us a far richer treasure than the Scriptures of the psalmist"s time; that therein we have the only guide through life to immortality. Other books may inform the mind. The Bible still retains its supremacy as the book to regulate the life. Hence in the Bible the believer has:
(2) Rich nutriment for character. Hence he is described as "a tree planted by the rivers of water". (see also Jer_17:8) Psalmist and prophetagree. The Scriptures reveal God. In God the believer puts his trust. So that the study of the book makes him like a fruitful tree, because it leads up to God. Thus there will be
(a) unfailing supplies;
(b) fruit in season;
(c) a fadeless leaf;
(d) entire success. "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
II SUCH A LIFE HAS ITS OWN OUTLOOK AND DESTINY. As the man is now, so is his uplook and outlook here and hereafter.
1. There is now Divine approval. "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous.
2. His work and way will be influential for good long after he has ceased to live below. (Ver. 6)
3. He will be approved at the judgment-day. (Ver. 5) He will be found "in the congregation of the righteous." And all this is sot forth even more strikingly by the hints here given of the destiny of those with whom he would not be associated. As the Vulgate most touchingly has it, "Non sic impii, non sic." As he would not mingle with them here, he shall not be thrown with them hereafter. They will be as "chaff which the wind driveth away." Their quality, as chaff. Their destiny, as chaff. Terrible! How blessed to have a different destiny separately assigned, as the result of a course separately chosen!
III THE BLESSEDNESS OF SUCH A LIFE IS HERE DECLARED AND DEFINED. If we put the question, "By whom is this blessedness pronounced?" the answer is:
1. They are intrinsically blessed, ipso facto, in being what they are. They are right, good, glad, strong, full of living hope.
2. In the judgment of all good men they are blessed, and even men who are not godly know that a life spent in accordance with the will of God is the truly right one.
3. The Lord Jesus Christ declares them to be so now. (Mat_5:1-11)
4. At the last judgment the King will confirm the blessing. Note: The purposes to be served by such a psalm as this are manifold.
They are independent of its author, age, or land.
1. To parents this psalm is a treasure of infinite value, as giving them in outline what they may well desire their children to be; and the place of honour the Bible should occupy in their children"s hearts.
2. To teachers. It discloses to them the life to be urged on their scholars, and tells them whence alone the nutriment for such a life can be drawn.
3. To children. It shows them that true happiness, in the highest sense, is attained only through true goodness; that true goodness can only be attained by feeding on the truth of Cod; and that to such a God-like character there is ensured everlasting life, an ever-during home. "Light is sown for the righteous. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-6. The blessedness of the true.
"God is Love." He must, therefore, seek the happiness of his creatures. Man is the highest of his earthly creatures, and his happiness must be of the highest kind, not only fit for him to receive, but worthy of to bestow. Such is the happiness here depicted. It does not come anyhow, but in accordance with law. It does not depend upon what a man has, but upon what he is. It is inward, not outward. It is of the spirit, not of the flesh. Happiness is blessedness the blessedness of the true in character.
I MARK THE FOUNDATION. Sin is self-will. This implies separation from God; and this separation must be final, unless God himself prevent. But the godly man has been brought back into a right relation to God. God"s will is his will. To know and to love and to obey God is his delight. His life is centred in God. Thus he is able to receive the blessing in its fulness, which God is ready freely to bestow. His character is founded upon the rock of the eternal, and not upon the shifting sands of time.
II Mark next THE HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT. This is shown under the figure of a tree, fair and flourishing.
1. The situation is choice. It stands, not in the desert, but in a fit place. "Planted." The hand of God is seen in the godly man"s life. This is his security. Where God has put him, God can keep him.
2. The environment is favorable. From the heavens above sad the earth beneath nourishment is provided. The supply is rich and sure. Though worldly supplies may cease, and the waters of earth fail, (Isa_19:5) the river of God will still run free. (1Ki_18:5 Isa_55:1-3)
3. The progress is appropriate. There is the power of assimilating. (Mar_4:27, 28) Life develops according to its own order. What the plant does unconsciously, subject to the law of its being, the godly man does freely and consciously, under the benign rule of Christ.
III Lastly, mark THE CONSUMMATION. God"s work always tends to completeness. Every advance is an approach. Every fulfilment is a prophecy of the perfect end. In the life of the godly there is the truest pleasure, the noblest usefulness, the heavenliest beauty. And the charm of all is permanence. There is not only moral freshness, as where there is real soundness of health, but there is enduringness. This is brought out vividly by contrast. "The ungodly are not so." With them there is no reality. Separated from the true life, everything is unstable and uncertain. There may be a kind of prosperity, but it is false and delusive. The pleasures of sin are but for a season; but the love of God is for ever. In the day of trial the just shall stand, accepted and blessed; but the wicked shall be winnowed out of the society of the true Israel, and swept away, as the worthless chaff, by the swift and resistless judgment of God. W.F.
Vers. 1-6. Character.
This psalm supplies us with
I TEST OF CHARACTER. A man is known by the company he keeps. What doest thou, O my soul? With whom dost thou "walk" and "sit"? (Psa_119:63)
II RULE OF LIFE. What should we do? Surely the right thing is to ask counsel of God, and to submit ourselves to his holy and blessed rule. Let us do this, and we shall not only have life, (Psa_40:8) but food; (Joh_4:44) and not only food, but society; (Mat_12:50) and not only society, but education; (Psa_143:10) and not only education, but joy unspeakable and full of glory. (Psa_119:65 1Pe_1:8) "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever". (1Jn_2:16, 1Jn_2:17)
III FORESHADOWING OF DESTINY. Acts fix habits, habits settle character, and character determines destiny. "The wind" may represent the various trials which meet us, and which so far show what we are and whither we are going. By conscience, by public opinion, by experience of the results of conduct, we am premonished of the coming end and the perfect judgment of God. Thus, not in an arbitrary way, but by our own deeds and life, our destiny for weal or woe is being settled. Eternity is the harvest of time. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. W.F.
Vers. 1-6. Greatness, happiness, prosperity.
We learn here the true ides of
I GREATNESS. It is not mere intellectual power, but moral worth. Greatness is goodness the being like God.
II HAPPINESS. It is living together with God, doing his will, in the light and joy of his love.
III PROSPERITY. It is of the soul the true health of the soul. (3Jn_1:2) Its measure is personal activity. Deeds carry social influence. The weak and the unfortunate are too often despised, but let a man be true, let him stand up for the right, let him honestly serve God in his day and generation, and he will not only have peace within, but he wilt be "blessed in his deed." His influence will work for good, and will live and move others to noble ends when he himself is gone. "Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love, Our happiness, and all that we have been: Immortally must live, and burn, and move, When we shall be no more. W.F.
Vers. 1-6. Blessedness.
The word "blessed" might Be rendered "blessings." God"s people are blessed. (Num_6:24 Mat_5:1-10)
I There is the blessing of PEACE. The fruit of righteousness is peace. The heart is right with God.
II The Messing of a TRUE PURPOSE. Not gain, nor pleasure, nor merely to save the soul, but to do God"s will. This is the supreme thing. This gives strength to the heart and unity to the life.
III The blessing of the NOBLEST SOCIETY. Into what a goodly fellowship do we enter as we join the company of God"s people! The saints are our brethren; holy angels are our ministers; Christ is our abiding Friend.
IV The blessing of MORAL ADVANCEMENT. Our path is onward. The more good,a man does the nobler he becomes. By every act of self-denial and virtue he rises in dignity and strength.
V The blessing of SPIRITUAL USEFULNESS. Only the good can do good. To augment the happiness of others is the sweetest pleasure.
VI The blessing OF A BRIGHT FUTURE. Life"s interests are secured. The outlook, though at times clouded, ends in light.
VII The BLESSING OF GOD"S ETERNAL LOVE. (Ver. 6, "knoweth.") "There is nothing in the world worth living for, but doing good and finishing God"s work doing the work Christ did" (Brainerd). W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-6. A contrast.
This psalm is introductory to all the rest, perhaps written after the finding of the "book of the Law" in Josiah"s time, in an age of revival, when men were roused to consider the conflict between good and evil, and who were the truly Messed, and on what their blessedness was grounded. There is a contrast drawn in it between the righteous and the wicked.
I THE CHARACTER AND PRIVILEGES OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
1. They have no sympathetic relations with the wicked. (Ver. 1) They cannot help having some associations with them; but they do not walk with them, nor stand with them, nor sit with them, as they do with congenial friends. This description suggests the progress of the wicked. Walking only with a man we may soon part from him; but if we stand with him we linger in his company, and at last come to sit with him, scorning all goodness.
2. Irresistibly attracted to the Divine Law. (Ver. 2) He is "in" it with all his affection and with his unceasing thought, rather than the Law is "in" him. Though both are true, i.e. , it solicits, commands, and absorbs him, and rules the world of thought, affection, and imagination.
3. They are fruitful according to the time and circumstances of their Lives.(ver. 3) In youth, mature manhood, and ripe age. Patient in affliction, constant in trial, grateful in prosperity, and zealous when opportunity of work offers itself.
4. Unfading freshness of heart and experience (Ver. 3) His life is progressive, his faith grows deeper, and his power of achievement increase, and his hope becomes brighter, and his affections purer, and he blossoms with a green freshness for ever.
5. He prospers in hi, undertakings. (Ver. 3) As a general rule, because he deserves it; for he aims at only right and lawful things, and employs only right and lawful means.
II CHARACTER AND DESTINY OF THE WICKED.
1. Intrinsic worthlessness. (Ver. 4) Dead, unserviceable, without substance, and easily carried away dispersed by the wind. This is only s negative description, as a contrast with the living tree and its fruit. It says nothing of such a man"s poisonous influence.
2. Unable to endure the scrutiny of the great Lawgiver. (Ver. 5) One inquiring glance of God shatters the whole structure of his life. God does not "know" his way. "I never knew you.
3. Their relation to the Church only an outward one. (Ver. 5) Though they mingle with the congregation, they do not really "stand with them.
4. Their habits of life are destructive. (Ver. 6) Their "way" is not the way everlasting, but leads to perdition, if it be not forsaken. S.
Vers. 1-3. True blessedness.
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful," etc.
I THE NATURE OF TRUE BLESSEDNESS.
1. Vigorous life of the soul. "Like a tree planted," etc. The blessedness of the body is vigorous health.
2. Productiveness. Bringeth forth his fruit in his season. It must grow before it becomes fruitful.
3. Perpetuity of life. "His leaf also shall not wither.
4. Success in his undertakings. "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Success in the greatest undertaking, the true blessedness.
II THE MEANS OF BLESSEDNESS.
1. To shun the company and the counsels of the ungodly. Standing in their way, partaking in their designs.
2. Delight in Divine truth.
3. Persevering study of it. Converting it into juice and blood. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon1885 · Public DomainOn vv1–6My Preface shall at least possess the virtue of…
My Preface shall at least possess the virtue of brevity, as I find it difficult to impart to it any other.
The delightful study of the Psalms has yielded me boundless profit and ever-growing pleasure; common gratitude constrains me to communicate to others a portion of the benefit, with the prayer that it may induce them to search further for themselves. That I have nothing better of my own to offer upon this peerless book is to me matter of deepest regret; that I have anything whatever to present is subject for devout gratitude to the Lord of grace. I have done my best, but, conscious of many defects, I heartily wish I could have done far better.
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The Exposition here given is my own. I consulted a few authors before penning it, to aid me in interpretation and arouse my thoughts; but, still I can claim originality for my comments, at least so I honestly think. Whether they are better or worse for that, I know not; at least I know I have sought heavenly guidance while writing them, and therefore I look for a blessing on the printing of them.
The collection of quotations was an after-thought. In fact, matter grew upon me which I thought too good to throw away. It seemed to me that it might prove serviceable to others, if I reserved portions of my reading upon the various Psalms; those reserves soon acquired considerable bulk, so much so that even in this volume only specimens are given and not the bulk.
One thing the reader will please clearly to understand, and I beg him to bear it in mind; "I am far from endorsing all I have quoted". I am neither responsible for the scholarship or orthodoxy of the writers. The names are given that each author may bear his own burden; and a variety of writers have been quoted that the thoughts of many minds might be before the reader. Still I trust nothing evil has been admitted; if it be so it is an oversight.
The research expended on this volume would have occupied far too much of my time, had not my friend and amanuensis Mr. John L. Keys, most diligently aided me in investigations at the British Museum, Dr. William's Library, and other treasuries of theological lore. With his help I have ransacked books by the hundred, often without finding a memorable line as a reward, but at other times with the most satisfactory result. Readers little know how great labour the finding of but one pertinent extract may involve; labour certainly I have not spared: my earnest prayer is that some measure of good may come of it to my brethren in the ministry and to the church at large.
The Hints to the Village Preacher are very simple, and an apology is due to my ministerial readers for inserting them, but I humbly hope they may render assistance to those for whom alone they are designed, viz., lay preachers whose time is much occupied, and whose attainments are slender.
Should this first volume meet with the approbation of the judicious, I shall hope by God's grace to continue the work as rapidly as I can consistently with the research demanded and my incessant pastoral duties. Another volume will follow in all probability in twelve months' time, if life be spared and strength be given.
It may be added, that although the comments were the work of my health, the rest of the volume is the product of my sickness. When protracted illness and weakness laid me aside from daily preaching, I resorted to my pen as an available means of doing good. I would have preached had I been able, but as my Master denied me the privilege of thus serving him, I gladly availed myself of the other method of bearing testimony for his name. O that he may give me fruit in this field also, and his shall be all the praise.
C. H. Spurgeon
Clapham, December, 1869.
This Psalm may be regarded as THE PREFACE PSALM, having in it a notification of the contents of the entire Book. It is the psalmists's desire to teach us the way to blessedness, and to warn us of the sure destruction of sinners. This, then, is the matter of the first Psalm, which may be looked upon, in some respects, as the text upon which the whole of the Psalms make up a divine sermon.
This Psalm consists of two parts: in the first (from verse 1 to the end of the 3rd) David sets out wherein the felicity and blessedness of a godly man consisteth, what his exercises are, and what blessings he shall receive from the Lord. In the second part (from verse 4 to the end) he contrasts the state and character of the ungodly, reveals the future, and describes, in telling language, his ultimate doom.
Verse 1. "BLESSED" - see how this Book of Psalms opens with a benediction, even as did the famous Sermon of our Lord upon the Mount! The word translated "blessed" is a very expressive one. The original word is plural, and it is a controverted matter whether it is an adjective or a substantive. Hence we may learn the multiplicity of the blessings which shall rest upon the man whom God hath justified, and the perfection and greatness of the blessedness he shall enjoy. We might read it, "Oh, the blessednesses!" and we may well regard it (as Ainsworth does) as a joyful acclamation of the gracious man's felicity. May the like benediction rest on us!
Here the gracious man is described both negatively (verse 1) and positively (verse 2). He is a man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He takes wiser counsel, and walks in the commandments of the Lord his God. To him the ways of piety are paths of peace and pleasantness. His footsteps are ordered by the Word of God, and not by the cunning and wicked devices of carnal men. It is a rich sign of inward grace when the outward walk is changed, and when ungodliness is put far from our actions. Note next, he standeth not in the way of sinners. His company is of a choicer sort than it was. Although a sinner himself, he is now a blood-washed sinner, quickened by the Holy Spirit, and renewed in heart. Standing by the rich grace of God in the congregation of the righteous, he dares not herd with the multitude that do evil. Again it is said, "nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." He finds no rest in the atheist's scoffings. Let others make a mock of sin, of eternity, of hell and heaven, and of the Eternal God; this man has learned better philosophy than that of the infidel, and has too much sense of God's presence to endure to hear His name blasphemed. The seat of the scorner may be very lofty, but it is very near to the gate of hell; let us flee from it, for it shall soon be empty, and destruction shall swallow up the man who sits therein. Mark the gradation in the first verse:
He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor standeth in the way of sinners,
Nor SITTETH in the SEAT of SCORNFUL.
When men are living in sin they go from bad to worse. At first they merely walk in the counsel of the careless and ungodly, who forget God - the evil is rather practical than habitual - but after that, they become habituated to evil, and they stand in the way of open sinners who wilfully violate God's commandments; and if let alone, they go one step further, and become themselves pestilent teachers and tempters of others, and thus they sit in the seat of the scornful. They have taken their degree in vice, and as true Doctors of Damnation they are installed, and are looked up to by others as Masters in Belial. But the blessed man, the man to whom all the blessings of God belong, can hold no communion with such characters as these. He keeps himself pure from these lepers; he puts away evil things from him as garments spotted by the flesh; he comes out from among the wicked, and goes without the camp, bearing the reproach of Christ. O for grace to be thus separate from sinners.
Whole Psalm. As the book of the Canticles is called the Song of Songs by a Hebraism, it being the most excellent, so this Psalm may not unfitly be entitled, the Psalm of Psalms, for it contains in it the very pith and quintessence of Christianity. What Jerome saith on St. Paul's epistles, the same may I say of this Psalm; it is short as to the composure, but full of length and strength as to the matter. This Psalm carries blessedness in the frontpiece; it begins where we all hope to end: it may well be called a Christian's Guide, for it discovers the quicksands where the wicked sink down in perdition, and the firm ground on which the saints tread to glory. Thomas Watson's Saints Spiritual Delight, 1660.
Whole Psalm. This whole Psalm offers itself to be drawn into these two opposite propositions: a godly man is blessed, a wicked man is miserable; which seem to stand as two challenges, made by the prophet: one, that he will maintain a godly man against all comers, to be the only Jason for winning the golden fleece of blessedness; the other, that albeit the ungodly make a show in the world of being happy, yet they of all men are most miserable.
Sir Richard Baker, 1640
Whole Psalm. I have been induced to embrace the opinion of some among the ancient interpreters (Augustine, Jerome, etc.), who conceive that the first Psalm is intended to be descriptive of the character and reward of the JUST ONE, i.e. the Lord Jesus.
John Fry, B.A., 1842
Verse 1. The psalmist saith more to the point about true happiness in this short Psalm than any one of the philosophers, or all of them put together; they did but beat the bush, God hath here put the bird into our hand.
John Trapp, 1660
Verse 1. Where the word blessed is hung out as a sign, we may be sure that we shall find a godly man within.
Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 1. The seat of the drunkard is the seat of the scornful.
Matthew Henry, 1662 - 1714
Verse 1. "Walketh NOT....NOR standeth....NOR sitteth," etc.
Negative precepts are in some cases more absolute and peremptory than affirmatives; for to say, "that hath walketh in the counsel of the godly," might not be sufficient; for, he might walk in the counsel of the godly, and yet walk in the counsel of the ungodly too; not both indeed at once, but both at several times; where now, this negative clears him at all times.
Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 1. The word (Heb) haish is emphatic, that man; that one among a thousand who lives for the accomplishment of the end for which God created him.
Adam Clarke, 1844
Verse 1. "That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly." Mark certain circumstances of their differing characters and conduct.
I. The ungodly man has his counsel.
II. The sinner has his way; and
III. The scorner has his seat.
The ungodly man is unconcerned about religion; he is neither zealous for his own salvation nor for that of others; and he counsels and advises those with whom he converses to adopt his plan, and not trouble themselves about praying, reading, repentance, etc., etc.; "there is no need for such things; live an honest life, make no fuss about religion, and you will fare well enough at last." Now "blessed is the man who walks not in this man's counsel," who does not come into his measures, nor act according to his plan.
The sinner has his particular way of transgressing; one is a drunkard, another dishonest, another unclean. Few are given to every species of vice. There are many covetous men who abhor drunkenness, many drunkards who abhor covetousness; and so of others. Each has his easily besetting sin; therefore, says the prophet, "Let the wicked forsake HIS WAY." (Isaiah 55:7) Now, blessed is he who stands not is such a man's WAY.
The scorner has brought, in reference to himself, all religion and moral feeling to an end. He has sat down is utterly confirmed in impiety, and makes a mock at sin. His conscience is seared, and he is a believer in all unbelief. Now, blessed is the man who sits not down in his SEAT.
Adam Clarke.
Verse 1. In the Hebrew, the word "blessed" is a plural noun, ashrey (blessednesses), that is, all blessednesses are the portion of that man who has not gone away, etc.; as though it were said, "All things are well with that man who," etc. Why do you hold any dispute? Why draw vain conclusions? If a man has found that pearl of great price, to love the law of God and to be separate from the ungodly, all blessednesses belong to that man; but, if he does not find this jewel, he will seek for all blessednesses but will never find one! For as all things are pure unto the pure, so all things are lovely unto the loving, all things good unto the good; and, universally, such as thou art thyself, such is God himself unto thee, though he is not a creature. He is perverse unto the perverse, and holy unto the holy. Hence nothing can be good or saving unto him who is evil: nothing sweet unto him unto whom the law of God is not sweet. The word "counsel" is without doubt here to be received as signifying decrees and doctrines, seeing that no society of men exists without being formed and preserved by decrees and laws. David, however, by this term strikes at the pride and reprobate temerity of the ungodly. First, because they will not humble themselves so far as to walk in the law of the Lord, but rule themselves by their own counsel. And then he calls it their "counsel," because it is their prudence, and the way that seems to them to be without error. For this is the destruction of the ungodly their being prudent in their own eyes and in their own esteem, and clothing their errors in the garb of prudence and of the right way. For if they came to men in the open garb of error, it would not be so distinguishing a mark of blessedness not to walk with them. But David does not here say, "in the folly of the ungodly," or "in the error of the ungodly;" and therefore he admonishes us to guard with all diligence against the appearance of what is right, that the devil transformed into an angel of light do not seduce us by his craftiness. And he contrasts the counsel of the wicked with the law of the Lord, that we may learn to beware of wolves in sheep's clothing, who are always ready to give counsel to all, to teach all, and to offer assistance unto all, when they are of all men least qualified to do so. The term "stood" descriptively represents their obstinacy, and stiff-neckedness, wherein they harden themselves and make their excuses in words of malice, having become incorrigible in their ungodliness. For "to stand," in the figurative manner of Scripture expression, signifies to be firm and fixed: as in Romans 14:4, "To his own master he standeth or falleth: yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand." Hence the word "column" is by the Hebrew derived from their verb "to stand," as is the word statue among the Latins. For this is the very self-excuse and self-hardening of the ungodly their appearing to themselves to live rightly, and to shine in the eternal show of works above all others. With respect to the term "seat," to sit in the seat, is to teach, to act the instructor and teacher; as in Matthew 23:2, "The scribes sit in Moses' chair." They sit in the seat of pestilence, who fill the church with the opinions of philosophers, with the traditions of men, and with the counsels of their own brain, and oppress miserable consciences, setting aside, all the while, the word of God, by which alone the soul is fed, lives, and is preserved.
Martin Luther, 1536 - 1546.
Verse 1. "The scornful." Peccator cum in profundum venerit contemnet
when a wicked man comes to the depth and worst of sin, he despiseth. Then the Hebrew will despise Moses (Exodus 2:14), "Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?" Then Ahab will quarrel with Micaiah (1 Kings 22:18), because he doth not prophecy good unto him. Every child in Bethel will mock Elisha (2 Kings 2:23), and be bold to call him "bald pate." Here is an original drop of venom swollen to a main ocean of poison: as one drop of some serpents' poison, lighting on the hand, gets into the veins, and so spreads itself over all the body till it hath stifled the vital spirits. God shall "laugh you to scorn," (Psalm 2:4), for laughing Him to scorn; and at last despise you that have despised him in us. That which a man spits against heaven, shall fall back on his own face. Your indignities done to your spiritual physicians shall sleep in the dust with your ashes, but stand up against your souls in judgment.
Thomas Adams, 1614.
Verse 1. May furnish an excellent text upon "Progress in Sin," or "The Purity of the Christian," or "The Blessedness of the Righteous." Upon the last subject speak of the believer as BLESSED
1. By God;
2. In Christ;
3. With all blessings;
4. In all circumstances;
5. Through time and eternity;
6. To the highest degree.
Verse 1. Teaches a godly man to beware, (1) of the opinions, (2) of the practical life, and (3) of the company and association of sinful men. Show how meditation upon the Word will assist us in keeping aloof from these three evils.
The insinuating and progressive nature of sin.
J. Morrison.
Verse 1. in connection with the whole Psalm. The wide difference between the righteous and the wicked.
The Way to Blessedness: a Commentary on the First Psalm. By PHINEAS FLETCHER. London. 1632
A Discourse about the State of True Happiness, delivered in certain Sermons in Oxford, and at Paul's Cross. By ROBERT BOLTON. London. 1625
David's Blessed Man; or, a Short Exposition on the First Psalm, directing a Man to True Happiness. By SAMUEL SMITH, preacher of the Word at Prittlewell in Essex. 1635 Reprinted in Nicol's Series of Commentaries.
Meditations ad Disquisitions upon the First Psalm of David. Blessed is the Man. By SIR RICHARD BAKER, Knight. London. 1640 The same volume contains Meditations upon "Seven Consolatorie Psalms of David," namely, 23, 27, 30, 84, 103, and 116.
The Christian on the Mount; or a Treatise concerning Meditation; wherein the necessity, usefulness, and excellency of Meditation are at large discussed. By THOMAS WATSON. 1660.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv1–6Blessed is the man that walketh not in the…
Psa_1:1-6
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.
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The 1st Psalm, introductory
This Psalm seems to have been placed first in the collection because, from its general character and subject, it formed a suitable introduction to the rest. It treats of the blessedness of the righteous and the misery of the wicked, topics which constantly recur in the Psalms, but it treats of them as if all experience pointed only in one direction. The moral problem which, in other Psalms, troubles the ancient poets of Israel, when they see the evil prospering and the good oppressed, has here no place. The poet rests calmly in the truth that it is well with the righteous. He is not vexed with those passionate questionings of heart which meet us in such Psalms as the 37th and 73rd. Hence we may probably conclude that his lot was cast in happier and more peaceful times. The close of the Psalm is, however, as Ewald remarks, truly prophetical, perpetually in force, and consequently descriptive of what is to be expected at all times in the course of the worlds history. In style the Psalm is simple and clear. In form it is little more than the expansion of a proverb. (J. J. Stewart Perowne, B. D.)
The felicity of the godly man, and infelicity of the wicked
Verse 1. Teacheth a godly man.
1. To beware of the ungodly mans persuasions;
2. Of their order of life; and,
3. Of their society and company keeping.
Verse 2. Teacheth him by the contrary what he must do.
1. Take delight and pleasure in Gods Word; because we do hardly profit by those things which we take no pleasure in;
2. Use all the means whereby we may be builded up in knowledge; for so generally do I take these words, meditate day and night.
Verse 3. A promise annexed for our better encouragement, which expresseth Gods wonderful goodness, and our dulness and heaviness, that have need of such spurs. By which also we may see the right use of Gods promises, namely, to provoke us to all well-doings (1Co_7:1).
Verse 4. Doth not only contain judgments against the wicked, but also teacheth, yea, spurreth forward the godly, by beholding their punishments, to more heedy walking; and whereas the Holy Ghost resembleth the wicked to chaff tossed before the wind, it teaches us, that though the wicked think themselves glorious, and of long continuance, yet they are neither the one nor the other.
Verse 5. Teacheth that God, with His fan, will make a separation between the good corn and the chaff (Mat_3:12).
Verse 6. Teacheth this, that God is the only judge to allow and disallow; men must not therefore stand upon themselves, or other mens judgments. For what are we that condemn another mans servant? He standeth or faileth to his own master. (Thomas Wilcocks.)
The godly man happy
The Prophet will maintain a godly man, against all comers, to be the only Jason, for winning the golden fleece of blessedness the other, that he will make it good upon the heads of all the wicked; that howsoever they make a show in the world of being happy, yet they of all men are most miserable. (Sir Richard Baker.)
The blessed man
Happiness is our natures end and aim, and David tells us here who finds it. He describes his character--
I. Negatively. But all this is negative; and in a world such as this, and with a nature such as ours, no small part of religion consists in avoiding evil. Still, a negative religion is not sufficient. Gods Word is, Cease to do evil, learn to do well. A man may not swear, but does he pray? He may not rob, but does he relieve the poor? Therefore we have the blessed man described--
II. Positively. His delight, etc. It is so, whether the law be the moral law or the Word of God. Much more may we say this who have the complete Bible. Day and night, our thoughts ever follow our affections. (W. Jay.)
The true Christian
1. He is set forth as a man. Sin un-mans, reduces the volume and value of manhood, until it brings its victim to a revolting animalism. The Christian is restored by grace to true manhood.
2. As a happy man. Happiness is the flower and fruit of piety. Misery, the natural child of sin. None are so happy as those whom God makes happy.
3. As avoiding unholy society. As oil will not mix with water, light cannot co-exist with darkness, so piety cannot live in the poisonous atmosphere of evil-doers. Where there is no affinity of nature there can be no sympathy and fellowship of spirit. The tropical plant will quickly die at the roots in the Arctic region; and the saint cannot pass over to the frigid zone of the worldlings society, but at the peril of his sainthood--his life.
4. As a student of Divine truth. Religion makes men thoughtful. He is a glad student. His delight is in; a diligent student. Day and night. It is not a nine days spell which novelty has thrown over him. He meditates ill it in the day of prosperity, and does not forget to do so in the night of adversity.
5. Under a beautiful and suggestive figure. Like a tree. He does not grow up a Christian, he is planted as such. Religion is not natural, but engendered:--He is well positioned. By the rivers of water. As a consequence he is fruitful. No fruit in the life is a proof of no grace in the heart. He is always in season. There are special times for the manifestation of suitable graces. Liberality when riches increase. Humility when cheered by others. Patience in suffering. Resignation in bereavement. Faith in trial. He is evergreen. His leaf also shall not wither. The beauty of the believer is holiness, the communicated beauty of the Lord our God. The sap of grace is always in circulation, hence his leaf does not wither.
6. Prosperous in all his undertakings. There is no lack to them that walk uprightly. Godliness is great gain.
7. As divinely known. Knoweth the way of the righteous (Psa_1:6). His knowledge covers the minutiae of his life as well as the particulars of the road. This Divine knowledge is comforting, stimulating, faith-embolding, etc. Such is the inspired portrait of the happy or godly man. In contrast we have the ungodly man. He is like chaff, without worth, or use, or root; the sport of the wind of circumstances, passions, frivolities, worldliness, sensuality, etc., devoid of true manliness, decision of character, etc. Verse 5 sets him forth as morally incapacitated to stand in the Court of Justice; and also as morally disqualified to associate with the holy. Both he and his way shall perish. (J. O. Keen, D. D.)
A certain prescription for happiness
There is a very beautiful story told of a king who, when he came to his throne a young man, had a silver bell made and placed in a high tower of his palace. Then the announcement was set forth that whenever the king was happy his subjects would know it by the ringing of this bell. It was never to be rung except when the king was perfectly happy, and then by no hand but his own, Days passed into weeks, and weeks into months, and the months into years; but no sound of the bell rang out either day or night to tell that the king was happy. At last the king, grown old and grey in his palace, lay on his death bed. His weeping subjects gathered around him, and he learned how through all the years his people had loved him; and then he was happy, and in his joy, with dying hands, he rang out the silver bell. How many years of wasted happiness because the king did not come to know and appreciate the love of his people! The little story may suggest to us a still greater loss in ourselves. Only the consciousness of Gods love can make us perfectly happy. Many people go through life from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to age, and the lines of care deepen in their faces, and the silver bell of happiness never rings out, because all the while they are getting further from God, and there is no consciousness of that Divine love which alone can give perfect happiness and peace to the human heart. We have in this Psalm the thought of a keen-brained and spiritually instructed man as to what is required to make a happy man. We have here the testimony of a man of broad experience. David sets forth, at the beginning, that there are three things which it is important that we shall not do if we are to lead happy lives. The first of these is walking in the counsel of the ungodly. I do not understand that he intended to teach that to come under this head it is necessary for a man to seek out ungodly people and ask their advice as to how he shall live. The danger is far more insidious than that. The trouble is that ungodly people are always ready to speak their counsels of evil and lead others astray by them. Eve did not send for the devil to come and advise her, but he came of his own accord and spit forth his lying sophistries about the Lord. Many young men and women come to the city from Christian homes, expecting to live a frank Christian life; but in the boarding house, or the store or shop where they work, they are thrown into touch with ungodly people, who are ready at every turn with sceptical and insinuating remarks about the Church and about Christianity. Their counsels are for laxity of faith and conduct. Rev. W.L. Watkinson, in a recent sermon, recalls the fact that while we are careful to do our utmost to protect great buildings from fire and tempest, yet all the while those buildings are liable to another peril, certainly not less severe--the subtle decay of the very framework of the structure itself. The tissue of the wood silently and mysteriously deteriorates, and a calamity dire as a conflagration is precipitated. Many people think they are all right because they are not committing outbreaking sins, while the counsels to which they are listening, and the associations to which they are lending themselves, are really undermining all their spiritual strength. The fibre of will and conscience and feeling is secretly eaten away, and some day they awake to find they no longer possess the faith, the sensibility, and the resolution of other days. No swift and violent assault of world or flesh or devil has torn or stained them, but it has been like a moth fretting a garment. In the physical world sunshine is the sure antidote to the dry rot. So the only antidote to the counsels of the ungodly is to turn from them to the beams which fall from the Sun of Righteousness. Prosperous looking trunk. It was strongly made, and, although not very heavy, the speculators who examined its exterior concluded that it contained articles of value. One of them finally secured it for fifty-five dollars, and promptly prised it open, when he found within it only a disjointed human skeleton, which had probably been the property of some medical student. It is easy to understand the chagrin of the purchaser who, instead of gold and jewels, found only those relics of death. Multitudes have experienced a similar disappointment, but one infinitely more sorrowful, when they have discovered the real nature of the prizes which they gained by sin. There is still another place that a man if he will be really happy must avoid, and that is, the seat of the scornful. God have mercy on the boy who has gone so far that he can make a joke of his mothers religion, that he can make a sneer about his fathers God, that he can scorn the voice of Gods Word that calls him to repentance! The sarcasm and cynicism and scorn of a sharp wit is often very fascinating to young people, but I assure you that the man who exercises it is never happy. It is a blossom which grows on a tree that is bitter at the heart. I have seen many scornful men and women, but I have never yet seen one who was happy. Well, we have been looking at some of the things one must not do if he is to be happy; let us turn to the brighter side, and see what one may do to ensure happiness. The prescription is given here, and is very plain. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night. But, you say, How can I delight in the law of the Lord, and how can I begin to think about Him, if I am taken up with other things? It is all very simple. You have been breaking Gods law, and therefore you cannot delight in it. Stop breaking it. Turn right about and begin to obey the law of the Lord, and then you will have a chance to delight in it. God has made happiness and obedience to go together. As you obey the Lord, and as you feel the warmth of His smile on your face, you will take delight in Him. All this is perfectly natural. The man who has committed a crime, and has broken the law of the land, and is fleeing from justice like a hunted animal or has been caught and is being punished, takes no delight in that law. But the man who obeys the law and finds its strong arm of protection thrown around him, and rejoices in its security, delights in it, and in the consciousness of the presence of the law he finds rest and peace And what a glorious result is assured from such delight in the law of the Lord: He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, etc. What a beautiful picture that is! Ah, but, you say, Does God live up to that? Do not many Christians have hard experiences, and trying difficulties like other people? Certainly, the hot sun beats down on the tree planted by the river just the same as it does on the one that is planted on the gravelly, sandy upland. But the one by the river runs its roots down into the refreshing streams beneath, and when the upland tree withers and turns brown the tree by the river is as green as ever. Christians meet the troubles of life like other people, but if they give themselves up whole heartedly to do Gods will, and delight in the law of the Lord, they have peace and content in the midst of the sorest trouble. You want happiness. There is only one certain prescription for happiness, and that is to obey God. (L. A. Banks, D. D.)
The happy man
The opening words of this Psalm furnish its title Ashrey ha-ish, O the happiness of that man! If ever a man pursued happiness under the most favourable conditions, it was King Solomon; yet this was his conclusion of the whole matter, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. John Trapp said quaintly, The Psalmist hath said here more to the point respecting happiness than all the philosophers; for while they beat the bush, he hath put the bird into our hand.
I. As to the character of this happy man. He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. We must needs be in the world--not dreamers among the shadows, but men among men. The world has need of us. The workshop and the office demand us. The secular cares of this world are, of necessity, upon us. But the secret of true happiness is moral nonconformity. Being in the world, we should not be of it. While our associations must needs be in some measure with the ungodly, their counsels, their ways, their seats are not for us. Gods people go to their offices and their workshops just like other men, but their affections are not set upon this world; they are ever mindful of their noble birth, their Divine inheritance, their glorious destiny.
II. His attitude towards the Divine law. The Law of the Lord was a Jewish phrase for the Scriptures. The happy man possesses a right estimate of the importance of the Word of God.
1. He is a reader of the Scriptures. Thomas a Kempis said, I am never so happy as when in a nook with the Book.
2. He reads with delight. We are much given in these times to a critical study of the Word. The way to appreciate the beauty of Murillos picture of the Immaculate Conception is not to approach it with spatula and ammonia for purposes of minute analysis, but to gaze upon it until we are filled with the mighty thoughts that went surging through the soul of the master genius who painted it.
3. He meditates in them. St. Augustine renders the word chattereth. So in these spring days we hear the sparrows chattering with their hearts full of the prophecy of bloom and fruitfulness. So glad and happy are the souls that meditate with delight in the Divine law.
III. The outcome of this happy life. Fruitfulness. Like a tree. This life is rooted well. Its leaf shall not wither. The leaf shows the character of the tree. The man whose soul is full of truth and righteousness need not be saying perpetually, I am a Christian, for his walk and conversation declare it. He bringeth forth fruit in his season. We shall be ever doing good as we have opportunity. There is an obverse to this picture. The ungodly are not so.
1. As to his life--it is chaff. There is no profit in it.
2. As to his death--it is like a furrow in the sea.
3. After death, he shall not stand in judgment. Most of us have been disappointed in our pursuit of happiness. There is, however, a right way and a sure way to pursue it. (D. J. Burrell, D. D.)
The way of the righteous
I. A striking description of the character of the righteous. Among the evil, as well as the good, there are classes and gradations. Here we have forgetters of God, overt and habitual sinners, and settled scorners. How graphically is the progressive tendency of sin here exhibited! Observe the indication we here have of the tendency of sin to fixedness. Walking, standing, sitting; wrong principles, then sinful habits, and last settled scorn. But the righteous man is not simply one who keeps aloof from the ways described. His character has its positive side. It is needful to discriminate with respect to the kind of delight the righteous man takes in the law. How much there is in the Bible of valuable history! Its truths and precepts kindle the intellect, feed the imagination, and commend themselves to mans natural sense of what is true and good. The delight of the Psalmist is, however, something deeper and other than this. It is delight in the law as Gods law, and because it is His. It is the delight of a mind in sympathetic accord with it and with its Author. Even in the Old Testament saint there was much of this spirit. Here is the difference between a truly righteous man and one who is only outwardly so. The latter obeys slavishly, and against his own will. The former serves joyfully, and in love. The interest the one takes in the Bible is intellectual; that of the other is also practical and spiritual.
II. A delightful picture of the condition of the righteous. Like a tree. The tree draws a portion of its nourishment from the surrounding atmosphere, but relatively this is small. Vastly the greater portion is taken up with the moisture at its root. Hence where there is little moisture the life of the tree is feeble, its growth is slow, its fruit is uncertain, its leaf withers. So it is doubtless true that the godly man derives material for growth, usefulness, enjoyment, and moral beauty from whatever surrounds him. He learns from nature, society, books; he derives profit and adornment from studies, companionship, and experience; but for that which is highest and best, whether of comfort, attainment, or serviceableness to his generation, he is indebted to revealed truth. It is this which sustains his true inner life. In Psa_1:3 there is a change of figure. Of the righteous it is said, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The meaning doubtless is that he shall prosper in all his godly doings; in the things to which the Divine will and word may prompt him; in those righteous undertakings by which he is distinguished. In other ages, if not now, it shall appear that nought of such labour was lost. It would be a mistake to understand, by the fruit here spoken of, external works only, or chiefly. The fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth. It is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. First of all, it is inward, then outward. It would be equally a mistake to suppose that the leaf, which does not wither, is the symbol only of the honour and beauty which crown the character of the godly. Doubtless it stands for this. But the leaf is also useful. And that, too, not only in the pleasure it ministers to the beholders eye, or the shade it affords to the passing traveller. Its benefits may reach very far. The fresh air we quaff from the hills has been purified and made healthy for us by the foliage of the trees, not merely those of our own country, but even the pines of Norway and the palms of India. And so the godly man is blessed in what he is and what he does.
III. A cheering intimation of the happy end which awaits the righteous. As is so often the case in the Bible, thought abruptly passes from time to eternity. Indeed, to the eye of faith, these are one: the latter is but the continuation of the former. Naturally, therefore, the characters contrasted in the Psalm are now made to appear for judgment. (Monday Club Sermons.)
The blessed mans likeness
Notes on verses.
Verse 1. Ignorance is often bliss. All the characters mentioned here may have their excellence. The ungodly may be rich, the sinners convivial, the scornful brilliant, yet blessed is the man that has nothing to do with them. Blessed is the man who knows not the language or the masonry of the wicked.
Verse 2. The idea is that of the man who sees the law of the Lord in all nature, history, and life, and delights to trace it out. The Law of the Lord is Lot simply so much letter press, it is a life, a presence, a government.
Verse 3. Where God is there is no famine. The likeness to a tree is full of suggestion. A tree is permanent, fruitful, beautiful; its branches are for refreshment, its shadow is for rest. It responds to the sun and the rain. It waits for God, and puts forth life at His bidding. Prosper. In no mean or narrow sense, but really and ultimately If you say that, as a fact, the good man does not always prosper, remember that you may say the same thing about God Himself.
Verse 4. Some ungodly men seem to be well established; they have more than heart can wish. But these are appearances only. At a distance chaff might be mistaken for wheat. The distinction is a vital one. To know where the wicked are, you must know where the wind is--the wind of popularity, success, Divine visitation.
Verse 5. There is a judgment, a true and final test of character. Where are the ungodly of the last generation?
Verse 6. Mark the three characters. The godly, ungodly, the Lord. The question is not what is the relation of the godly and the ungodly to each other; but what is that of each to the Lord? Are you blessed? Are you merely transiently happy? What is your fruit? (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The blessed man
1. He is partly described by negatives. We begin with children by teaching them what they must not do. The man who walketh in the counsel of the ungodly is not a happy man. Nowhere in the devils territories can you find the happy man. Men who have run the whole round of so called enjoyment unite to say, If you want to be happy, avoid our footprints. And yet it seems as if every young man must go and try for himself. He will not take the experience of others; or follow the directions of the caution board.
2. He is partly described by what he should do. God does not destroy our powers, but turns them in a right direction. How can we be happy? Study. He who thinks grows. Meditate in the Law of the Lord. We are not a Bible reading people. The old-fashioned people in the Church were. Note the consequences of this delight in the Law of the Lord. Beauty. Righteous men should have beauty of character. Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. When we fail the fault is ours, or if it be not, then the failure is for the sake of the success it shall lead to. The ungodly are not so. The sinner has a brief day. It may not seem so now; but God says, he is like the chaff. But we should not seek happiness as an end. Seek goodness, and the happiness will come. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The character of the pious and profane
I. A certain course described. Here is a two-fold gradation implied, the one relating to the characters referred to, and the other to the intercourse maintained.
II. A sacred exercise described. In His law doth he meditate. The godly man delights in the Law of the Lord for many reasons.
1. Because it enriches his mind.
2. It cheers his heart.
3. It sanctifies his nature.
III. An encouraging assurance given. He shall be like a tree. Note the connection between loving the Scriptures and spiritual prosperity.
IV. A solemn contrast drawn. The ungodly are like the chaff. Chaff is a thing that is--
1. Unsightly. There is nothing to excite pleasurable emotions in the ungodly.
2. Worthless. Chaff cannot be turned, even in our inventive age, to any beneficial purpose.
3. Light and unsubstantial. There is no stability in the ungodly. They are tossed to and fro with every wind of temptation; and, being influenced by caprice rather than principle, no confidence can be placed in them. The Psalmist adds, therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. To stand is a forensic term, and denotes to stand acquitted, and with those who live and die ungodly such cannot be the case.
V. A conclusive reason adduced. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish. (Expository Outlines.)
The refusals of godliness
But negatives in this case could not be denied; for if he had left out negatives, he had left out a great part of the worth and praise of godliness--for a godly man cannot always run in smooth ground--he shall sometimes meet with rubs; he cannot always breathe in sweet airs--he shall sometimes meet with ill savours; he cannot always sail in safe seas--he shall sometimes meet with rocks; and then it is his praise that he can pass over those rubs, can pass through those savours, can pass by those rocks, and yet keep himself upright and untainted, and untouched of them all. Besides, negative precepts are in some eases more absolute and peremptory than affirmatives: for to say, That hath walked in the counsel of the ungodly, might not be sufficient; for he might walk in the counsel of the godly, and yet walk in the counsel of the ungodly too; not both indeed at once, but both at several times; where now this negative clears him at all times. And may it not also be a cause of using negatives, because it seems an easier way of showing what a thing is, by showing what it is not, than by using only affirmative marks; especially where a perfect induction may be made. (Sir Richard Baker.)
Things marred by ungodliness
We must yet go further, and the next word we come to is ungodly, and now certainly we shall have a full negative, for ungodliness is the herb that marreth all the broth, it poisons all the company that it comes in,--not only walking, a thing in itself indifferent, but even counsel, a thing in its own nature most sovereign: they are both marred by this one ingredient of ungodliness. Walking in counsel had been a safe proceeding, if the ungodly had not given it; standing in the way had been a lawful calling, it sinners had not made it; sitting in a chair had been an easy posture, if scorners had not framed it; but if the ungodly, or sinners, or scorners have any hand at all in our actions, have anything to do in our doings, both safety, and lawfulness, and ease, and all are utterly overthrown. (Sir Richard Baker.)
The counsel of ungodly men
But have, then, ungodly men counsel? One would think it were want of counsel that makes them ungodly, for who would be ungodly if he had counsel to direct him? Certainly, counsel they have, and wise counsel too; that is, wise in the eye of the world, and wise for the works of the world: but wise in the sight of God, and wise for the works of godliness, they have not; and in that kind of wisdom ungodly men are your greatest counsellors--greatest in the ability of counsel, and greatest in the busying themselves with counselling. The poison of asps is under their lips. It serves not their turn to do wickedly in their own persons, but they must be drawing others into wickedness by poisoning and infecting them with wicked counsel. (Sir Richard Baker.)
Stages in sin
They which think it an ascent, conceive it thus, that he which walketh in the counsel of the ungodly is yet but wavering, as misled by opinion, and makes but an error; he that stands in the way of sinners, stands out with obstinacy, and makes a heresy; but he that sits in the chair of scorners is at defiance with God, and makes an apostasy. They who think it a descent do thus conceive it: he which walks in the counsel of the ungodly, delights and takes a pleasure in his sin; he which stands in the way of sinners, stands in doubt, and is unresolved in his sin; but he who sits in the seat of the scornful, sits down and sins but for his ease, as being unable to suffer persecution. They who think it an ascent, conceive that the ungodly are but beginners in ill; that sinners are proficients in ill; but the scorners are graduates and doctors of the chair in ill. They who think it a descent, conceive that the ungodly are opposite to the godly, and offend generally; that sinners offend, though actually, yet but in particulars; that scorners might be sound at heart, if they did not set themselves to sale, and sin for promotion. The ascent may be briefly thus: that walking expresseth less resolution than standing, and standing than sitting, but in sin, the more resolute, the more dissolute therefore sitting is the worst. The descent thus: that walking expresseth more strength than standing, and standing than sitting; for a child can sit when he cannot stand, and stand when he cannot walk; but the stronger in sin, the worse; therefore walking is the worst. Many such ways there are of conceiving diversity, either in ascending or descending; but it needs be no question which is the worse, because, without question, they are all stark nought: they are three rocks, whereof the least is enough to make a shipwreck; they are three pestilential airs, whereof the best is enough to poison the heart. This only may be observed, that howsoever the case alter with walkers and sitters, yet standers in the way of sinners keep their standing still; and whichsoever is first or last, yet they are sure to be the second. But is it not that we mistake the Prophet, and make his words a gradation, when, perhaps, he meant them for level ground? And for such, indeed, we may take them, and do as well, and then there will not be either ascent or descent in the sins themselves, but only a diversity in their causes; as that the first is a sin caused by ill counsel; the second, a sin caused by ill example; the third, a sin caused by the innate corruption of our own hearts. Or is it that the Prophet alludes here to the three principal ages of our life, which have every one of them their proper vices, as it were, retainers to them?--and therefore the vices of youth, which is the vigour of life, and delights most in motion and society, he expresseth by walking in the counsel of the ungodly; the vices of the middle age, which is the steadfast age, he expresseth by standing in the way of sinners; the vices of old age, which, being weak and feeble, is scarce able to go, he expresseth by sitting in the chair of scorners, and it is as if he had said, Blessed is the man that hath passed through all the ages of his life, and hath kept himself untainted of the vices that are incident unto them. (Sir Richard Baker.)
The way of sin dangerous
But a godly man is wiser than so; though he know that the way is large and broad, yet he knows also that the press is great; a man cannot stand here, but he shall be shouldered and thrust forward in spite of his teeth. (Sir Richard Baker.)
Walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.--
Companions
We are all of us naturally of such a social tendency that the influence of companionship is necessarily great. And this is so especially in youth. Moralists, like Cicero, have made friendship the theme of some of their purest teaching and counsel. Scripture tells us of Jonathan and David, and this Psalm gives a hint of the insidious gradations by which companionship attains its mastery over habit and character. Like a skilful angler playing a fish, so does a congenial associate attach us to his company. He draws the glamour of his power about us, till we become wholly his. At first we meet him from time to time, walking in his counsels; then we protract the interview, and invite ascendency as we stand in his way; and at length we capitulate to his domination as we sit down in his seat. Now, if it be good to resist such influence in the case of the ungodly, it is equally good to yield to it in the ease of the upright. Nothing more important than the choice of associates. Avoid such as--
I. Desire you rather as their prey than their friend. They protest vehement friendship; there is nothing they will not do for you; all that they have is at your service. These are not safe men who overact their part in this way.
II. The fop and roué. The plucking of pigeons has been an art studied and perfected by knaves of fashion in every age, and has flung filth upon escutcheons which had known no shame, and blasted many a prospect of a noble future.
III. The extravagant. We find it easy to declare that poverty is no disgrace; yet it is rare to find amongst the young the moral hardihood which can say, I cant afford it. In humbler life it is by tens of thousands, not by ones or twos, that you may count the well born and the well trained who have fallen, some into suicide, some into prisons, some to the gallows, all into disgrace by becoming companions of those who have tempted them into extravagance.
IV. Betting men. The slowly rising pittance of the clerk will not let him keep pace with the expensive pleasures of his rich associate, and fraud and forgery are led up to by the sure pathway of the betting ring.
V. The flatterer, the sponge, who desires only to exhaust your purse. The cynic too. He is a flatterer who has established his ascendency so completely that he can afford to be rude. You cannot make a friend of a bully.
VI. And let both young men and maidens be very careful of the companionships which they form, one with the other. A young man will do well who makes an honourable union the goal of his industry; and let her whose troth is challenged have nought to do with one whose life is stained with an unmanly taint. Choose Christian friendships, for companionship is the leaven of our lives and solitude their bane. But there is no solitude to him who has learned to cancel it with pure thought and spiritual communion. Healthy literature, taste, art, music, come with votive offerings to him who lingers by their chastened altars. But the best friendship is that of those whose Master is Christ. When the disciples were let go they went to their own company. Go you to yours, and let it be the company which gathers round the Lord. (Arthur Mursell.)
Avoiding evil doers
Like the Sermon on the Mount, this description of the way of the righteous begins with a blessed. Those who go down into the busy streets day by day are in constant contact with those who are without God in the world. Not necessarily bad men in the common phrase, but possibly high-minded, free-hearted, companionable men, who yet have left God out of their lives. They do nothing to please Him. A part of the testing of our characters comes out in the fact that we do not always know we are walking in the counsel of the ungodly when we are really doing so. It is a hard tiring not to adopt the way in which people around us look at things, and the way of looking at things accounts in large measure for what we do. An atmosphere, intangible and still real, is thrown around all characters, and the moment we come into this atmosphere it affects us. If it is the atmosphere of prayer, and faith, and high endeavour, we feel without realising it, even when nothing is said to show the trend of thought. Nor standeth in the way of sinners. We note the advance in wrong. Sinners is a stronger characterisation of bad associates than the phrase ungodly, and standing is a more thorough committal to them than walking. It implies more deliberation. Naturally, he who stands with sinners and gives his leisure to their friendship is fast reaching the day when he will sit with the scorners. What makes the scorner the worst case to reform? It is because a radical change has come over him, and evil has become his good. Embittered against the way which he has lost, he makes virtue a mockery. One who is in daily association with evil may not realise the loss he is meeting, may not see the bloom fade from the ripe peach, or from the hanging cluster of grapes, but the scorner is in a hell of his own. He has lost the childhood of the heart to which he must come back before he can see and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Coming to the positive marks of the way of the righteous, we find that he delights in the law of the Lord, and meditates upon it day and night. This marks a high and almost perfect stage of moral attainment, and creates a certain loveableness in its possessor which a mere determination to do right never can do. We love those who love to do right and sing in the ways of the Lord, whose moral movements are not the working of bands and pulleys, but the curves of the bird in the free air or the bending of the tender grasses under the breeze. Effort pains us, but ease charms us. What a rare and wonderful thing it is to find joy in a rule--the law of God. We must get the law into the heart and say it without thinking, and live it by a second nature. And never since the Bible was given to men has there been so much study upon its form and details. Is there a corresponding meditation upon it? Meditation is to thought and study what autumn is to summer--the ripe fruitage of past toil. (E. N. Packard.)
1. Counsel.--Flattering and deceptive. Satan in Eden and the wilderness.
2. Way.--Broad and attractive (Mat_7:13-14).
3. Seat.--Boisterous and popular. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
III. Three degrees of transgression. Avoid them!
1. Walking.--Initiatory.
2. Standing.--Secondary.
3. Sitting.--Grand Lodge degree in iniquity.
The way of transgressors is hard (Pro_4:14-18). Wherefore come out from among them (2Co_6:17). (Homiletic Review.)
Getting used to an ungodly atmosphere
To make my meaning clearer, suppose a person steps out of pure air into a rather close room: the air is at first disagreeable and oppressive, he does not breathe freely, but in a little while he gets more used to it, and after a while he hardly is aware that the room is close, and that he is breathing impure air. Suppose also that then he goes into another room, which is much closer, the air of it much more impure: it will not seem to him, coming as he does from the first room, to be worse than the first room seemed when he came from the pure air. This just describes the way in which the man who is beginning to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, allowing himself to be influenced by them, soon learns to breathe at ease in an ungodly atmosphere. Probably his conscience is uneasy as he steps from his place of safety, but he soon accustoms himself to his new position, and then he is ready for the next step, and there is every prospect of his taking it.
Nor standeth in the way of sinners.--
Counsels to the young
I. The infectious nature of sin, and the danger of walking in the counsel of the ungodly. These warnings have been so often repeated and are now commonplace, not because they are unimportant, but because the good and wise of all ages have felt the necessity of them.
1. We are all prone to sin.
2. And the young are ignorant and unsuspicious.
3. Vice is usually baited with pleasure.
4. The difficulty of bearing ridicule, which in corrupt society the young are exposed to.
II. The hardening nature of sin.
1. Its progress is gradual and insensible.
2. The strength and power of inveterate habit.
III. The finishing stage of wickedness. To be of the scornful. On which note--
1. The sin and danger of it to the scornful themselves. It is an audacious attack upon the majesty of the living God, and must strike every thinking person with horror. And this is not a sudden sin, but deliberate. Such contempt of sacred things shows an entire victory over conscience: all reluctance is gone. Also, over shame, and they design to destroy it in the minds of others.
2. Its sad influence. For it is public and intended to be so. It is an open advocacy of sin and an endeavour to break the restraints of conscience in others as well as themselves. Its malignant influence is seen in the fear that most persons have in opposing fashionable crimes. It lays hold on some human weakness that has been accidentally associated with religion, and ridicules religion as if it also were weak. Socrates was certainly the wisest and best of the men of Greece. His behaviour was such as demanded the esteem of all who knew him; yet was this worthy man successfully turned into ridicule by one whose writings are to the last degree contemptible. But yet this ridicule paved the way for the enmity which was raised against him, and which brought him to death. So ridicule often slays religion in the soul. Therefore let the young beware of evil company. Let parents strive to train their children in religion, and let all Christian men stand up boldly against profanity and vice and deal with these sins as they deserve. (J. Witherspoon, D. D.)
True and false friendship
False friendship is like the gaudy but scentless sunflower, that will bloom only in the sunshine of prosperity. True friendship, planted in mutual love and nourished by Christian principles, is like the sweet but modest violet that will flourish even in the dark shade of adversity, and will yield only fresh odours when trampled on by unkindly tread. (R. Venting.)
Association with sinners
The unhappy bids to associate with the profane arise from two causes.
1. That rigorousness and austerity which some gloomy-minded Christians attach to their religion. God and nature have established no connection between sanctity of character and severity of manners. To rejoice evermore is not only the privilege, it is also the duty of a Christian. The votaries of vice put on the mask of mirth, they counterfeit gladness amidst the horrors of guilt.
2. The opinion that wickedness, particularly some kinds of it, are manly and becoming; that dissoluteness, infidelity, and blasphemy are indications of a sprightly and a strong mind. Those who have shone in all ages as the lights of the world, with a few exceptions, have been uniformly on the side of goodness, and have been as distinguished in the temple of virtue as they were illustrious in the temple of fame. (J. Logan.)
Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.--
A happy retrospect
Sir Walter Scott near the end of his life said, I have been the most voluminous author of the day. It is a comfort to me to think that I have tried to unsettle no mans faith, to corrupt no mans principles. (Quiver.)
The fear of ridicule
As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool, and he is a poor invertebrate creature who allows himself to be laughed down when he attempts to stick to his principles and tries to do what he believes to be right. Learn from the earliest days, says Sydney Smith, to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule; you can no more exercise your reason if you live in the constant dread of laughter, than you can enjoy your life if you are in constant terror of death. No coward is greater than he who dares not to be wise because fools will laugh at him. (Quiver.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible1887 · Public DomainOn v1Psalms 1
Psalms 1
THE Psalter may be regarded as the hearts echo to the speech of God, the manifold music of its windswept strings as Gods breath sweeps across them. Law and Prophecy are the two main elements of that speech, and the first two psalms, as a double prelude to the book, answer to these, the former setting forth the blessedness of loving and keeping the law, and the latter celebrating the enthronement of Messiah. Jewish tradition says that they were originally one, and a well-attested reading of Act_13:33 quotes "Thou art my Son" as part of "the first Psalm." The diversity of subject makes original unity improbable, but possibly our present first Psalm was prefixed, unnumbered.
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Its theme, the blessedness of keeping the law, is enforced by the juxtaposition of two sharply contrasted pictures, one in bright light, another in deep shadow, and each heightening the other. Ebal and Gerizim face one another.
The character and fate of the lover of the law are sketched in Psa_1:1-3, and that of the "wicked" in Psa_1:4-6.
"How abundantly is that word Blessed multiplied in the Book of Psalms! The book seems to be made out of that word, and the foundation raised upon that Word, for it is the first word of the book. But in all the book there is not one Woe" (Donne).
It is usually taken as an exclamation, but may equally well be a simple affirmation, and declares a universal truth even more strongly, if so regarded. The characteristics which thus bring blessedness are first described negatively, and that order is significant. As long as there is so much evil in the world, and society is what it is, godliness must be largely negative, and its possessors "a people whose laws are different from all people that be on earth." Live fish swim against the stream; dead ones go with it.
The tender graces of the devout soul will not flourish unless there be a wall of close-knit and unparticipating opposition round them, to keep off nipping blasts. The negative clauses present a climax, notwithstanding the unquestionable correctness of one of the grounds on which that has been denied-namely, the practical equivalence of "wicked" and "sinner."
Increasing closeness and permanence of association are obvious in the progress from walking to standing and from standing to sitting. Increasing boldness in evil is marked by the progress from counsel to way, or course of life, and thence to scoffing. Evil purposes come out in deeds, and deeds are formularised at last in bitter speech. Some men scoff because they have already sinned. The tongue is blackened and made sore by poison in the system. Therefore goodness will avoid the smallest conformity with evil, as knowing that if the hem of the dress or the tips of the hair be caught in the cruel wheels, the whole body will be drawn in. But these negative characteristics are valuable mainly for their efficacy in contributing to the positive, as the wall round a young plantation is there for the sake of what grows behind it. On the other hand, these positive characteristics, and eminently that chief one of a higher love, are the only basis for useful abstinence. Mere conventional, negative virtue is of little power or worth unless it flow from a strong set of the soul in another direction.
"So did not I" is good and noble when we can go on to say, as Nehemiah did, "because of the fear of God." The true way of floating rubbish out is to pour water in. Delight in the law will deliver from delight in the counsel of the wicked. As the negative, so the positive begins with the inward man. The main thing about all men is the direction of their "delight." Where do tastes run? what pleases them most? and where are they most at ease? Deeds will follow the current of desires, and be right if the hidden man of the heart be right. To the psalmist, that law was revealed by Pentateuch and prophets; but the delight in it, in which he recognises the germ of godliness, is the coincidence of will and inclination with the declared will of God, however declared. In effect, he reduces perfection to the same elements as the other psalmist who sang, "I delight to do Thy will, yea, Thy law is within my heart." The secret of blessedness is self-renunciation, -
A love to lose my will in His,
And by that loss be free."
Thoughts which are sweet will be familiar.
The command to Joshua is the instinct of the devout man. In the distractions and activities of the busy day the law beloved will be with him, illuminating his path and shaping his acts. In hours of rest it will solace weariness and renew strength. That habit of patient, protracted brooding on the revelation of Gods will needs to be cultivated. Men live meanly because they live so fast. Religion lacks depth and volume because it is not fed by hidden springs.
The good mans character being thus all condensed into one trait, the psalm next gathers his blessedness up in one image. The tree is an eloquent figure to Orientals, who knew water as the one requisite to turn desert into garden. Such a life as has been sketched will be rooted and steadfast. "Planted" is expressed by a word which suggests fixity. The good mans life is deeply anchored, and so rides out storms. It goes down through superficial fleeting things to that Eternal Will, and so stands unmoved and upright when winds howl. Scotch firs lift massive, corrugated boles, and thrust out wide, gnarled branches clothed in steadfast green, and look as if they could face any tempest, but their roots run laterally among the surface gravel, and therefore they go down before blasts which feeble saplings, that strike theirs vertically, meet unharmed.
Such a life is fed and refreshed. The law of the Lord is at once soil and stream. In the one aspect fastening a life to it gives stability; in the other, freshening and means of growth. Truly loved, that Will becomes, in its manifold expressions, as the divided irrigation channels through which a great river is brought to the roots of each plant. If men do not find it life giving as rivers of water in a dry place, it is because they do not delight in it. Opposed, it is burdensome and harsh; accepted, this sweet image tells what it becomes-the true good, the only thing that really nourishes and reinvigorates. The disciples came back to Jesus, whom they had left too wearied and faint to go with them to the city, and found Him fresh and strong. Their wonder was answered by, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me."
Such a life is vigorous and productive. It would be artificial straining to assign definite meanings to "fruit" and "leaf." All that belongs to vigorous vitality and beauty is included. These come naturally when the preceding condition is fulfilled. This stage of the psalm is the appropriate place for deeds to come into view. By loving fellowship with God and delight in His law the man is made capable of good. His virtues are growths, the outcome of life. The psalm anticipates Christs teaching of the good tree bringing forth good fruit, and also tells how His precept of making the tree good is to be obeyed-namely, by transplanting it from the soil of self-will to that of delight in the law. How that transplanting is to be effected it does not tell. "But now being made free from sin, and become servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness," and the fruit of the Spirit in "whatsoever things are lovely and of good report" hangs in clusters on the life that has been shifted from the realm of darkness and rooted in Christ. The relation is more intimate still. "I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit."
Such a life will be prosperous. The figure is abandoned here. The meaning is not affected whether we translate "whatsoever he doeth shall prosper," or "whatsoever he shall cause to succeed." That is not unconditionally true now, nor was it then, it referred to what the world calls prospering, as many a sad and questioning strain in the Psalter proves. He whose life is rooted in God will have his full share of foiled plans and abortive hopes, and will often see the fruit nipped by frost or blown green from the boughs, but still the promise is true in its inmost meaning. For what is prosperity? Does the psalmist merely mean to preach the more vulgar form of the doctrine that religion makes the best of both worlds? or are his hopes to be harmonised with experience, by giving a deeper meaning to "prosperity"? They to whom the will of God is delight can never be hurt by evil, for all that meets them expresses and serves that will, and the fellow servants of the King do not wound one another. If a life be rooted in God and a heart delight in His law, that life will be prosperous and that heart will be at rest.
The second half of the psalm gives the dark contrast of the fruitless, rootless life (Psa_1:4-6). The Hebrew flashes the whole dread antithesis on the view at once by its first word, "Not so," a universal negative, which reverses every part of the preceding picture. "Wicked" is preferable to "ungodly," as the designation of the subjects. Whether we take the root idea of the word to be "restless," as most of the older and many modern commentators do, or "crooked" (Hupfeld), or "loose, flaccid" (Delitzsch), it is the opposite of "righteous," and therefore means one who lives not by the law of God, but by his own will. The psalmist has no need to describe him further nor to enumerate his deeds. The fundamental trait of his character is enough. Two classes only, then, are recognised here. If a man has not Gods uttered will for his governor, he goes into the category of "wicked." That sounds harsh doctrine, and not corresponding to the innumerable gradations of character actually seen. But it does correspond to facts, if they are grasped in their roots of motive and principle. If God be not the supreme delight, and His law sovereign, some other object is mens delight and aim, and that departure from God taints a life, however fair it may be. It is a plain deduction from our relations to God that lives lived irrespective of Him are sinful, whatever be their complexion otherwise.
The remainder of the psalm has three thoughts-the real nullity of such lives, their consequent disappearance in "the judgment," and the ground of both the blessedness of the one type of character and the vanishing of the other in the diverse attitude of God to each. Nothing could more vividly suggest the essential nothingness of the "wicked" than the contrast of the leafy beauty of the fruit-laden tree and the chaff, rootless, fruitless, lifeless, light, and therefore the sport of every puff of wind that blows across the elevated and open threshing floor.
Such is indeed a true picture of every life not rooted in God and drawing fertility from Him. It is rootless; for what hold fast is there but in Him? or where shall the heart twine its tendrils if not round Gods stable throne? or what basis do fleeting objects supply for him who builds elsewhere than on the enduring Rock? It is fruitless; for what is fruit? There may be much activity and many results satisfying to part of mans nature and admired by others. One fruit there will be, in character elaborated. But if we ask what ought to be the products of a life, man and God being what they are in themselves and to each other, we shall not wonder if every result of godless energy is regarded by "those clear eyes and perfect judgment" of heaven as barrenness. In the light of these higher demands, achievements hymned by the worlds acclamations seem infinitely small, and many a man, rich in the apparent results of a busy and prosperous life, will find to his dismayed astonishment that he has nothing to show but unfruitful works of darkness. Chaff is fruitless because lifeless.
Its disappearance in the winnowing wind is the consequence and manifestation of its essential nullity. "Therefore" draws the conclusion of necessary transiency. Just as the winnower throws up his shovel full into the breeze, and the chaff goes fluttering out of the floor because it is light, while the wheat falls on the heap because it is solid, so the wind of judgment will one day blow and deal with each man according to his nature. It will separate them, whirling away the one, and not the other. "One shall be taken and the other left." When does this sifting take effect?
The psalmist does not date it. There is a continually operative law of retribution, and there are crises of individual or national life, when the accumulated consequences of evil deeds fall on the doers. But the definite article prefixed to "judgment" seems to suggest some special "day" of separation. It is noteworthy and perhaps illuminative that John the Baptist uses the same figures of the tree and the chaff in his picture of the Messianic judgments, and that epoch may have been in the psalmists mind. Whatever the date, this he is sure of-that the wind will rise some time, and that, when it does, the wicked will be blown out of sight. When the judgment comes, the "congregation of the righteous"-that is, the true Israel within Israel, or, to speak in Christian language, the true invisible Church-will be freed from admixture of outward adherents, whose lives give the lie to their profession. Men shall be associated according to spiritual affinity, and "being let go," will "go to their own company" and "place," wherever that may be.
The ground of these diverse fates is the different attitude of God to each life. Each clause of the last verse really involves two ideas, but the pregnant brevity of style states only half of the antithesis in each, suppressing the second member in the first clause and the first member in the second clause, and so making the contrast the more striking by emphasising the cause of an unspoken consequence in the former, and the opposite consequence of an unspoken cause in the latter. "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous [therefore it shall last]. The Lord knoweth not the way of the wicked [therefore it shall perish]." The way which the Lord knows abides. "Know" is, of course, here used in its full sense of loving knowledge, care, and approval, as in "He knoweth my path" and the like sayings. The direction of the good mans life is watched, guarded, approved, and blessed by God. Therefore it will not fail to reach its goal. They who walk patiently in the paths which He has prepared will find them paths of peace, and will not tread them unaccompanied, nor ever see them diverging from the straight road to home and rest. "Commit thy way unto the Lord," and let His way be thine, and He shall make thy way prosperous.
The way or course of life which God does not know perishes. A path perishes when, like some dim forest track, it dies out, leaving the traveller bewildered amid impenetrable forests, or when, like some treacherous Alpine track among rotten rocks, it crumbles beneath the tread. Every course of life but that of the man who delights in and keeps the law of the Lord comes to a fatal end, and leads to the brink of a precipice, over which the impetus of descent carries the reluctant foot. "The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more till the noontide of the day. The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v1“This psalm seems to have been placed first in…
INTRODUCTION
“This psalm seems to have been placed first in the collection, because, from its general character and subject, it formed a suitable introduction to the rest. It treats of the blessedness of the righteous, and the misery of the wicked—topics which constantly recur in the psalms, but it treats of them as if all experience pointed only in one direction. The moral problem which in other psalms troubles the ancient poets of Israel, when they see the avil prospering and the good oppressed, has here no place. The poet rests calmly in the truth that it is well with the righteous. He is not vexed with those passionate questionings of heart which meet us in such psalms as the 37th and 73d. Hence we may probably conclude that his lot was cast in happier and more peaceful times.”—Perowne.
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THE BLESSED LIFE
(Psa_1:1-3.)
Consider:
I. The secret of the blessed life.
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,” &c. (Psa_1:1.)
Wherever blessedness is to be found, it is not in these directions. What a direct contradiction is this first verse to the world’s philosophy! To keep the law may be safe, but it is to walk in the common light of day; to follow one’s own counsels is to dwell in the purple light of pleasure. So argues the natural man; and here the Psalmist gives a flat denial to his argument. The world is wrong; the Psalmist is right. Blessed is the man who abstains from ungodly policy, iniquitous action, scornful use of things divine and holy. According to a custom which is generally recognised in Central Africa, whenever a caravan mistakes its way, and is obliged to retrace its steps and return to a road from which it has deviated, a bough is thrown across the wrong path, and a furrow is scratched in the ground by means of the feet, so that no succeeding caravan may fall into the same error. Thus the generations which have gone astray have declared that the ways of ungodliness and sin are ways of bitterness and disappointment, and they have left their emphatic and sorrowful testimonies as boughs and furrows across these false ways, to admonish us to seek another and a truer path.
But a merely negative goodness will not ensure us true blessedness, therefore the Psalmist proceeds to lay down the grand secret of blessedness in profound spiritual words. “But his delight is in the law of the Lord.” How truly profound! How superior to the superficial theories of happiness which human moralists have from time to time put forth! Whichcote truly says: “Duty and happiness are vital acts, and must be put forth from vital principles.” The vital principle is here declared. “The philosophers’ discourses of this subject are but learned dotages. David saith more to the point in this short psalm than any or all of them put together; they did but beat the bush. God hath put the bird into our hands.”—Trapp.
The secret of bliss is the right attitude of the soul to the truth of God.
1. A right relation of the will to the law of God. “But his will is in the law of the Lord.”—Luther. The bias of the will is toward Divine truth. The “ungodly” are self-willed, and walk after their own “counsel;” the “blessed” man consults the Divine will, and is ever longing for the path of God’s commandments. “The ‘will’ which is here signified is that delight of heart, and that certain pleasure, in the law, which does not look at what the law promises, nor at what it threatens, but at this only, that ‘the law is holy, and just, and good.’ Hence it is not only a love of the law, but that loving delight in the law which no prosperity, nor adversity, nor the world, nor the prince of it, can either take away or destroy; for it victoriously bursts its way through poverty, evil report, the cross, death, and hell, and in the midst of adversities shines the brightest.”—Luther, quoted by Spurgeon.
2. A right relation of the affections to the law of God. “His delight.” “The law is more than a mere rule, after which the man is to frame his outward life.”—Perowne. It fills with admiration and delight. But can the law of God thus excite the affections and rejoice the heart? Yes; for, as Festus sings—
“Law is love defined.”
The godly man beholds in the spiritual law the declaration of the Divine nature, which is essential love, and he delights in that law after the inner man.
3. A right relation of the intelligence to the law of God. “He meditates on the law day and night.” We must know the law if we are to perceive its beauty and appreciate its worth, and the more we know of it, the greater shall be our joy in it. Many skim the Bible as a novel, when they should ponder it, and master it, line by line, like a grammar. He who is ignorant of the Divine law, or misconceives it, cannot know true freedom and blessedness; but he whose eyes are opened to the deep things of the law, walks at liberty, and knows peace unspeakable.
Let us not seek bliss in things of time and sense, but let us labour to know the will of God, and to have our hearts harmonised with that will, and we shall find rest to our souls.
Consider:
II. The picture of the blessed life.
“He shall be like a tree planted,” &c. (Psa_1:3.)
1. The security of this blessedness. “Planted by the rivers of water.” “Planted” means firmly planted. “Rivers,” indicate unfailing refreshment of spirit; the streams of Divine truth and influence. Carnal joys flourish and wither with changing circumstances, but his joy abides whose life is rooted in God. “His soul, watered by the streams of Paradise, knows not the parched season of the sunburnt heath.”—Sutcliffe. “By the side of the streams in the East may be seen trees, at all seasons covered with luxurious verdure, blossoms, or fruit; whilst at a distance, where no water is, may be seen dwarfish and unhealthy trees, with scarcely a leaf to shake in the winds of heaven.”—Roberts. Thus, drinking supplies from the living streams of God’s truth, our life is ever strong and blessed, whilst we faint and fade where no such water is.
2. The manifestation of this blessedness. The godly man is known by the beneficence of his life. “Bringeth forth his fruit in his season.” The truly blessed life is a life of beneficence; and if we delight in God’s law, it shall perfect our individual character, fit us for the sphere and season in which we live, and make us a blessing to our generation. “As with a palm-tree, all that is in it is profitable—leaves, wood, and fruit—so also with the Christian, all that he does is to redound to the honour of the Divine name and the benefit of his neighbour.”—Starke. The godly man is known by the beauty of his character. “His leaf also shall not wither.” As the foliage of the tree is its beauty and glory, so shall delight in the law of the Lord give grace and majesty to the character. In inner rectitude is the secret of all true and high visible excellence; out of a heart right with God spring all the poetry and utilities of life.
3. The perpetuity of this blessedness. The tree by the watercourses abides in bloom and fruition, and the joy and glory which spring in the heart and life of the lover of God’s Word are perennial and permanent. Our scientific gardeners enthusiastically anticipate the day when, through special culture, all our roses will have evergreen foliage, brilliant and fragrant flowers, and the habit of blooming for a greater part of the year. He whose life is grounded in the Divine truth and goodness, who draws daily vitality from the river of God’s pleasure, is an evergreen, and blooms all the year long, all life long, and death itself cannot blight his glory, or destroy his joy.
4. The universality of this blessedness. “And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” “He shall prosper in whatsoever he doeth.”—Wordsworth. Deference to the law of God secures universal prosperity. God’s blessing is on all the handiwork of the godly, and directs it to blessed and prosperous issues.
“Oh! the blessednesses” of the man who delights in the law of the Lord. As we long for the beatitudes, let us put ourselves in God’s hands. “Planted by the river.” “This is properly used of a transplanted tree. He is not left to the efforts of nature, but taken beneath the gardener’s care, and placed in a favourable soil.”—Kay. “Man is righteous, not by birth or nature, or through his own power, skill, or activity, but by the Divine agency, through the means of grace which Divine mercy has established for us, as a tree planted by an abundant and flowing brook, if he, like the tree, take up into his own life, from the means afforded him by God, that which is necessary to his life and growth.”—Moll.
May God take us from the wilds of nature, graft us into Christ, nourish us by the influence of the Holy Spirit, and thus shall we bear our fruit unto holiness, and in the end everlasting life.
THE PROGRAMME OF EVIL
Psa_1:1
“A climax is to be noted here in the choice of expressions. Thus we have, first, three degrees of habit, in the verbs ‘walked,’ ‘stood,’ ‘sat;’ next, three degrees of evil in the character, the ‘wicked,’ the ‘sinners,’ and the ‘mockers;’ lastly, three degrees of openness in the evil-doing, ‘counsel,’ ‘way,’ ‘seat.’ ”—Perowne.
We see here:
I. The evil life in its inception.
“Walketh in the counsel of the ungodly.”
The word used in the original for “ungodly” signifies the “loose man, the man loose from God.”—Delitzsch. We see here that ungodliness is the source of all evil; “becoming loose to God,” is the point of departure to positive and universal unrighteousness. This great truth is often forgotten; and where actual sin would be denounced, ungodliness is often regarded with in dulgence. Indeed, that temper of mind which is loose from God is by many considered the most philosophic and desirable condition of the mind; the morality loose from God, the truest morality; the science loose from God, the wisest science; the character loose from God, the most sound and noble character. The Psalmist in this place indicates the profound error of such reasoning. Looseness from God, ungodliness, is the original and fertile source of all transgression. Enmity with God is enmity with righteousness. The Psalmist teaches this same doctrine of the connection of atheism with transgression in Psa_14:1 : “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” Beware of ungodly thoughts! Beware of a morality not built upon theology! Beware of an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God!
And this ungodliness seeks to justify itself. “The counsel of the ungodly.” Men are anxious that their opinions and conduct should have the sanction of reason, and so they seek to justify their ungodliness to their understanding. “No one sins without making some excuse to himself for sinning. He is obliged to do so: man is not like the brute beasts; he has a Divine gift within him which we call reason, and which constrains him to give an account to it for what he does. He cannot act at random; however he acts, he must act by some kind of rule or some sort of principle, else he is vexed and dissatisfied with himself. Not that he is very particular whether he finds a good reason or a bad, when he is very much straitened for a reason, but a reason of some sort he must have.”—Newman. Reason is never used in a more unnatural, ignoble, hopeless task, than when it is pressed into the service of atheism and irreligion: but it is pressed into such service, tortured and perverted, until the godless theory of life is “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,” and looks a very clever and plausible thing. The maxims which are used to justify a godless science and a godless life are essentially stupid and false, yet how frequently they wear a most philosophic air! Here, then, is the beginning of evil—an irreligious, ungodly way of thinking.
II. The evil life in its development.
1. “Standeth in the way of sinners.” By “sinners” are intended those “who pass their lives in sin, especially coarse and manifest sin.”—Delitzsch. “Open and avowed offenders, habitual transgressors.”—Kay. Here sinful thought has passed into conduct, action, life. We cannot hold unbelieving theories with impunity. Ideas rule men, ideas rule the world, and ideas fundamentally false, as are those of atheism, must soon work disaster, both in individual and national life. He who in thought lingers on the forbidden ground of scepticism, next takes his place with actual offenders against the law. Nothing is more evident than that loose thinking and loose living go together.
2. “Sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” “The scornful are the men who deride the thought of religious obligation.”—Kay. They delight in the company of those who scoff at religion. This state, and it is soon reached, argues the most desperate wickedness. There is something so exalted in reverence, that some commentators have expressed a sentiment of respect for Jacob, who buried his false gods with tenderness; but how utterly dead to every noble quality is the man who can blaspheme the true God and His Word! Here the poison-seed of unbelief has opened into the full-blown flower of wickedness. “The beginnings of sin are modest, the issues of it are impudent.”—Whichcote.
III. The evil life in its consummation.
The man is blessed who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly; it follows that he is cursed who does follow ungodly counsels and conduct. “Cursed in his counsels, cursed in his actions, cursed in his end.”—Clarke. The further he goes, the further he is from blessedness.
We are reminded in this verse:
1. Of the insinuating nature of sin. It glides stealthily into the heart—stealthily into the life.
2. Of the prolific nature of sin. One sin leads to another sin; one sin leads to a darker sin; one sin leads to many sins. It is a traveller’s tale which tells that the Indian spiders weave webs so strong that men are sometimes imprisoned by them; but it is no fable that from the gossamer threads of ungodly thoughts, and slender transgressions, come at length dark convictions and habits which hold men in most cruel bondage.
3. Of the accursed nature of sin. It fills with misery; it ends in death. What God curses withers away. Let us pray, then, that we enter not into the path of the wicked.
RESULTS
(Psa_1:4-6.)
I. The destinies of men are various.
The godly flourish evermore: “The ungodly are not so.” The pious and the wicked are together in this world, but the text indicates that a separation will be effected. “They are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.” “This allusion describes the instability of the principles of the ungodly, rather than of their fortunes. Their want of principle is opposed to the good man’s steady meditation of Jehovah’s law, which is the foundation of his prosperity. On the other hand, because the ungodly want this principle, therefore they shall not stand in the judgment.”—Horsley. The ungodly have instability of principle, and therefore instability of fortune. “Their glory shall not descend after them.”
II. The destinies of men are decided by their moral character and conduct.
“Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment.” “Because they are like chaff, without root below, without fruit above, without spiritual vitality; therefore, on account of their inner worthlessness and instability, they do not stand.”—Delitzsch. “Although the ungodly are in similar circumstances with the righteous, yet they derive no profit from this favourable circumstance. They are spiritually dead and withered. That which has matured in them has faded prematurely; for they have not appropriated to themselves the nourishment of life, and they have not formed in themselves the faculty for this appropriation. Without root and without sap, they have not attained any vigour, nor brought forth any fruit (Mat_21:19). Thus they have ripened only for destruction; unsubstantial and worthless as chaff, the sport of the wind until scattered by the storm, they go to destruction, and leave no trace behind.”—Moll. And the righteous stand because they are righteous. Not chance, not social rank, not birth, not intellectual culture, not religious profession, not Divine decrees, shall determine our destiny, but our spirit and course of life.
III. The destinies of men are as widely contrasted as their character.
The righteous bloom for ever in the paradise of God; the wicked are driven away as chaff in the whirlwind of the Divine anger. “Whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Mat_3:12). And this teaching of the Scriptures commends itself to reason. “Nothing is more credible than that men’s states shall differ as much as their spirits and tempers do differ.”—Whichcote.
Blessed is the man whose will and life are thoroughly identified with the Divine law; for the law shall stand for ever, and none shall suffer loss who enjoy its shelter!
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible1900 · Public DomainOn v1I. The blessed man is described in this verse…
Psa 1:1
I. The blessed man is described in this verse by negatives. We are told what he does not do. It so happens that we cannot understand some of the very highest things in life except they are put to us in precisely this way. There are more ways of saying "Thou shalt not" than there are of saying "Thou shalt."
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II. But a man who is thus instructed in negatives occupies a very peculiarly perilous position. Man has energies; he must be doing something, must be affirmative, practical, energetic. Therefore we await some further instruction as to the way in which to direct our life. We have it in ver. 2: "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night." God does not destroy our powers; He does not quench our aspirations and turn us into nonentities. He lays His hand upon the strength we are misusing and says, "You must use this strength in another direction and for another purpose." What is the happy man doing? He delights in the law of the Lord.
III. What will be the consequence of this delight? "He shall be like a tree," etc. Beauty is always associated with righteousness in the highest quarters. Then there comes the great promise, "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." The great principle of the text is right as honour, truth as crown, goodness occupying the throne.
IV. "The ungodly are not so," etc. The sinner has a brief day. There is no life in the ungodly that abides; there is surface, there is no vitality; there is an outward attitude and display of comfort and enjoyment, but there is at the heart that which will give way under pressure.
Parker, City Temple, vol. iii., p. 289.
References: Psa 1:1.—E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 203; A. Mursell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 269; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons chiefly Practical, p. 245.
Psa 1:1-2
Psa 150:6
I. We have here a twofold declaration of God’s great purpose in all His self-revelation, and especially in the Gospel of His Son. Our first text may be translated as a joyful exclamation; our second is an invocation or a command. The one then expresses the purpose which God secures by His gift of the law, the other the purpose which He summons us to fulfil by the tribute of our hearts and songs—man’s happiness and God’s glory. (1) His purpose is man’s blessedness. That is but another way of saying that God is love. His purpose is not blessedness anyhow, but one which will not and cannot be given by God to those who walk in the way of sinners. His love desires that we should be holy and followers of God as dear children, and the blessedness which it bestows comes from pardon and growing fellowship with Him. It can no more fall on rebellious hearts than the pure crystals of the snow can lie and sparkle on the hot black cone of a volcano. (2) God seeks our praise. "The glory of God" is the end of all the Divine actions. His glory is sought by Him in the manifestation of His loving heart, mirrored in our illuminated and gladdened heart. First He showers down blessings, then looks for the revenue of praise.
II. We may also take this passage as giving us a twofold expression of the actual effects of God’s revelation, especially in the Gospel, even here upon earth. (1) God does actually, though not completely, make men blessed here. With all its sorrows and pains, the life of a Christian is a happy life, and the joy of the Lord remains with His servants. (2) So, too, God’s gift produces man’s praise. He requires from us nothing but our thankful recognition and reception of His benefit. The echo of love which gives and forgives is love which accepts and thanks.
III. We have also a twofold prophecy of the perfection of heaven. (1) It is the perfection of man’s blessedness. The end will crown the work. (2) It is the perfection of God’s praise. Our second text opens to us the gates of the heavenly temple, and shows us there the saintly ranks and angel companies gathered in the city whose walls are salvation, and its gates praise.
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 3rd series, p. 225.
Psa 1:1-2
I. This law, which we have to learn, and by keeping of which we shall be blessed, is nothing else than God’s will. If you wish to learn the law of the Lord, keep your soul pious, pure, reverent, and earnest; for it is only the pure in heart who shall see God, and only those who do God’s will as far as they know it who will know concerning any doctrine whether it be true or false, in one word whether it be of God.
II. This law is the law of the Lord. You cannot have a law without a Lawgiver who makes the law, and also without a Judge who enforces the law; and the Lawgiver and the Judge of the law is the Lord Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.
III. Christ the Lord rules, and knows that He rules; whether we know it or not, Christ’s law still hangs over our head, ready to lead us to light, and life, and peace, and wealth; or ready to fall on us and grind us to powder, whether we choose to look up and see it or not. The Lord liveth, though we may be too dead to feel Him. The Lord sees us, though we may be too blind to see Him.
C. Kingsley, Westminster Sermons, p. no.
References: Psa 1:2.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 359; Ibid., vol. i., p. 350; E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 209; M. G. Pearse, Some Aspects of the Blessed Life, pp. 1, 17.
Psa 1:1-3
In the figure of ver. 3 there are revealed three aspects of godly character.
I. Its variety. The comparison is with a fruit-tree, not of any particular kind, but one of that large class of trees. The variety which God stamps upon nature He means to have reproduced in character.
II. Its Divine culture. The godly man is not like a tree that grows wild. He is like a tree planted, and that in a place which will best promote its growth. Godly character is developed under God’s special supervision and with God’s own appliances.
III. Its fruitfulness. God’s tree by God’s river must be a fruitful tree. Notice: (1) The words are "his fruit," not any other tree’s fruit. (2) "In his season." The seasons are different for different fruits. The latest fruit is usually the best. But, early or late, the fruit of godly character is seasonable.
M. R. Vincent, Gates into the Psalm Country, p. 3.
Psa 1:3
The spiritual plant of God is placed by the running waters; it is nourished and recruited by the never-failing, the perpetual, the daily and hourly, supply of their wholesome influences. It grows up gradually, silently, without observation; and in proportion as it rises aloft, so do its roots, with still less observation, strike deep into the earth. Year after year it grows more and more into the hope and the posture of a glorious immobility and unchangeableness. What it has been, that it shall be; if it changes, it is as growing into fruitfulness, and maturing in its fruit’s abundance and perfection. Nor is that fruit lost; it neither withers upon the branches nor decays upon the ground. Angels unseen gather crop after crop from the unwearied, never-failing parent, and carefully store them up in heavenly treasure-houses. The servant of God resembles a tree (1) in his graciousness; (2) in his fruitfulness; (3) in his immobility.
J. H. Newman, Sermons on Various Occasions, p. 243.
References: Psa 1:3.—H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 100; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 73; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, pp. 79, 122; G. Orme, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 334; E. Johnson, Ibid., vol. xx., p. 347. Psa 1:3, Psa 1:4.—H. Macmillan, Two Worlds are Ours, p. 203; A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country, p. 313. Psa 1:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 280.
Psa 1:4-5
I. Let us, first, find out who are the characters intended in our text. An ungodly man is simply a man who tries to get through the world without God. All he has to do to earn the title is to leave God out of his love. (1) A man may be most moral and yet most ungodly. For one that is dragged down to perdition by the millstone of vice, there are hundreds who are taken in the meshes of the net of a Christless virtue. (2) A man may be most religiously active and yet be ungodly.
II. Notice the description given of them. They are the very opposite of all that a godly man is. You have simply to take the picture of the saved man and then after every particular write, "The ungodly are not so." (1) Look at the first word of the Psalm. The Christian is "blessed," but the ungodly are not so. (2) The godly are like trees planted. A Christian is an evergreen; his joys in Christ last, though all his other pleasures be taken from him. But the ungodly are not so.
III. Notice the end of the ungodly. "They are like the chaff," etc. (1) There will be separation from the righteous. (2) Notice how sweeping and irresistible is the ruin. What can a feather-weight of chaff do against the wind? That great wind will catch all excuses from your lips, and before you have time to give God one of your paltry lies you, with them, will be swept with the speed of a hurricane into perdition. There will be only one thing that will stand that mighty tempest, and that will be the soul that rests upon the Rock, Christ Jesus.
A. G. Brown, Penny Pulpit, No. 767.
Psa 1:4-6
"The ungodly are not so." That "not" contains the germs of all moral disaster. We have set forth under this figure three aspects of the ungodly character.
I. Its instability. Take a life away from God, and you take from it unity of impulse. Passion, pride, selfishness, drive it hither and thither as the winds drive the dismantled ship. Nowhere but in God does man find a consistent law.
II. Its worthlessness. Chaff! The wind drives it away, and the husbandman is glad to have it driven away. An ungodly life is a worthless life, because, whatever it may be, however busy and bustling, it is not so. It is not used under God’s direction and for God’s uses.
III. Its insecurity. The contrast is between the tree, safe in its enclosure by the watercourses, watched and tended by the gardener, its fruits safe from the plunderer, and the chaff, loosely lying on the exposed threshing-floor, where the first blast can drive it no one cares whither. How safe is the man who abides in God, while he who puts himself outside of the restraints of Divine law forfeits likewise its protection.
M. R. Vincent, Gates into the Psalm Country, p. 21.
Reference: Psa 1:6.—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 10.
Psalm 1
Ver. 1. There are cases in which without a figure "ignorance is bliss." Observe that all the characters mentioned here may have their excellences and their attractions; for example, the ungodly may be rich, the sinners may be convivial, the scornful may be brilliant: yet blessed is the man who has nothing to do with them.
Ver. 2: "But his delight is in the law of the Lord," etc. The idea is that of a man who sees the law of the Lord in all nature, in all history, all life, everywhere and always, and delights to trace its beneficent and almighty power.
Ver. 3: "And he shall be like a tree," etc. A man’s life should be rooted in God, in God’s law, in God’s service. It should not be as a plucked flower, but as a flower unplucked growing on the eternal stem.
Ver. 4: "The ungodly are not so," etc. To know whose they are, you must know where the wind is—the wind of popularity, the wind of success, the wind of Divine visitation.
Ver. 5: "Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment," etc. These are the true and final tests of character. At present judgment is partial and uncertain, and at present society is mixed; but the time of judgment and separation is coming.
Ver. 6. Mark the three characters: the godly, the ungodly, the Lord! The final award is not with man, but with God. The destiny of the righteous and the ungodly is as distinct as their characters. There is no blending of one into the other—the one lives; the other perishes.
Parker, The Ark of God, p. 113.
References: Psalm 1—I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 74; S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 81; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 123.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant1903 · Public DomainOn v1The Blessedness of Obedience.
The Blessedness of Obedience.
The first psalm has only six verses, which are manifestly divided into two triplets; in the first of these the godly man is seen in the blessedness of being this; in the second, as contrasted with the character and portion of the wicked. Every verse moreover answers to its numerical place. Let us look briefly at this before we take up the psalm more deeply.
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First, then, we have the blessedness of the godly looked at by itself. In the first verse we see his consistent independency of all the various forms and degrees of ungodliness by which he is encompassed. He shakes them off from him, to walk, as far as their advocates are concerned, alone. Such is in fact the necessary commencement of a true walk with God. The first step with Him must be outside of all that is contrary to Him; and to be indifferent is to be contrary!
In the second verse the godly one is seen in his dependency and communion with God. His delight and meditation are in Jehovah’s law, which term, while it may include the whole of the inspired Word existing at the time, yet shows the deep subjection of the soul required and rendered.
In the third verse we have the fruitfulness resulting.
The second part contrasts the wicked with this in character and in end. First, their lightness and barrenness -mere chaff. Secondly, they are separated from the godly by the coming judgment in which it is impossible for them to stand. Thirdly, Jehovah’s approbation of the way of the righteous manifests itself thus for them; and the path of the wicked breaks down in ruin.
The thread of numerical structure runs evidently through the psalm, and certifies it to be a good note from the King’s treasury. One might trace it, I believe, more fully and minutely; but this may suffice us now. The psalm claims, however, from us more detailed exposition.
The psalm has no special title, as one perhaps not suggested by any special occasion, and its principles being of the widest application. Nor is it needful to speculate as to an author, whom Scripture itself has not made known. As to such things, the higher criticism has set itself to most unnecessary work, and necessarily been led astray by its own wisdom. Faith in the word of God -which, indeed, they will not call it -would have made them approve its silence as well as its speech, and found profit from both. Would it not have rather lessened than enhanced the authority of such words as these, to have them commended to us as from David, or from Any other? Conscience alone is needed to respond to them, and will do so with the upright in heart.
The description of the godly man is first negative, then positive. He is first seen in his refusal of any link with the ungodly, whatever be the phase of their ungodliness. The words certainly show us a down-grade of evil, and how its hold strengthens upon those drawn into its vortex. It begins with "counsel," which simply leaves out God. Walk by it, and you shall find that it leads into the way of sinners, -practical and open rejection of righteousness in deed and word. And this has for its natural consummation the brazen hardness of the scoffer, who says, "Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways!" (Job 21:14.) This is the way in which many travel, who strengthen each other by their mutual unbelief, and become for each other the authority which God has lost in their souls. Thus the mass hardens as it compacts together; and this is more and more being seen in days of widespread confederacy such as these are, -confederacy which for the Christian, in its lightest form, means compromise, the overthrow of conscience, of that which is the witness to God’s supremacy over man, the divine throne to which alone he is really subject.
The positive side of this description of the godly man is just this subjection of conscience and heart to God. A dependent creature, realizing his relationship to a Being of unchanged perfection, his delight is in conformity to His blessed will, to Jehovah’s law. He is exercised by it, occupied with it, meditates upon it day and night. As the psalms themselves even are quoted as "the law" in Scripture (Rom 3:19), there is no possible reason for limiting this here even to the books of Moses; and the soul delighting in God will seek to possess itself of all that He has communicated. "All Scripture . . . is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"; so there is nothing impractical in the whole range of that which God has given to us: if we neglect any of it, this may result in serious misunderstanding of the rest. It is a Jew, of course, who is contemplated here, and with the necessarily limited revelation that had as yet been made; and how much the more does this diligent study upon his part speak to us to whom so much more has been vouchsafed! "Labor not," says the Lord, amid an audience of the hard-working poor, whose poverty and need He so well knew, -"Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give you." And did not these wondrous psalms of praise themselves grow largely out of such day and night study of Jehovah’s law as characterizes the godly here?
We are next shown the fruit found and produced by one in such a course: "He is even like a tree, planted by the water-streams, that giveth its fruit in its season." No special tree is named; except that it has fruit, we have no further knowledge of it; the vegetable kingdom furnishes the great types of production, as the beast is the typical consumer; the fruit-tree is the natural figure here.
Like all other living things, the tree is also a growth from seed, the development of an organic unity; and this is what the believer is, himself the fruit of seed of God’s sowing, and so far as this goes, at one with himself and with the creation of God as such; an organic unity, mind, heart, and moral nature, in response to one another.
This, it is true, is not the whole picture of what the believer is, looked at as a man down here, in whom sin dwells, if it does not reign. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1Jn 1:7); and yet the same apostle who says this gives us afterwards the picture of one born of God, as fair as this is (Joh 3:9). It is the truth of what the child of God is, as that; it is the ideal regenerate man: for God, when He puts such pictures in His gallery, does it to win us to better imitation. He does not, therefore, in this case put the defects before us for such a purpose, or to dispirit us, as if we were given up to a blotched life, but the contrary. He paints what we dare not say, with the Spirit within us, is not possible, and so encourages us on to make it actual. The sin in our lives in no wise comes from the seed of His sowing.
Some have argued, from what I have called the idealizing of the picture, that it must be the king of Israel alone, the Lord Jesus Christ, that is portrayed in it. That He alone has fully answered to it, we may be sure is true; but it is not, therefore, untrue as a generalized type of the believer. Here is the happiness of the man who does so and so; and in doing this he becomes like so and so. So far as the previous conditions are fulfilled, so far is the likeness found to be like; there is no difficulty in understanding this.
To return: he is "like a tree planted by the water-streams." Here the figure is of tender care and ministry. The fruit-tree is not a natural growth of the soil: a Hand has planted it, and that amid the divided streams of an irrigated land. The "living water" -and we, know this living water prepares soil for root and root for soil; and not without such care will this dependent life be sustained.
Notice, that it is the man meditating day and night upon Jehovah’s law of whom this is said: the Spirit of God acts through the word of God; there is no other way than this. As, to handle the Word without the Spirit is but rationalism, so the dream of the Spirit ministering apart from the Word is delusion and fanaticism. The word of God is the work and gift of the Spirit in man’s behalf, and He cannot be expected to set aside the very instrument that He has prepared. It is by "all Scripture, inspired of God," that "the man of God" is to be perfect, "thoroughly furnished unto every good work." Let us take care not to sunder what God has joined thus together.
So nurtured, the result is sure: he "giveth his fruit in its season." There is no crude prematurity about it: truth has to be digested and assimilated; but the activity and energy of life are there, and progress day by day. That which presents itself as of God must needs meet the challenge of the conscience ere the heart is free to yield itself to it, and the life is cast into the mould of the doctrine. But the seasonable fruit is found which God can take pleasure in. It is not for the tree itself that the fruit is produced, and it is not what we find in ourselves that is the point, but what the Lord finds. Even when, with the apostle, "I know nothing by myself," -am conscious of nothing wrong, -"yet am I not hereby justified, but He that judgeth me is the Lord." (1Co 4:4.) The soul that is thus able to say nothing for itself is just that in which the Lord will find the fruit He seeks.
And "his leaf shall not wither": it is impossible to forget, as we think of this, that tree upon which once the Lord sought fruit; and finding none, He said, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever," and presently the fig-tree withered away. Thus the leaf withered because the fruit was not to be found, for in the case of the fig-tree the putting forth of leaves takes place after the fruit. "The time of figs" in general was, indeed, as we are told, not yet"; but on this tree, however precociously, there was already the leaf of profession, and the significance of the judgment is therefore apparent.
Not yet was there sign upon earth of subjection to God, save in one nation, to which, therefore, the Lord came. Israel was just as this fig-tree, covered with leaves, zealous of the law, parading their obedience to their "One Jehovah." Surely, then, they would recognize and reverence Him whom Jehovah had openly proclaimed His Son. So the Lord had just, in public fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, entered the city amid the homage of the multitude, rebuking those who would have rebuked them for it. But He entered to find the temple, His Father’s house, made a den of thieves, and to meet the dogged, desperate opposition of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, all the leaders of the parties that divided the people, united only in refusal of Himself. Thus they had pronounced sentence upon themselves, and His upon the fruitless fig-tree was but the manifestation of their self-assumed position.
How evident the application of this psalm, then, to the real "time of figs" that yet shall be, when the remnant of true believers in Israel shall expand into a nation of rejoicing converts, born as in a day! The fruit being at last found in its season, their "leaf shall not wither"; the perpetuity which is in God’s favor shall be theirs. "Thy people shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I Jehovah will hasten it in his time." (Isa 60:21-22.)
It is plain, then, that we have Israel before us in this introductory psalm, and in the time of the end; and this is confirmed by the closing verses. It is equally plain that this does not hinder the widest possible application of principles that are ever true, and must abide while God abides. The practical use that all generations have made of the psalms, from the day that they were written, has not been mistaken, except indeed where the necessary differences between Jewish and Christian apprehension and experience have been lost sight of or never appreciated. Upon this there will be need to remark more particularly and frequently enough as we go through the book: we shall not at this time, therefore, dwell upon it.
The second part of the psalm shows the character and doom of the ungodly in contrast with the blessing of the godly. Brief enough is their description, and the image used with regard to them carries us once more onward to the gospels. The Baptist, in his denunciation of judgment to come, draws, as the psalmist does, his similitude from the threshing-floor: He will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather the wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Here the figure is not pursued so far: "they are like chaff which the wind driveth away." The rootless, fruitless vain-doer is shown in the judgment of God in his own nothingness, chased away out of the world, as the wind, from the top of the hills on which the threshing-floors were placed, carried off the useless husk of the grain.
The separation is dwelt on in the next verse, and in plain words, Israel thus becoming what it never yet has been, an "assembly of the righteous." And this once more Isaiah declares will be: "And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem; when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning." (Isa 4:3-4.)
In this Jehovah manifests Himself at last, from under the clouds and darkness which often now are round about Him. That which He approves abides, His seal upon it never will be broken. And thus He "knows" the way of the righteous, -knows it well as what is His own: it is the way in which He too walks, and in which communion is found with Himself. "But the way of the ungodly perisheth."
We have, then, in this introductory psalm the blessedness of a righteous remnant in Israel, cleaving to God in subjection while others wander from Him, and in view of coming judgment which shall leave the whole nation an assembly of the righteous. But this evidently is but a partial view of the matter: the word "faith" has not as yet been uttered; the Object of faith has as yet not been seen. The second psalm must complete, therefore, the picture by presenting these.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn v1Psa 1:1 - Psa 1:2. - Psa 150:6.
Psalms
BLESSEDNESS AND PRAISE
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Psa 1:1 - Psa 1:2. - Psa 150:6.
The Psalter is the echo in devout hearts of the other portions of divine revelation. There are in it, indeed, further disclosures of God’s mind and purposes, but its especial characteristic is-the reflection of the light of God from brightened faces and believing hearts. As we hold it to be inspired, we cannot simply say that it is man’s response to God’s voice. But if the rest of Scripture may be called the speech of the Spirit of God to men, this book is the answer of the Spirit of God in men.
These two verses which I venture to lay side by side present in a very remarkable way this characteristic. It is not by accident that they stand where they do, the first and last verses of the whole collection, enclosing all, as it were, within a golden ring, and bending round to meet each other. They are the summing up of the whole purpose and issue of God’s revelation to men.
The first and second psalms echo the two main portions of the old revelation-the Law and the Prophets. The first of them is taken up with the celebration of the blessedness and fruitful, stable being of the man who loves the Law of the Lord, as contrasted with the rootless and barren life of the ungodly, who is like the chaff. The second is occupied with the contemplation of the divine ‘decree’ by which the coming King is set in God’s ‘holy hill of Zion,’ and of the blessedness of ‘all they who put their trust in Him,’ as contrasted with the swift destruction that shall fall on the vain imaginations of the rebellious heathen and banded kings of earth.
The words of our first text, then, may well stand at the beginning of the Psalter. They express the great purpose for which God has given His Law. They are the witness of human experience to the substantial, though partial, accomplishment of that purpose. They rise in buoyant triumph over that which is painful and apparently opposed to it; and in spite of sorrow and sin, proclaim the blessedness of the life which is rooted in the Law of the Lord.
The last words of the book are as significant as its first. The closing psalms are one long call to praise-they probably date from the time of the restoration under Ezra and Nehemiah, when, as we know, ‘the service of song’ was carefully re-established, and the harps which had hung silent upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon woke again their ancient melodies. These psalms climb higher and higher in their rapturous call to all creatures, animate and inanimate, on earth and in heaven, to praise Him. The golden waves of music and song pour out ever faster and fuller. At last we hear this invocation to every instrument of music to praise Him, responded to, as we may suppose, by each, in turn as summoned, adding its tributary notes to the broadening river of harmony-until all, with gathered might of glad sound blended with the crash of many voices, unite in the final words, ‘Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.’
I. We have here a twofold declaration of God’s great purpose in all His self-revelation, and especially in the Gospel of His Son.
Our first text may be translated as a joyful exclamation, ‘Oh! the blessedness of the man-whose delight is in the law of the Lord.’ Our second is an invocation or a command. The one then expresses the purpose which God secures by His gift of the Law; the other the purpose which He summons us to fulfil by the tribute of our hearts and songs-man’s happiness and God’s glory.
His purpose is Man’s blessedness.
That is but another way of saying, God is love. For love, as we know it, is eminently the desire for the happiness of the person on whom it is fixed. And unless the love of God be like ours, however it may transcend it, there is no revelation of Him to our hearts at all. If He be love, then He ‘delights in the prosperity’ of His children.
And that purpose runs through all His acts. For perfect love is all-pervasive, and even with us men, it rules the whole being; nor does he love at all who seeks the welfare of the heart he clings to by fits and starts, by some of his acts and not by others. When God comes forth from the unvisioned light, which is thick darkness, of His own eternal, self-adequate Being, and flashes into energy in Creation, Providence, or Grace, the Law of His Working and His Purpose are one, in all regions. The unity of the divine acts depends on this-that all flow from one deep source, and all move to one mighty end. Standing on the height to which His own declarations of His own nature lift our feebleness, we can see how the ‘river of God that waters the garden’ and ‘parts’ into many ‘heads,’ gushes from one fountain. One of the psalms puts what people call the ‘philosophy’ of creation and of providence very clearly, in accordance with this thought-that the love of God is the source, and the blessedness of man the end, of all His work: ‘To Him that made great lights; for His mercy endureth for ever. To Him that slew mighty kings; for His mercy endureth for ever.’
Creation, then, is the effluence of the loving heart of God. Though the sacred characters be but partially legible to us now, what He wrote, on stars and flowers, on the infinitely great and the infinitely small, on the infinitely near and the infinitely far off, with His creating hand, was the one inscription-God is love. And as in nature, so in providence. The origination, and the support, and the direction of all things, are the works and the heralds of the same love. It is printed in starry letters on the sky. It is graven on the rocks, and breathed by the flowers. It is spoken as a dark saying even by sorrow and pain. The mysteries of destructive and crushing providences have come from the same source. And he who can see with the Psalmist the ever-during mercy of the Lord, as the reason of creation and of judgments, has in his hands the golden key which opens all the locks in the palace chambers of the great King. He only hath penetrated to the secret of things material, and stands in the light at the centre, who understands that all comes from the one source-God’s endless desire for the blessedness of His creatures.
But while all God’s works do thus praise Him by testifying that He seeks to bless His creatures, the loftiest example of that desire is, of course, found in His revelation of Himself to men’s hearts and consciences, to men’s spirits and wills. That mightiest act of love, beginning in the long-past generations, has culminated in Him in whom ‘dwelleth the whole fulness of the Godhead bodily,’ and in whose work is all the love-the perfect, inconceivable, patient, omnipotent love of our redeeming God.
And then, remember that this is not inconsistent with or contradicted by the sterner aspects of that revelation, which cannot be denied, and ought not to be minimised or softened. Here, on the right hand, are the flowery slopes of the Mount of Blessing; there, on the left, the barren, stern, thunder-riven, lightning-splintered pinnacles of the Mount of Cursing. Every clear note of benediction hath its low minor of imprecation from the other side. Between the two, overhung by the hopes of the one, and frowned upon and dominated by the threatenings of the other, is pitched the little camp of our human life, and the path of our pilgrimage runs in the trough of the valley between. And yet-might we not go a step farther, and say that above the parted summits stretches the one overarching blue, uniting them both, and their roots deep down below the surface interlace and twine together? That is to say, the threatenings and rebukes, the acts of retributive judgment, which are contained in the revelation of God, are no limitation nor disturbance of the clear and happy faith that all which we behold is full of blessing, and that all comes from the Father’s hand. They are the garb in which His Love needs to array itself when it comes in contact with man’s sin and man’s evil. The love of God appears no less when it teaches us in grave sad tones that ‘the wages of sin is death,’ than when it proclaims that ‘the gift of God is eternal life.’
Love threatens that it may never have to execute its threats. Love warns that we may be wise in time. Love prophesies that its sad forebodings may not be fulfilled. And love smites with lighter strokes of premonitory chastisements, that we may never need to feel the whips of scorpions.
Remember, too, that these sterner aspects both of Law and of Gospel point this lesson-that we shall very much misunderstand God’s purpose if we suppose it to be blessedness for us men anyhow, irrespective altogether of character. Some people seem to think that God loves us so much, as they would say-so little, so ignobly, as I would say-as that He only desires us to be happy. They seem to think that the divine love is tarnished unless it provides for men’s felicity, whether they are God-loving and God-like or no. Thus the solemn and majestic love of the Father in heaven is to be brought down to a weak good nature, which only desires that the child shall cease crying and be happy, and does not mind by what means that end is reached. God’s purpose is blessedness; but, as this very text tells us, not blessedness anyhow, but one which will not and cannot be given by God to those who walk in the way of sinners. His love desires that we should be holy, and ‘followers of God as dear children’-and the blessedness which it bestows comes from pardon and growing fellowship with Him. It can no more fall on rebellious hearts than the pure crystals of the snow can lie and sparkle on the hot, black cone of a volcano.
The other text that I have read sets forth another view of God’s purpose. God seeks our praise. The glory of God is the end of all the divine actions. Now, that is a statement which no doubt is irrefragable, and a plain deduction from the very conception of an infinite Being. But it may be held in such connections, and spoken with such erroneous application, and so divorced from other truths, that instead of being what it is in the Bible, good news, it shall become a curse and a lie. It may be so understood as to describe not our Father in heaven, but an almighty devil! But, when the thought that God’s purpose in all His acts is His own glory, is firmly united with that other, that His purpose in all His acts is our blessing, then we begin to understand how full of joy it may be for us. His glory is sought by Him in the manifestation of His loving heart, mirrored in our illuminated and gladdened hearts. Such a glory is not unworthy of infinite love. It has nothing in common with the ambitious and hungry greed of men for reputation or self-display. That desire is altogether ignoble and selfish when it is found in human hearts; and it would be none the less ignoble and selfish if it were magnified into infinitude, and transferred to the divine. But to say that God’s glory is His great end, is surely but another way of saying that He is love. The love that seeks to bless us desires, as all love does, that it should be known for what it is, that it should be recognised in our glad hearts, and smiled back again from our brightened faces. God desires that we should know Him, and so have Eternal Life; He desires that knowing Him, we should love Him, and loving should praise, and so should glorify Him. He desires that there should be an interchange of love bestowing and love receiving, of gifts showered down and of praise ascending, of fire falling from the heavens and sweet incense, from grateful hearts, going up in fragrant clouds acceptable unto God. It is a sign of a Fatherly heart that He ‘seeketh such to worship Him’. He desires to be glorified by our praise, because He loves us so much. He commences with an offer, He advances to a command. He gives first, and then {not till then} He comes seeking fruit from the ‘trees’ which are ‘the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.’ His plea is not ‘the vineyard belongs to Me, and I have a right to its fruits,’ but ‘what could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?-judge between Me and My vineyard.’ First, He showers down blessings; then, He looks for the revenue of praise!
II. We may also take these passages as giving us a twofold expression of the actual effects of God’s revelation, especially in the Gospel, even here upon earth.
The one text is the joyful exclamation built upon experience and observation. The other is a call which is answered in some measure even by voices that are often dumb in unthankfulness, often broken by sobs, often murmuring in penitence.
God does actually, though not completely, make men blessed here. Our text sums up the experience of all the devout hearts and lives whose emotions are expressed in the Psalms. He who wrote this psalm would preface the whole book by words into which the spirit of the book is distilled. It will have much to say of sorrow and pain. It will touch many a low note of wailing and of grief. There will be complaints and penitence, and sighs almost of despair before it closes. But this which he puts first is the note of the whole. So it is in our histories. They will run through many a dark and desert place. We shall have bitterness and trials in abundance, there will be many an hour of sadness caused by my own evil, and many a hard struggle with it. But high above all these mists and clouds will rise the hope that seeks the skies, and deep beneath all the surface agitations of storms and currents there will be the unmoved stillness of the central ocean of peace in our hearts. In the ‘valley of weeping’ we may still be ‘blessed’ if ‘the ways’ are in our hearts, and if we make of the very tears ‘a well,’ drawing refreshment from the very trials. With all its sorrows and pains, its fightings and fears, its tribulations in the world, and its chastenings from a Father’s hand, the life of a Christian is a happy life, and ‘the joy of the Lord’ remains with His servants.
More than twenty centuries have passed since that psalm was written. As many stretched dim behind the Psalmist as he sang. He was gathering up in one sentence the spirit of the past, and confirming it by his own life’s history. And has any one that has lived since then stood up and said-’Behold! I have found it otherwise. I have waited on God, and He has not heard my cry. I have served Him, and that for nought. I have trusted in Him, and been disappointed. I have sought His face-in vain. And I say, from my own experience, that the man who trusts in Him is not blessed’? Not one, thank God! The history of the past, so far as this matter is concerned, may be put in one sentence ‘They looked unto Him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed,’ and as for the present, are there not some of us who can say, ‘This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles’?
Brethren! make the experiment for yourselves. Test this experience by your own simple affiance and living trust in Jesus Christ. We have the experience of all generations to encourage us. What has blessed them is enough for you and me. Like the meal and the oil, which were the Prophet’s resource in famine, yesterday’s supply does not diminish to-morrow’s store. We, too, may have all that gladdened the hearts and stayed the spirits of the saints of old. ‘Oh! taste and see that God is good.’ ‘Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.’
So, too, God’s gift produces man’s praise.
What is it that He desires from us? Nothing but our thankful recognition and reception of His benefits. We honour God by taking the full cup of salvation which He commends to our lips, and by calling, while we drink, upon the name of the Lord. Our true response to His Word, which is essentially a proffer of blessing to us, is to open our hearts to receive, and, receiving, to render grateful acknowledgment. The echo of love which gives and forgives, is love which accepts and thanks. We have but to lift up our empty and impure hands, opened wide to receive the gift which He lays in them-and though they be empty and impure, yet ‘the lifting up of our hands’ is ‘as the evening sacrifice’; our sense of need stands in the place of all offerings. The stained thankfulness of our poor hearts is accepted by Him who inhabits the praises of eternity, and yet delights in the praises of Israel. He bends from heaven to give, and all He asks is that we should take. He only seeks our thankfulness-but He does seek it. And wherever His grace is discerned, and His love is welcomed, there praise breaks forth, as surely as streams pour from the cave of the glacier when the sun of summer melts it, or earth answers the touch of spring with flowers.
And that effect is produced, notwithstanding all the complaints and sighs and tears which sometimes choke our praise. It is produced even while these last; the psalms of thanksgiving are not all reserved for the end of the book. But even in those which read like the very sobs of a broken heart, there is ever present some tone of grateful acknowledgment of God’s mercy. He sends us sorrow, and He wills that we should weep-but they should be tears like David’s, who, at the lowest point of his fortunes, when he plaintively besought God, ‘Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle’-could say in the same breath, ‘Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto Thee.’ God works on our souls that we may have the consciousness of sin, and He wills that we should come with broken and contrite hearts, and like the king of Israel wail out our confessions and supplications-’Have mercy upon me, O God! according to Thy loving-kindness.’ But, like him, we should even in our lowliest abasement, when our hearts are bruised, be able to say along with our contrition, ‘Open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise.’ Our sorrows are never so great that they hide our mercies. The sky is never so covered with clouds that neither sun nor stars appear for many days. And in every Christian heart the low tones of lamentation and confession are blended with grateful praise. So it is even in the darkest moments, whilst the blast of misfortune and misery is as a storm against the wall.
But a brighter hope even for our life here rises from these words, if we think of the place which they hold in the whole book. They are the last words. Whatever other notes have been sounded in its course, all ends in this. The winter’s day has had its melancholy grey sky, with many a bitter dash of snow and rain-but it has stormed itself out, and at eventide, a rent in the clouds reveals the sun, and it closes in peaceful clearness of light.
The note of gladness heard at the beginning, ‘Oh! the blessedness of the man that delights in the law of the Lord,’ holds on persistently, like a subdued and almost bewildered undercurrent of sweet sound amid all the movements of some colossal symphony, through tears and sobs, confession and complaint, and it springs up at the close triumphant, like the ruddy spires of a flame long smothered, and swells and broadens, and draws all the intricate harmonies into its own rushing tide. Some of you remember the great musical work which has these very words for its theme. It begins with the call, ‘All that hath life and breath, praise ye the Lord,’ and although the gladness saddens into the plaintive cry of a soul sick with hope deferred, ‘Will the night soon pass?’ yet, ere the close, all discords are reconciled, and at last, with assurance firmer for the experience of passing sorrows, loud as the voice of many waters and sweet as harpers harping with their harps, the joyful invocation peals forth again, and all ends, as it does in a Christian man’s life, and as it does in this book, with ‘Praise ye the Lord.’
III. We have here also a twofold prophecy of the perfection of Heaven.
Whilst it is true that both of these purposes are accomplished here and now, it is also true that their accomplishment is but partial, and that therefore for their fulfilment we have to lift our eyes beyond this world of imperfect faith, of incomplete blessedness, of interrupted praise. Whether the Psalmist looked forward thus we do not know. But for us, the very shortcomings of our joys and of our songs are prophetic of the perfect and perpetual rapture of the one, and the perfect and perpetual music of the other. We know that He who has given us so much will not stay His hand until He has perfected that which concerns us. We know that He who has taught our dumb hearts to magnify His name will not cease till ‘out of the lips of babes and sucklings, He has perfected praise.’ We know that the pilgrims in whose hearts are the ways are blessed, and we are sure that a fuller blessedness must belong to those who have reached the journey’s end.
And so these words give us a twofold aspect of that future on which our longing hopes may well fix.
It is the perfection of man’s blessedness. Then the joyous exclamation of our first text, which we have often had to strive hard not to disbelieve, will be no more a truth of faith but a truth of experience. Here we have had to trust that it was so, even when we could scarce cleave to the confidence. There, memory will look back on our wanderings through this great wilderness, and, enlightened by the issue of them all, will speak only of Mercy and Goodness as our angel guides all our lives. The end will crown the work. Pure unmingled consciousness of bliss will fill all hearts, and break into the old exclamation, which we had sometimes to stifle sobs ere we could speak on earth. When He says, ‘Come in! ye blessed of My Father,’ all our tears and fears, and pains and sins, will be forgotten, and we shall but have to say, in wonder and joy, ‘Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house; they will be still praising Thee.’
It is the perfection of God’s praise. We may possibly venture to see in these wonderful words of our text a dim and far-off hint of a possibility that seems to be pointed at in many parts of Scripture-that the blessings of Christ’s mighty work shall, in some measure and manner, pass through man to his dwelling-place and its creatures. Dark shadows of evil-the mystery of pain and sorrow-lie over earth and all its tribes. ‘We look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.’ And the statements of Scripture which represent creation as suffering by man’s sin, and participant in its degree in man’s redemption, seem too emphatic and precise, as well as too frequent, and in too didactic connections, to be lightly brushed aside as poetic imagery. May it not be that man’s transgression
‘Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed,’
and that man’s restoration may, indeed, bring back all that hath life and breath to a harmonious blessedness-according to the deep and enigmatical words, which declare that ‘the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God’? Be that as it may, at all events our second text opens to us the gates of the heavenly temple, and shows us there the saintly ranks and angel companies gathered in the city whose walls are salvation and its gates praise. They harmonise with that other later vision of heaven which the Seer in Patmos beheld, not only in setting before us worship as the glad work of all who are there, but in teaching the connection between the praises of men, and the answering hymns of angels. The harps of heaven are hushed to hear their praise who can sing, ‘Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood,’ and, in answer to that hymn of thanksgiving for unexampled deliverance and resorting grace, the angels around the throne break forth into new songs to the Lamb that was slain-while still wider spread the broadening circles of harmonious praise, till at last ‘every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them,’ join in the mighty hymn of ‘Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.’ Then the rapturous exclamation from human souls redeemed,-’Oh! the blessedness of the men whom Thou hast loved and saved,’ shall be answered by choral praise from everything that hath breath.
And are you dumb, my friend, in these universal bursts of praise? Is that because you have not chosen to take the universal blessing which God gives? You have nothing to do but to receive the things that are freely given to you of God-the forgiveness, the cleansing, the life, that come from Christ by faith. Take them, and call upon the name of the Lord, And can you refuse His gifts and withhold your praise? You can be eloquent in thanks to those who do you kindnesses, and in praise of those whom you admire and love, but your best Friend receives none of your gratitude and none of your praise. Ignoble silence and dull unthankfulness-with these you requite your Saviour! ‘I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow1909 · Public DomainOn v1Book 1
Book 1
The Pss. in this book are probably among the earliest in the Psalter, and include most of those generally regarded as Davidic. They seem to have existed separately as an early hymn-book, which, with some slight additions from the final editor, was used as the nucleus of the entire collection. They have two wellmarked characteristics: (1) the constant use of the name Jehovah (rendered the Lord), and the comparative absence of the name God (Heb. Elohim); the former occurring 272 times, the latter only 15 times: and (2) the description of them all, with the exception of Psalms 1, 2, 10, , 33, as 'of David' (Heb. Le David), a fact which has been taken to indicate their derivation from a still earlier collection which bore David's name. The first two Pss. seem to have been prefixed to the others when the present Psalter was formed. Historical notices are attached to some of them, connecting them with the life of David, but these are of doubtful importance. Most of the Pss. contained in the book are spontaneous and unaffected in their style, but a few of them are of artificial construction, Psalms 9, 10, 25, 34, , 37 being acrostics.
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The contents are exceedingly varied, and the same Ps. sometimes expresses such diverse feelings as joy and sorrow, bitter disappointment and lofty aspiration. Usually, however, there is some great thought more or less prominent, which enables us to make the following rough classification of their subjects:—(a) the contrast between the righteous and the wicked, 1, 5, 10, 37; (b) the cry of the righteous in presence of trouble, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 22, 31, 38, 39, 40; (c) the glory of God in nature, 8, 19, 29; (d) the law, 1, 19; (e) the king, 2, 18, 20, 21; (f) the future life, 16. In addition, there is a reference to sacrifice in Psalms 37, an allusion to the Temple services in Psalms 24, and a foreshadowing of the Messianic hope in Psalms 2, 20, 28, , 40. The following Pss. are either quoted from or distinctly referred to in NT.: 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 14, 16, 18, 22, 24, 32, 34, 40, 41. In several instances the NT. writer finds the fulfilment of the OT. passage in Christ. Thus Psalms 2, with its defence of Jehovah's righteous King, of whom He says, 'Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee,' is regarded as descriptive of Christ in Act_13:33 and Heb_1:5; Heb_5:5 and Psalms 22, with its pathetic presentment of the suffering Servant of Jehovah, is reported to have been actually quoted by Christ upon the cross (Mat_27:44; Mar_15:34), and Psa_22:18 is asserted in Joh_19:24 to have been literally fulfilled in one of the incidents of His crucifixion.
The moral teaching of this first book of Psalms is simple and emphatic. It rests upon an unswerving belief in the will and power of God to uphold the moral values of life, and mete out punishments and rewards according to personal desert. In whatever circumstances they may be placed, the writers never lose hold of their conviction of the ultimate prosperity of the righteous and destruction of the wicked. Appearances may seem to contradict their faith, but they cling to it all the more strenuously, and insist that in the long run the balance will be redressed. The ideal' character portrayed by them is that of the good man, defamed, wronged, and oppressed by irreligious foes, but holding fast his faith in God, and trusting confidently that, in His own good time, He will deliver him. Sometimes there is a note of joy and thankfulness at the accomplishment of the deliverance; and this leads on to the anticipation of a time when, throughout the whole world, the justice of God will be manifested, and His power felt.
This Ps. forms an appropriate introduction to the whole Psalter. In some Hebrew MSS it is not numbered with the Psalms, but stands before them as a prologue, and in others it is combined with Psalms 2. It is one of the 'orphan' psalms, and the want of a title indicates that it did not originally belong to the Davidic collection, 3-41. The subject of the Ps. is the blessedness of the righteous man who studies the Law of Jehovah, as contrasted with the unhappy end of the ungodly. It consists of two strophes, Psa_1:1-3 and Psa_1:4-6, the former describing the character and destiny of the righteous, and the latter the character and destiny of the wicked.
1. Blessed] EM 'happy.' The first of the Old Testament beatitudes. Walketh not] There seems a gradual progression intended in the three clauses of the v.: walk, stand, sit, and wicked, sinner, scoffer.
2. Law] the whole revelation of God's will as made known in the sacred writings, especially the Pentateuch.
Doth.. meditate] lit. 'crooneth over,' repeats again and again in a low tone.
3. And he shall be] better, 'for he becomes,' i.e. in consequence of his constant study of God's law. Like a tree, etc.] cp. Jer_17:7-8, where the illustration is more fully developed, and the character of the wicked is similarly illustrated (Psa_17:5-6); and Eze_47:12. And whatsoever, etc.] The illustration is dropped at this stage, and the words apply to the righteous man. Shall prosper] the simple faith of the pious Israelite, which no adversity was able wholly to overcome: cp. Psalms 112 and see Psalms 37, where the problem of the suffering of the righteous perplexes another Psalmist.
4. Chaff] A common OT. type of the wicked: cp Psa_35:5. Threshing-floors were usually on high ground, where the wind would easily catch the chaff when it was beaten from the corn and drive it away (Isa_17:13). Driveth away] PBY adds, 'from the face of the earth,' following LXX and “Vulgate. 5. The judgment] every visitation of God's providence, or perhaps the final judgment. Congregation] the faithful people of Israel.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein1922 · Public DomainOn v1Analysis and Annotations
Analysis and Annotations
I. THE GENESIS SECTION: BOOK ONE:Psalm 1-41
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Psalm 1-8
Psalm 1
The Godly and the Ungodly
1. The godly, his character and his fruit (Psa 1:1-3)
2. The ungodly in comparison with the godly (Psa 1:4-6)
The first eight Psalms are the Psalms in embryo, just as the opening chapters of the book of Genesis are the Bible in a nutshell. Throughout the Psalms we can trace the subjects of these eight Psalms, the godly and the ungodly; but especially the great theme of the Psalms, Christ, the Perfect Man, the King rejected, the suffering of the righteous during the time of His rejection, the King enthroned and all things put under His feet. These are the leading themes of Psa 1:1-6; Psa 2:1-12; Psa 3:1-8; Psa 4:1-8; Psa 5:1-12; Psa 6:1-10; Psa 7:1-17; Psa 8:1-9.
Psa 1:1-6; Psa 2:1-12 are introductory to the entire collection, put there by the Holy Spirit. In some ancient manuscripts the first Psalm is not numbered, in others the First and Second Psalms are put into one. The First Psalm begins with a beatitude and the second ends with a beatitude. The righteous man, negative and positive, nothing evil in him, no fellowship with sinners, and positive, obedience and entire devotedness to God, does not mean the natural man. The godly One is the perfect One who walked down here separated from sinners, and devoted to God. He walked in obedience, in dependence on God and in communion with Him, and therefore the blessing, honor and glory are His. But the godly man is also the believer, born of God, separated, a saint, who delights in the things of God, meditates in His Word day and night. It is still more, a description of what the true believing remnant of Israel will be some day, “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.” Such is converted, redeemed Israel’s future as revealed here and also by Isaiah: “Thy people shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that I may be glorified” (Isa 60:21). We behold then in these opening verses of the Psalms the Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect Man, the individual believer in his separation and devotion, and what Israel, saved and converted, will be in the future.
(The Romish church has a volume called “The Psalter of the Virgin Mary compiled by Doctor St. Bonaventura.” It is in Latin and contains the 150 Psalms, greatly abridged, and each addressed to Mary. Psa 1:1-6 begins as follows: “Happy is the man that loves thy Name, O Virgin Mary, thy grace will comfort his soul. Ave Maria.” Psa 19:1-14: “The Heavens declare thy glory, O Virgin Mary.” Horrible blasphemy!)
Then the ungodly: “Like the chaff which the wind driveth away” is a prophecy of the time when the ungodly are dealt with in judgment, when “He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Mat 3:12). Then the ungodly will forever disappear and cease troubling the righteous. They will have no place in the assembly of the righteous in millennial times.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v1The Difference Between the Righteous and the Ungodly.
The Difference Between the Righteous and the Ungodly.
All men are sinners: all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Rom 3:23. No man is able to stand before God, by virtue of his own righteousness, Isa 64:6; Dan 9:7. But all believers have the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, appropriated to them by faith, Php 3:9. And so all true believers are righteous in the eyes of God, while all unbelievers are unrighteous and ungodly in His sight.
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v. 1. Blessed is the man, literally, "blessednesses, or happinesses, of the man," that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, making the plans of the wicked his concern, making it his business to follow out their godless undertakings, nor standeth in the way of sinners, making it a point to linger in the company of those whom he should shun, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, those who scorn the belief in God in the sense of mocking and sneering at true religion. Note the climax in the verse: first comes the meditating of evil, then a wilful performance of that which is sinful, then the suppressing of a good conscience and the mockery of everything sacred; and, on the other hand, first the seeking of the society of the godless, then a somewhat uncertain standing at the outside of their circle, then a deliberate participation in their mockery.
v. 2. But his delight is in the Law of the Lord, in the meditation and study of the Law, of the Word of Jehovah, he finds full inner satisfaction and happiness; and in His Law doth he meditate day and night, reflecting upon its injunctions, applying its instructions always and in all circumstances. Just how the blessings of Jehovah come upon such a person is now described.
v. 3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, where his roots reach deep down to the hidden reservoirs of moisture, where he has a never-ending supply of vitality and power, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, as the result of a faith grounded deep in the power of Jehovah, which never disappoints the hopes of the great Gardener above, Luk 13:7; his leaf also shall not wither, not be affected by the drought of hostility or adversity; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper, with a prosperity at least in the sight of God, no matter how little the world thinks of his success. Not an outward good fortune in amassing the riches of this earth counts in the sight of Jehovah, but the possession of a trusting faith abounding in real good works.
v. 4. The ungodly are not so, either in conduct or happiness, and therefore both their condition and their destiny in the sight of God differ widely and radically from that of the believers; but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away, they have been weighed and found wanting, and therefore utter destruction comes upon them in consequence of their emptiness and vanity, just as the chaff on the open threshing-floors of the Orient is scattered to the four winds, while the heavier grain remains.
v. 5. Therefore the ungodly, the wicked unbelievers, shall not stand in the Judgment, will not be acquitted before the tribunal of God, will not be able to stand up and hold their own in the last great investigation, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, they will not be placed with the blessed of the Father at the right hand of the Judge, Mat 3:12; Psa 35:5; Zep 2:1-2.
v. 6. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, He knows them and is known of them, He is united with them by the closest band of union, in the most intimate fellowship, Joh 10:14-15, and therefore their path through life is sure to lead to God, certain to reach the goal of everlasting bliss in Him; but the way of the ungodly shall perish, it leads into the abyss of everlasting destruction and damnation. Thus is the foolishness of the wicked punished and the hope of the believers rewarded.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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who does not walk in the advice of the wicked
The "advice of the wicked" is spoken of as if it were a path to follow. AT: "who does not follow the advice of the wicked" or "who does not do what wicked people advise" (See: Metaphor)
stand in the pathway with sinners
Here the word "pathway" represents the way people live. The word "stand" is in parallel with "walk." AT: "imitate the behavior of sinful people" (See: Metaphor)
or sit in the assembly of mockers
Sitting with people who mock God represents joining people who mock God. AT: "or join those who mock God" or "or mock God with others who mock him" (See: Metonymy)
his delight is in the law of Yahweh
The word "delight" is an abstract noun that can be stated as a verb. A person who can "delight ... in the law" is happy because the law is good and because one is obeying it. AT: "what makes him truly happy is the law of Yahweh" or "what makes him truly happy is to know that he is obeying the law of Yahweh" (See: Abstract Nouns)
Yahweh
This is the name of God that he revealed to his people in the Old Testament. See the translationWord page about Yahweh concerning how to translate this.
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv1–6Pss 1–8 Psalms 1 and 8 form an inclusio…
Pss 1–8 Psalms 1 and 8 form an inclusio (set of literary bookends) that describes what God expects of the ideal person (cp. Pss 19; 33; 104; 145), contrasts the godly person with the wicked, and extols the godly person’s dignity. Jesus the Messiah (Ps 2)—the sovereign Lord (Heb 2:6-8; see 1 Cor 15:27) and perfection of humanity—embodies this ideal.
Pss 1–2 The first two psalms are an introduction to the entire Psalter. Psalm 1 introduces the Lord’s instruction in wisdom, while Ps 2 introduces God’s rule over a rebellious, sinful world. Together, these psalms invite people to leave the way of folly that leads to destruction and to enter the way of God that leads to wisdom and salvation. The New Testament affirms that God will rule the nations through Jesus Christ, his appointed agent (Heb 1:5; Rev 12:5; 19:15).
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Ps 1 This wisdom psalm sets the tone for the whole Psalter. The psalmist strongly contrasts the happiness of the godly with the condemnation of the wicked; in the end, the way of wisdom will triumph. This idealization of the godly person (as in Ps 8) highlights the Lord’s expectations of his people and especially of the coming Messiah (Ps 2). The people of Israel did not live up to this ideal, and neither did the kings of David’s dynasty. Not even the best of them could bring in the triumph of righteousness described in Psalms 1, 2, and 72. In the New Testament, the apostles’ use of the Psalter to describe the life and ministry of Jesus the Messiah confirms that Jesus alone fulfills the ideal of the godly person presented in the psalms. Only Jesus could please God and secure redemption, happiness, and peace. Psalm 1 introduces the hopeful anticipation of the final hallelujah (Ps 150), when the Lord will remove all evil from his creation and prosper his children.
1:1-2 The Lord gives true happiness to all who reject evil and delight in him.
1:1 Oh, the joys: This Hebrew term (’ashrey) is used twenty-six times in Psalms. Some translations render it as “blessed,” but a different term (barak) is used in contexts of blessing (5:12; 45:2; 107:38). • The godly do not permit themselves to live under the influence of sinners. Those who do not fear the Lord are wicked (36:1); they are the enemies of those who love God, those who do right, and the poor and oppressed (see 10:2-13; 37:14). The wicked might appear pious (50:16) and sometimes enjoy temporary prosperity (37:35), but sorrow (32:10) and destruction (1:4-6) await them when their deeds catch up with them (9:16). • Those who go astray (25:8) in rebellion against the Lord (78:17) are sinners; they commit heinous crimes such as adultery and murder (cp. Ps 51). • join in with: This expression (literally sit in the seat of) depicts a life in bondage to sin (cp. 1:2; 26:3-7; Deut 6:7). • Mockers hate the Lord, scorn his wisdom, and insult anyone who attempts to correct them (Prov 9:7-8). They seek only the “wisdom” that justifies their actions. These brash people have little regard for the Lord, his plans, or his children (see Pss 86:14; 119:51, 69, 78, 85, 122). These three terms (wicked, sinners, mockers) apply to all kinds of ungodly people.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–6 IF the reading of these my Commentaries confer as…
IF the reading of these my Commentaries confer as much benefit on the Church of God as I myself have reaped advantage from the composition of them, I shall have no reason to regret that I have undertaken this work. Having expounded here, in our small school, the Book of Psalms, about three years ago, I thought that I had by this means sufficiently discharged my duty, and had resolved not to publish to the world what I had familiarly taught those of my own household. And, in fact, before I had undertaken to expound this book in my lectures, at the request of my brethren, I said what was true, that I had kept away from this subject, because that most faithful teacher of the Church of God, Martin Bucer, had labored in this field with such singular learning, diligence, fidelity, and success, that at least there was not so great need that I should put my hand to the work. And had the Commentaries of Wolphangus Musculus at that time been published, I would not have omitted to do them justice, by mentioning them in the same way, since he too, in the judgment of good men, has earned no small praise by his diligence and industry in this walk. I had not yet come to the end of the book, when, lo! I am urged by renewed solicitations not to suffer my lectures, which certain persons had carefully, faithfully, and not without great labor, taken down, to be lost to the world. My purpose still remained unaltered; only I promised what for a long time I had been thinking of, to write something on the subject in the French language, that my countrymen might not be without the means of being enabled to understand so useful a book when perusing it. Whilst I am thinking of making this attempt, suddenly, and contrary to my first design, it occurred to me, by what impulse I know not, to compose in Latin, only as it were in the way of trial, an exposition of one Psalm. When I found that my success corresponded to my desire far beyond what I had ventured to anticipate, I was encouraged, and accordingly began to make the same attempt in a few other Psalms. On perceiving this, my intimate friends, as if in this way they held me bound, urged me with the greater confidence not to desist from my course. One reason which made me comply with their solicitations, and which also had from the commencement induced me to make this first attempt, was an apprehension that at some future period what had been taken down from my lectures, might be published to the world contrary to my wishes or at least without my knowledge. I can truly say, that I was drawn to execute this work rather from such an apprehension, than led to it from my own free will. At the same time, as I continued to prosecute the work, I began to perceive more distinctly that this was by no means a superfluous undertaking, and I have also felt from my own individual experience, that to readers who are not so exercised, I would furnish important assistance in understanding The Psalms. The varied and resplendid riches which are contained it this treasury it is no easy matter to express in words; so much so, that I well know that whatever I shall be able to say will be far from approaching the excellence of the subject. But as it is better to give to my readers some taste, however small, of the wonderful advantages they will derive from the study of this book, than to be entirely silent on the point, I may be permitted briefly to advert to a matter, the greatness of which does not admit of being fully unfolded. I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not inappropriately, “An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul;” for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated. The other parts of Scripture contain the commandments which God enjoined his servants to announce to us. But here the prophets themselves, seeing they are exhibited to us as speaking to God, and laying open all their inmost thoughts and affections, call, or rather draw, each of us to the examination of himself in particulars in order that none of the many infirmities to which we are subject, and of the many vices with which we abound, may remain concealed. It is certainly a rare and singular advantage, when all lurking places are discovered, and the heart is brought into the light, purged from that most baneful infection, hypocrisy. In short, as calling upon God is one of the principal means of securing our safety, and as a better and more unerring rule for guiding us in this exercise cannot be found elsewhere than in The Psalms, it follows, that in proportion to the proficiency which a man shall have attained in understanding them, will be his knowledge of the most important part of celestial doctrine. Genuine and earnest prayer proceeds first from a sense of our need, and next, from faith in the promises of God. It is by perusing these inspired compositions, that men will be most effectually awakened to a sense of their maladies, and, at the same time, instructed in seeking remedies for their cure. In a word, whatever may serve to encourage us when we are about to pray to God, is taught us in this book. And not only are the promises of God presented to us in it, but oftentimes there is exhibited to us one standing, as it were, amidst the invitations of God on the one hand, and the impediments of the flesh on the other, girding and preparing himself for prayer: thus teaching us, if at any time we are agitated with a variety of doubts, to resist and fight against them, until the soul, freed and disentangled from all these impediments, rise up to God; and not only so, but even when in the midst of doubts, fears, and apprehensions, let us put forth our efforts in prayer, until we experience some consolation which may calm and bring contentment to our minds. “Jusqu’a ce que nous sentions quelque allegement qui nous appaise et contente.” –Fr.
“Et nous acquiert tranquillite de conscience devant luy.”— Fr. “And acquires for us tranquillity of conscience before him.”
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Now, if my readers derive any fruit and advantage from the labor which I have bestowed in writing these Commentaries, I would have them to understand that the small measure of experience which I have had by the conflicts with which the Lord has exercised me, has in no ordinary degree assisted me, not only in applying to present use whatever instruction could be gathered from these divine compositions, but also in more easily comprehending the design of each of the writers. And as David holds the principal place among them, it has greatly aided me in understanding more fully the complaints made by him of the internal afflictions which the Church had to sustain through those who gave themselves out to be her members, that I had suffered the same or similar things from the domestic enemies of the Church. For although I follow David at a great distance, and come far short of equaling him; or rather, although in aspiring slowly and with great difficulty to attain to the many virtues in which he excelled, I still feel myself tarnished with the contrary vices; yet if I have any things in common with him, I have no hesitation in comparing myself with him. In reading the instances of his faith, patience, fervor, zeal, and integrity, it has, as it ought, drawn from me unnumbered groans and sighs, that I am so far from approaching them; but it has, notwithstanding, been of very great advantage to me to behold in him as in a mirror, both the commencement of my calling, and the continued course of my function; so that I know the more assuredly, that whatever that most illustrious king and prophet suffered, was exhibited to me by God as an example for imitation. My condition, no doubt, is much inferior to his, and it is unnecessary for me to stay to show this. But as he was taken from the sheepfold, and elevated to the rank of supreme authority; so God having taken me from my originally obscure and humble condition, has reckoned me worthy of being invested with the honorable office of a preacher and minister of the gospel. When I was as yet a very little boy, my father had destined me for the study of theology. But afterwards when he considered that the legal profession commonly raised those who followed it to wealth this prospect induced him suddenly to change his purpose. Thus it came to pass, that I was withdrawn from the study of philosophy, and was put to the study of law. To this pursuit I endeavored faithfully to apply myself in obedience to the will of my father; but God, by the secret guidance of his providence, at length gave a different direction to my course. And first, since I was too obstinately devoted to the superstitions of Popery to be easily extricated from so profound an abyss of mire, God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame, which was more hardened in such matters than might have been expected from one at my early period of life. Having thus received some taste and knowledge of true godliness I was immediately inflamed with so intense a desire to make progress therein, that although I did not altogether leave off other studies, I yet pursued them with less ardor. I was quite surprised to find that before a year had elapsed, all who had any desire after purer doctrine were continually coming to me to learn, although I myself was as yet but a mere novice and tyro. Being of a disposition somewhat unpolished and bashful, which led me always to love the shade and retirement, I then began to seek some secluded corner where I might be withdrawn from the public view; but so far from being able to accomplish the object of my be desire, all my retreats were like public schools. In short, whilst my one great object was to live in seclusion without being known, God so led me about through different turnings and changes, that he never permitted me to rest in any place, until, in spite of my natural disposition, he brought me forth to public notice. Leaving my native country, France, I in fact retired into Germany, expressly for the purpose of being able there to enjoy in some obscure corner the repose which I had always desired, and which had been so long denied me. But lo! whilst I lay hidden at Basle, and known only to a few people, many faithful and holy persons were burnt alive in France; and the report of these burnings having reached foreign nations, they excited the strongest disapprobation among a great part of the Germans, whose indignation was kindled against the authors of such tyranny. In order to allay this indignation, certain wicked and lying pamphlets were circulated, stating that none were treated with such cruelty but Anabaptists and seditious persons, who by their perverse ravings and false opinions, were overthrowing not only religion but also all civil order. Observing that the object which these instruments of the court aimed at by their disguises, was not only that the disgrace of shedding so much innocent blood might remain buried under the false charges and calumnies which they brought against the holy martyrs after their death, but also, that afterwards they might be able to proceed to the utmost extremity in murdering the poor saints without exciting compassion towards them in the breasts of any, it appeared to me, that unless I opposed them to the utmost of my ability, my silence could not be vindicated from the charge of cowardice and treachery. This was the consideration which induced me to publish my Institute of the Christian Religion. My objects were, first, to prove that these reports were false and calumnious, and thus to vindicate my brethren, whose death was precious in the sight of the Lord; and next, that as the same cruelties might very soon after be exercised against many unhappy individuals, foreign nations might be touched with at least some compassion towards them and solicitude about them. When it was then published, it was not that copious and labored work which it now is, but only a small treatise containing a summary of the principal truths of the Christian religion, and it was published with no other design than that men might know what was the faith held by those whom I saw basely and wickedly defamed by those flagitious and perfidious flatterers. That my object was not to acquire fame, appeared from this, that immediately after I left Basle, and particularly from the fact that nobody there knew that I was the author. Wherever else I have gone, I have taken care to conceal that I was the author of that performance; and I had resolved to continue in the same privacy and obscurity, until at length William Farel detained me at Geneva, not so much by counsel and exhortation, as by a dreadful imprecation, which I felt to be as if God had from heaven laid his mighty hand upon me to arrest me. As the most direct road to Strasburg, to which I then intended to retire, was shut up by the wars, I had resolved to pass quickly by Geneva, without staying longer than a single night in that city. A little before this, Popery had been driven from it by the exertions of the excellent person whom I have named, and Peter Viret; but matters were not yet brought to a settled state, and the city was divided into unholy and dangerous factions. Then an individual who now basely apostatised and returned to the Papists, discovered me and made me known to others. Upon this, Farel, who burned with an extraordinary zeal to advance the gospel, immediately strained every nerve to detain me. And after having learned that my heart was set upon devoting myself to private studies for which I wished to keep myself free from other pursuits, and finding that he gained nothing by entreaties, he proceeded to utter an imprecation that God would curse my retirement, and the tranquillity of the studies which I sought, if I should withdraw and refuse to give assistance, when the necessity was so urgent. By this imprecation I was so stricken with terror, that I desisted from the journey which I had undertaken; but sensible of my natural bashfulness and timidity, I would not bring myself under obligation to discharge any particular office. After that, four months had scarcely elapsed, when, on the one hand, the Anabaptists began to assail us, and, on the other, a certain wicked apostate, who being secretly supported by the influence of some of the magistrates of the city, was thus enabled to give us a great deal of trouble. At the same time, a succession of dissensions fell out in the city “Cependant surveindrent en la ville seditions les unes sur les autres.” — Fr.
“C’est, ascavoir de ne vouloir point apparoistre ou suyvre les grandes assemblees.”—Fr “That is, not wishing to appear before, or wait upon, the great assemblies.”
“Qu’en considerant tout le discours de la vie de David.“ — Fr.
“Que se tenir quois en vivant paisiblement et honnestement.” — Fr.
“Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me,” (Psalm 41:9.)
“For it was not an enemy that reproached me; but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company,” (Psalm 55:12, 13, 14.)
Others circulated ridiculous reports concerning my treasures; others, of the extravagant authority and enormous influence which they say I possess; others speak of my delicacies and magnificence. But when a man is content with scanty food and common clothing and does not require from the humblest more frugality than he shows and practices himself, shall it be said that such an one is too sumptuous, and lives in too high a style? As to the power and influence of which they envy me, I wish I could discharge this burden upon them; for they estimate my power by the multitude of affairs, and the vast weight of labors with which I am overwhelmed. And if there are some whom I cannot persuade whilst I am alive that I am not rich, my death at length will prove it. I confess, indeed, that I am not poor; for I desire nothing more than what I have. All these are invented stories, and there is no color whatever for any one of them; but many nevertheless are very easily persuaded of their truth, and applaud them; and the reason is, because the greatest part judge that the only means of cloaking their enormities is to throw all things into disorder, and to confound black and white; and they think that the best and shortest way by which they can obtain full liberty to live with impunity just as they please, is to destroy the authority of Christ’s servants. In addition to these, there are “the hypocritical mockers in feasts,” of whom David complains, (Psalm 35:16;) and I mean by these not only lick-dish characters who seek a meal to fill their belly, “Et je n’enten pas seulement les frians qui cherchent quelque lippee pour farcir leur ventre.” — Fr.
“Mais encore ce n’estoit pas assez d’estre traitte ainsi inhumainement par mes voisins, si non qu’en un pays lointain vers la mer glacee le temps se troublast aussi je ne scay comment par la phrenesie d’aucuns, pour puis apres faire lever contre moy comme un nuee de gens qui sont trop de loisir et n’ont que faire s’ils ne s’escarmouschent a empescher ceux qui travaillent a edification.”—Fr.
Geneva, July 22, 1557.
1. Blessed is the man. In the Septuangint, the reading is μακαριος ἀνηρ, blessed is the man. Both Calvin and our English translators have adopted this rendering. But the Hebrew word אשרי, rendered blessed, is in the plural number, and האיש, ha-ish, the man, in the singular. Accordingly, the words have been considered as an exclamation, and may be literally rendered, O, the blessedness of the man! A beautiful and emphatic form of expression.
As the prophet, in the first place, enjoins the godly to beware of temptations to evil, we shall follow the same order. His affirmation, that they are blessed who have no fellowship with the ungodly, is what the common feeling and opinion of mankind will scarcely admit; for while all men naturally desire and seek after happiness, we see how securely they can indulge themselves in their sins, yea, that those of them who have departed farthest from righteousness, in the gratification of their lusts, are accounted happy, because they obtain the desires of their heart. The prophet, on the contrary, here teaches that no man can be duly animated to the fear and service of God, and to the study of his law, until he is firmly persuaded that all the ungodly are miserable, and that they who do not withdraw from their company shall he involved in the same destruction with them. But as it is no easy matter to shun the ungodly with whom we are mingled in the world, so as to be wholly estranged from them, the Psalmist, in order to give the greater emphasis to his exhortation, employs a multiplicity of expressions.
In the first place, he forbids us to walk in their counsel; in the second place, to stand in their way; and, lastly, to sit in their seat.
The sum of the whole is, that the servants of God must endeavor utterly to abhor the life of ungodly men. But as it is the policy of Satan to insinuate his deceits, in a very crafty way, the prophet, in order that none may be insensibly deceived, shows how by little and little men are ordinarily induced to turn aside from the right path. They do not, at the first step, advance so far as a proud contempt of God but having once begun to give ear to evil counsel, Satan leads them, step by step, farther astray, till they rush headlong into open transgression. The prophet, therefore, begins with counsel, by which term I understand the wickedness which does not as yet show itself openly. Then he speaks of the way, which is to be understood of the customary mode or manner of living. And he places at the top of the climax the seat, by which metaphorical expression he designates the obduracy produced by the habit of a sinful life. In the same way, also, ought the three phrases, to walk, to stand, and to sit, to be understood. When a person willingly walks after the gratification of his corrupt lusts, the practice of sinning so infatuates him, that, forgetful of himself, he grows hardened in wickedness; and this the prophet terms standing in the way of sinners. Then at length follows a desperate obstinacy, which he expresses by the figure of sitting. Whether there is the same gradation in the Hebrew words רשעים, reshaim, חטאים, chataim, and לצים, letsim, that is to say, a gradual increase of evil, I leave to the judgment of others. C’est a dire, un accroissement de mal comme par degrez. — Fr.
Il est bien conjoint avec le verbe signifiant une profession de vivre et un train tout accoustume. — Fr.
Et s’adonner de soy-mesme a impiete. — Fr.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–6 When a man hath given once place to evil…
When a man hath given once place to evil counsel, or to his own concupiscence, he beginneth to forget himself in his sin, and so falleth into contempt of God, which contempt is called the seat of the scorners.
Or, praises, according to the Hebrews: and were chiefly instituted to praise and give thanks to God for his benefits. They are called the Psalms or Songs of David, because the most part were made by him.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Psa 1:1 Blessed [is] the man that walketh not…
Psa 1:1 Blessed [is] the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
The Book of Psalms] So Christ calleth it, Luk 20:42. The Hebrew word signifieth hymns, or praises, because the greater part of these psalms serve to set forth the praise of God. This title seemeth to be taken from Psa 145:1, called David’s Hymn, or Psalm of praise; so highly prized by the ancient Hebrews that they pronounce him an heir of heaven who shall three times a day devoutly repeat it. The Greeks call this Book the Psalter (Athanas., Chrysost.); and deservedly give it many high commendations; as that it is the soul’s anatomy, the Jaw’s epitome, the gospel’s index, the garden of the Scriptures, a sweet field and rosary of promises, precepts, predictions, praises, soliloquies, &c.; the very heart and soul of God, the tongue and pen of David, a man after God’s own heart; one murmur of whose Michtam, or Maschil, one touch of whose heavenly harp, is far above all the buskin raptures, garish phantasms, splendid vanities, pageants, and landscapes of profaner wits; far better worthy to be written in letters of gold than Pindar’s seventh ode in the temple at Rhodes (though Politian judged otherwise, liken wretch as he was), and far more fit to have been laid up, as a rare and precious jewel, in that Persian casket, embroidered with gold and pearl, than Homer’s Iliad, for which it was reserved by Great Alexander. But that cock on the dunghill never knew the worth of this peerless pearl; as did our good King Alfred, who himself translated the Psalter into his own Saxon tongue; and as the Emperor Andronicus, who caused this Book to be bound up in a little volume by itself, to serve as his manual, and attend him in his running library (Turk. Hist.); for therein he found amulets of comfort, more pleasant than the pools of Heshbon, more glorious than the tower of Lebanon, more redolent than the oil of Aaron, more fructifying than the dew of Hermon, as one expresseth it. All the latitude of the Holy Scriptures may be reduced to the Psalms, saith Austin, after Athanasius. Luther calleth them Parva Biblia, et summarium utriusque Testamenti, a little Bible, a summary of both Testaments. The Turks disclaim both the Old and New Testament, and yet they swear as solemnly by the Psalms of David as by the Koran of Mahomet. Anciently they were sung in the temples, and in the primitive Christian Church happy was that tongue held that could sound out aliquid Davidicum, any part of a psalm of David. Nicephorus telleth us that as they travelled and journeyed they used to solace themselves with psalms, and that thereby there was at a certain time a Jew converted. St Paul calleth them spiritual songs, Col 3:16, both because they were indited by the Holy Spirit, and for that they do singularly suit with men’s spirits; for they are so penned that every man may think they speak De se, in re sua, of himself, and to his particular purpose, as Athanasius observeth. And, lastly, because they do after a special manner spiritualize and sanctify those that sing them in the right tune; which is, Sing with grace in your hearts unto the Lord, as the apostle there setteth it; and elsewhere hinteth unto us that there is no small edification by the choice of a fit psalm, 1Co 14:26.
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Ver. 1. Blessed] Heb. Oh the blessedness, the heaped up happiness, both of this life and a better, fitter to be believed than possibly could be discoursed. The Hebrew comes from a root that signifieth to go right forward, sc. in the way that is called holy, having Oculum ad metam, an eye upon the mark, viz. true and real happiness, such as all men pretend to, but he only attaineth to who is here described. Sulla was by his flatterers surnamed Felix, because high and mighty; and Metellus likewise, Quod bona multa bono modo invenerat, because rich by right means (Policrat. lib. 8, cap. 4). But he that first called riches Bona was a better husband than divine; and they that seek for a felicity in anything here below seek for the living among the dead. The philosophers’ discourses of this subject are but learned dotages; David saith more to the point in this short psalm than any or all of them put together; they did but beat around the bush, God hath here put the bird into our hands.
Is the man] Heb. that man, with an article, with an accent, and by an excellency, as Jer 5:1, that eminent and eximious man, who is rationally spiritual and spiritually rational; that man in Christ, 2Co 12:2, who hath learned Christ, and doth live Christ, walking as he walked, 1Jn 2:6, and "not in the counsel of the ungodly," &c. "But his delight is in the law of the Lord," &c. Magnus atque admirabilis vir, si modo viri nomine designare illum fas est, as Chrysostom saith of Babylas, the martyr, that is, a great and an admirable man, if a man we may call him, and not an earthly angel rather. He must indeed be content to pass to heaven as a concealed man, because the world knoweth him not, 1Jn 3:1, but those that have senses exercised to discern good and evil may easily know him as he stands here described, 1. To depart from evil, Psa 1:1 2. To do good, Psa 1:2.
Walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly] Or restless. The counsel of such should be far from us, Job 21:16; Job 22:18. The Jews cast their whole nation or people into three ranks, Reshagnim (the word here used), that is, the profane rabble; Tsadichim, righteous men; and Chasidim, good, or gracious men. See Rom 5:7. To these two latter are opposite here sinners and scorners; these last being the worst of wicked persons, and, therefore, set last in this gradation, as some will have it. The Septuagint here render them pests or botches, and elsewhere incorrigible, wicked (with a witness), proud, prevaricating, &c., ‘Aκολαστος, Pro 20:1; κακος, Pro 9:12; υπερηφανος, Pro 3:34; παρηνομουν, Psa 119:51. Beware of this sin, saith Father Latimer; for I never knew but one scorner that repented; he who is sitting down in this chair of pestilence (as having tired himself in ways of wickedness, and will not be better advised, Pro 9:7-8, but, with Lot’s sons-in-law, jeereth what he should fear) will not easily be raised out of it.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–6 The Hebrew words are very emphatical, Blessedness belongs to…
The Hebrew words are very emphatical, Blessedness belongs to that man, or, Oh the blessedness of that man Thrice blessed is that man; who is here described negatively, and in the next verse positively.
That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, i.e. that doth not lead his life according to their counsel, or course, or manner of living; that doth not associate himself with them, nor follow their evil instigations or examples. Walking notes choice of it, and continuance or process in it; otherwise good men do sometimes step aside into an evil action. For the explaining of the phrase, see Gen 49:6; 2Ch 22:3-5; Pro 1:15; 4:14; Mic 6:16.
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Nor standeth; which notes a more settled abode, hardness, and obstinacy in it.
In the way, i.e. in their course or manner of conversation; in the practice of those things which they choose and use to do; which is called a man's way, Psa 5:8; 25:4; 2Pe 2:2,15.
Of sinners; emphatically so called here, as also Psa 26:9; Ecc 9:2; Mat 26:45; Luk 7:37; Joh 9:16,31, who give up themselves to the power and practice of sin, making it their great business and their delight.
Nor sitteth in the seat; which notes their association or incorporation of themselves with them; a constant and resolved perseverance in their wicked courses, with great content and security; and a great proficiency and eminency in the school of wickedness, and an ability and readiness to instruct others therein. Of the scornful; of those who are not only diseased, but reject, despise, and scorn all remedies; who make a mock of sin, and of God's threatenings and judgments against sinners; who deride all wholesome reproofs and counsels, and make it their trade to scoff at goodness and good men. Divers have observed a gradation in this verse; the following clause still exceeding the former, for standing is more than walking, and sitting more than standing. And
the way or course may seem to be worse than the counsel or design, and the seat is worse than the way; and sinners, in Scripture use, are worse than the ungodly, and the scornful are the worst of sinners. But I would not lay great stress upon such observations.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 The psalmist begins with the character and condition of…
The psalmist begins with the character and condition of a godly man, that those may first take the comfort of that to whom it belongs. Here is,
I. A description of the godly man's spirit and way, by which we are to try ourselves. The Lord knows those that are his by name, but we must know them by their character; for that is agreeable to a state of probation, that we may study to answer to the character, which is indeed both the command of the law which we are bound in duty to obey and the condition of the promise which we are bound in interest to fulfil. The character of a good man is here given by the rules he chooses to walk by and to take his measures from. What we take at our setting out, and at every turn, for the guide of our conversation, whether the course of this world or the word of God, is of material consequence. An error in the choice of our standard and leader is original and fatal; but, if we be right here, we are in a fair way to do well.
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1. A godly man, that he may avoid the evil, utterly renounces the companionship of evil-doers, and will not be led by them (Psa 1:1): He walks not in the council of the ungodly, etc. This part of his character is put first, because those that will keep the commandments of their God must say to evil-doers, Depart from us (Psa 119:115), and departing from evil is that in which wisdom begins. (1.) He sees evil-doers round about him; the world is full of them; they walk on every side. They are here described by three characters, ungodly, sinners, and scornful. See by what steps men arrive at the height of impiety. Nemo repente fit turpissimus - None reach the height of vice at once. They are ungodly first, casting off the fear of God and living in the neglect of their duty to him: but they rest not there. When the services of religion are laid aside, they come to be sinners, that is, they break out into open rebellion against God and engage in the service of sin and Satan. Omissions make way for commissions, and by these the heart is so hardened that at length they come to be scorners, that is, they openly defy all that is sacred, scoff at religion, and make a jest of sin. Thus is the way of iniquity down-hill; the bad grow worse, sinners themselves become tempters to others and advocates for Baal. The word which we translate ungodly signifies such as are unsettled, aim at no certain end and walk by no certain rule, but are at the command of every lust and at the beck of every temptation. The word for sinners signifies such as are determined for the practice of sin and set it up as their trade. The scornful are those that set their mouths against the heavens. These the good man sees with a sad heart; they are a constant vexation to his righteous soul. But, (2.) He shuns them wherever he sees them. He does not do as they do; and, that he may not, he does not converse familiarly with them. [1.] He does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He is not present at their councils, nor does he advise with them; though they are ever so witty, and subtle, and learned, if they are ungodly, they shall not be the men of his counsel. He does not consent to them, nor say as they say, Luk 23:51. He does not take his measures from their principles, nor act according to the advice which they give and take. The ungodly are forward to give their advice against religion, and it is managed so artfully that we have reason to think ourselves happy if we escape being tainted and ensnared by it. [2.] He stands not in the way of sinners; he avoids doing as they do; their way shall not be his way; he will not come into it, much less will he continue in it, as the sinner does, who sets himself in a way that is not good, Psa 36:4. He avoids (as much as may be) being where they are. That he may not imitate them, he will not associate with them, nor choose them for his companions. He does not stand in their way, to be picked up by them (Pro 7:8), but keeps as far from them as from a place or person infected with the plague, for fear of the contagion, Pro 4:14, Pro 4:15. He that would be kept from harm must keep out of harm's way. [3.] He sits not in the seat of the scornful; he does not repose himself with those that sit down secure in their wickedness and please themselves with the searedness of their own consciences. He does not associate with those that sit in close cabal to find out ways and means for the support and advancement of the devil's kingdom, or that sit in open judgment, magisterially to condemn the generation of the righteous. The seat of the drunkards is the seat of the scornful, Psa 69:12. Happy is the man that never sits in it, Hos 7:5.
2. A godly man, that he may do that which is good and cleave to it, submits to the guidance of the word of God and makes that familiar to him, Psa 1:2. This is that which keeps him out of the way of the ungodly and fortifies him against their temptations. By the words of thy lips I have kept me from the path of the deceiver, Psa 17:4. We need not court the fellowship of sinners, either for pleasure or for improvement, while we have fellowship with the word of God and with God himself in and by his word. When thou awakest it shall talk with thee, Pro 6:22. We may judge of our spiritual state by asking, "What is the law of God to us? What account do we make of it? What place has it in us?" See here, (1.) The entire affection which a good man has for the law of God: His delight is in it. He delights in it, though it be a law, a yoke, because it is the law of God, which is holy, just, and good, which he freely consents to, and so delights in, after the inner man, Rom 7:16, Rom 7:22. All who are well pleased that there is a God must be well pleased that there is a Bible, a revelation of God, of his will, and of the only way to happiness in him. (2.) The intimate acquaintance which a good man keeps up with the word of God: In that law doth he meditate day and night; and by this it appears that his delight is in it, for what we love we love to think of, Psa 119:97. To meditate in God's word is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with a close application of mind, a fixedness of thought, till we be suitably affected with those things and experience the savour and power of them in our hearts. This we must do day and night; we must have a constant habitual regard to the word of God as the rule of our actions and the spring of our comforts, and we must have it in our thoughts, accordingly, upon every occasion that occurs, whether night or day. No time is amiss for meditating on the word of God, nor is any time unseasonable for those visits. We must not only set ourselves to meditate on God's word morning and evening, at the entrance of the day and of the night, but these thought should be interwoven with the business and converse of every day and with the repose and slumbers of every night. When I awake I am still with thee.
II. An assurance given of the godly man's happiness, with which we should encourage ourselves to answer the character of such. 1. In general, he is blessed, Psa 5:1. God blesses him, and that blessing will make him happy. Blessednesses are to him, blessings of all kinds, of the upper and nether springs, enough to make him completely happy; none of the ingredients of happiness shall be wanting to him. When the psalmist undertakes to describe a blessed man, he describes a good man; for, after all, those only are happy, truly happy, that are holy, truly holy; and we are more concerned to know the way to blessedness than to know wherein that blessedness will consist. Nay, goodness and holiness are not only the way to happiness (Rev 22:14) but happiness itself; supposing there were not another life after this, yet that man is a happy man that keeps in the way of his duty. 2. His blessedness is here illustrated by a similitude (Psa 1:3): He shall be like a tree, fruitful and flourishing. This is the effect, (1.) Of his pious practice; he meditates in the law of God, turns that in succum et sanguinem - into juice and blood, and that makes him like a tree. The more we converse with the word of God the better furnished we are for every good word and work. Or, (2.) Of the promised blessing; he is blessed of the Lord, and therefore he shall be like a tree. The divine blessing produces real effects. It is the happiness of a godly man, [1.] That he is planted by the grace of God. These trees were by nature wild olives, and will continue so till they are grafted anew, and so planted by a power from above. Never any good tree grew of itself; it is the planting of the Lord, and therefore he must in it be glorified. Isa 61:3, The trees of the Lord are full of sap. [2.] That he is placed by the means of grace, here called the rivers of water, those rivers which make glad the city of our God (Psa 46:4); from these a good man receives supplies of strength and vigour, but in secret undiscerned ways. [3.] That his practices shall be fruit, abounding to a good account, Phi 4:17. To those whom God first blessed he said, Be fruitful (Gen 1:22), and still the comfort and honour of fruitfulness are a recompense for the labour of it. It is expected from those who enjoy the mercies of grace that, both in the temper of their minds and in the tenour of their lives, they comply with the intentions of that grace, and then they bring forth fruit. And, be it observed to the praise of the great dresser of the vineyard, they bring forth their fruit (that which is required of them) in due season, when it is most beautiful and most useful, improving every opportunity of doing good and doing it in its proper time. [4.] That his profession shall be preserved from blemish and decay: His leaf also shall not wither. As to those who bring forth only the leaves of profession, without any good fruit, even their leaf will wither and they shall be as much ashamed of their profession as ever they were proud of it; but, if the word of God rule in the heart, that will keep the profession green, both to our comfort and to our credit; the laurels thus won shall never wither. [5.] That prosperity shall attend him wherever he goes, soul-prosperity. Whatever he does, in conformity to the law, it shall prosper and succeed to his mind, or above his hope.
In singing these verses, being duly affected with the malignant and dangerous nature of sin, the transcendent excellencies of the divine law, and the power and efficacy of God's grace, from which our fruit is found, we must teach and admonish ourselves, and one another, to watch against sin and all approaches towards it, to converse much with the word of God, and abound in the fruit of righteousness; and, in praying over them, we must seek to God for his grace both to fortify us against every evil word and work and to furnish us for every good word and work.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Blessed is the man,.... This psalm begins in like…
Blessed is the man,.... This psalm begins in like manner as Christ's sermon on the mount, Mat 5:3; setting forth the praises and expressing the happiness of the man who is described in this verse and Psa 1:2. The words may be rendered, "O, the blessednesses of the man", or "of this man" (l); he is doubly blessed, a thrice happy and blessed man; blessed in things temporal and spiritual; happy in this world, and in that to come. He is to be praised and commended as a good man, so the Targum:
"the goodness, or, Oh, the goodness of the man;''
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or as others,
"Oh, the right goings or happy progress, or prosperous success of the man (m),''
who answers to the following characters; which right walking of his is next observed, and his prosperity in Psa 1:3. Some have interpreted this psalm of Christ, and think it is properly spoken of him (n);
that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly: all men are by nature and practice ungodly, without God, without the true knowledge, fear, and worship of God and are at enmity against him. It is a character that belongs to God's elect as well as others, while in a state of nature; and is sometimes used illustrate the love of Christ in dying for them, and the grace of God in the justification of them, Rom 4:5. But here it describes not such who are wicked in heart and life in common only, but the reprobate part of mankind, profligate and abandoned sinners, such as Jude speaks of, Jde 1:4; and for whom the law is made, and against whom it lies, Ti1 1:9. The word (o) here used signifies such who are restless and continually in mischief; who are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, ever casting up mire and dirt: they are always disquieted themselves, and are ever disquieting others; nor do they cease from being so till they are laid in their graves. And to these "counsel" is ascribed, which supposes capacity and wisdom; as, generally speaking, such are wise and prudent in natural and civil things, and are wise to do evil, though to do good they have no knowledge: and counsel implies consultation and deliberation; they act deliberately in sinning, they cast about in their minds, form schemes, and contrive ways and means how to accomplish their vicious purposes; and sometimes they enter into a confederacy, and consult together with one consent, and their counsel is generally against the Lord, though it does not prosper and prevail; and against his Christ, his people, truths and ordinances: it takes in both their principles and practices; and the sum of their counsel is to indulge themselves in sin, to throw off all religion, and to cast off the fear and worship of God, Job 21:14. Now "not to walk" herein is not to hearken to their counsel, to give into it, agree with it, pursue it, and act according to it; and happy is the man, who, though he may fall in the way of it, and may have bad counsel given him by ungodly men, yet does not consent to it, take it, and act upon it. This may be applied to the times of the Messiah, and the men of the age in which he lived; and the rather, since the next psalm, in which mention is made of the counsel of the ungodly, manifestly belongs unto them. The men of that generation were a set of ungodly men, who consulted against Christ to take away his life; and blessed is the man, as Joseph of Arimathea, who, though he was in that assembly which conspired against the life of Christ, did not walk in, nor consent unto, their counsel and their deeds, Luk 23:51;
nor standeth in the way of sinners; all men are sinners through Adam's disobedience, and their own actual transgressions, and such were the elect of God, when Christ died for them; and indeed are so after conversion, for no man lives without sin. But here it intends notorious sinners, who are open, bold, and daring in iniquity; the word (p) signifies such, who in shooting miss the mark, and go aside from it, as such sinners do from the law of God; proceed from evil to evil, choose their own ways, and delight in their abominations. Now their "way" is not only their "opinion", as the Syriac version renders it, their corrupt sentiments, but their sinful course of life; which is a way of darkness, a crooked path, and a road that leads to destruction and death: and happy is the man that does "not stand" in this way, which denotes openness, impudence, and continuance; who, though he may fall into this way, does not abide in it; see Rom 6:1. The Pharisees in the time of Christ, though they were not openly and outwardly sinners, yet they were secretly and inwardly such, Mat 23:28; and the way they stood in was that of justification by the works of the law, Rom 9:31, but happy is the man, as the Apostle Paul and others, who stands not in that way, but in the way Christ Jesus, and in the way of life and righteousness by him;
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful; by whom may be meant proud and haughty persons, in opposition to the humble and lowly, as in Pro 3:34; such who are proud of their natural abilities, knowledge, and wisdom, of their honours and riches, or of their own righteousness, and despise others; or such who are desperate in wickedness, of whom there is no hope; see Pro 9:7; and Deists and atheists, who scoff at divine revelation, and mock at a future state, at death, hell, and judgment, as in Isa 28:14. Now happy is the man that does not sit or keep company with such persons; who comes not into their secret and into their assembly; does not associate himself with them, nor approve of their dispositions, words, principles, and actions; see Psa 26:4. Such were the Scribes and Pharisees in Christ's time; they derided him and his doctrines, scoffed at him when he hung upon the cross, and despised him and his apostles, and his Gospel; but there were some that did not join with them, to whom he, his ministers, and truths, were precious and in high esteem, and to whom he was the power and wisdom of God.
(l) "beatitudines illius viri", Montanus, Vatablus, Gejerus. (m) "Recti incessus, felices progressus, ac prosperi successus", Michaelis; so Piscator. (n) Justinian. in Octapl. Psalt, in loc. Romualdus apud Mabillon. Itinerar. Ital. p. 181. (o) "significat eos qui sine quiete et indesinenter impie degunt", Vatablus. (p) "qui longissime aberrant a scopo legis"; Gerjerus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–6 This psalm was put first as a preface to…
This psalm was put first as a preface to all the rest, as a powerful persuasive to the serious study of the whole book, and of the rest of the holy scripture, taken from that blessedness which attends upon the study and practice of it. It shews us, the holiness and happiness of a good man, ver. 1-3 The sinfulness and misery of a wicked man, ver. 4, 5. The ground and reason of both, ver. 6.
Blessed - The Hebrew words are very emphatical: O the blessedness of that man! Counsel - That doth not lead his life according to their counsel, or manner of living. Standeth - Which notes a more settled abode in it. Way - In their manner of conversation. Seat - Which notes a constant and resolved perseverance in their wicked courses. Scornful - Of those who make a mock of sin, and scoff at goodness and goodmen. Divers observe a gradation in this verse; the following clause still exceeding the former, for standing is more than walking, and sitting more than standing; and sinners in scripture use, are worse than the ungodly, and the scornful are the worst of sinners.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Chronological Notes relative to the Psalms written by David,…
THE BOOK OF PSALMS
Chronological Notes relative to the Psalms written by David, upon the supposition that they were all composed in a period of about forty-seven years. See the Introduction.
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-Year from the Creation, 2942-2989.
-Year before the birth of Christ, 1058-1011.
-Year before the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 1062-1015.
-Year since the Deluge, according to Archbishop Usher, and the English Bible, 1286-1333.
-Year from the destruction of Troy, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 123-170.
-Year before the first Olympiad, 286-239.
-Year before the building of Rome, 309-262.
-Year of the Julian Period, 3652-3699.
-Year of the Dionysian Period, 460-507.
PSALM I
The blessedness of the righteous shown, in his avoiding every
appearance of evil, 1.
In his godly use of the law of the Lord, 2.
This farther pointed out under the metaphor of a good tree
planted in a good well-watered soil, 3.
The opposite state of the ungodly pointed out, under the
metaphor of chaff driven away by the wind, 4.
The miserableness of sinners, and the final happiness of the
godly, 5, 6.
NOTES ON PSALM I
Verse 1. Blessed is the man] This Psalm has no title, and has been generally considered, but without especial reason, as a preface or introduction to the whole book.
The word אשרי ashrey, which we translate blessed, is properly in the plural form, blessednesses; or may be considered as an exclamation produced by contemplating the state of the man who has taken God for his portion; O the blessedness of the man! And the word האיש haish, is emphatic: THAT man; that one among a thousand who lives for the accomplishment of the end for which God created him.
1. God made man for happiness.
2. Every man feels a desire to be happy.
3. All human beings abhor misery.
4. Happiness is the grand object of pursuit among all men.
5. But so perverted is the human heart, that it seeks happiness where it cannot be found; and in things which are naturally and morally unfit to communicate it.
6. The true way of obtaining it is here laid down.
That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly] There is a double CLIMAX in this verse, which it will be proper to note:-
There are here three characters, each exceeding the other in sinfulness.
1. The UNGODLY רשעים reshaim from רשע rasha, to be unjust; rendering to none his due; withholding from God, society, and himself, what belongs to each. Ungodly - he who has not God in him; who is without God in the world.
2. SINNERS, חטאים chattaim, from חטא chata, "to miss the mark," "to pass over the prohibited limits," "to transgress." This man not only does no good, but he does evil. The former was without God, but not desperately wicked. The latter adds outward transgression to the sinfulness of his heart.
3. SCORNFUL, לצים letsim, from לצה latsah, "to mock, deride." He who has no religion; lives in the open breach of God's laws, and turns revelation, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of an invisible world, into ridicule. He is at least a deist, and endeavours to dissolve, as much as he can, the bonds of moral obligation in civil society. As the sinner exceeds the ungodly, so the scornful exceeds both.
The second climax is found in the words,
1. Walk;
2. Stand;
3. Sit:
which mark three different degrees of evil in the conduct of those persons.
Observe,
1. The ungodly man - one uninfluenced by God.
2. The sinner - he who adds to ungodliness, transgression.
3. The scornful - the deist, atheist, c., who make a mock of every thing sacred.
The UNGODLY man walks, the SINNER stands, and the SCORNFUL man sits down in the way of iniquity.
Mark certain circumstances of their differing characters and conduct.
1. The ungodly man has his counsel
2. The sinner has his way; and,
3. The scorner has his seat.
The ungodly man is unconcerned about religion; he is neither zealous for his own salvation, nor for that of others: and he counsels and advises those with whom he converses to adopt his plan, and not trouble themselves about praying, reading, repenting, c., c. there is no need for such things live an honest life, make no fuss about religion, and you will fare well enough at last. Now, "blessed is the man who walks not in this man's counsel" who does not come into his measures, nor act according to his plan.
The sinner has his particular way of transgressing; one is a drunkard, another dishonest, another unclean. Few are given to every species of vice. There are many covetous men who abhor drunkenness; many drunkards who abhor covetousness; and so of others. Each has his easily besetting sin; therefore, says the prophet, let the wicked forsake HIS WAY. Now, blessed is he who stands not in such a man's WAY.
The scorner has brought, in reference to himself, all religion and moral feeling to an end. He has sat down-is utterly confirmed in impiety, and makes a mock at sin. His conscience is seared; and he is a believer in all unbelief. Now, blessed is the man who sits not down in his SEAT.
See the correspondent relations in this account.
1. He who walks according to the counsel of the ungodly will soon,
2. Stand to look on the way of sinners; and thus, being off his guard, he will soon be a partaker in their evil deeds.
3. He who has abandoned himself to transgression will, in all probability, soon become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin; and sit down with the scorner, and endeavour to turn religion into ridicule.
The last correspondency we find is: -
1. The seat answers to the sitting of the scornful.
2. The way answers to the standing of the sinner; and
3, the counsel answers to the walking of the ungodly.
The great lesson to be learned from the whole is, sin is progressive; one evil propensity or act leads to another. He who acts by bad counsel may soon do evil deeds; and he who abandons himself to evil doings may end his life in total apostasy from God. "When lust has conceived, it brings forth sin; and when sin is finished, it brings forth death." Solomon the son of David, adds a profitable advice to those words of his father: "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men; avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away;" Pr 4:14-15.
As the blessedness of the man is great who avoids the ways and the workers of iniquity, so his wretchedness is great who acts on the contrary: to him we must reverse the words of David: "Cursed is the man who walketh in the counsel of the ungodly; who standeth in the way of sinners; and who sitteth in the seat of the scornful." Let him that readeth understand.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Psa 1:1. Blessed is the man — The Hebrew…
Psa 1:1. Blessed is the man — The Hebrew words are very emphatical: Blessedness belongs to that man; or, O the blessedness of that man! Blessedness here means happiness. And the character of the truly happy man is described in this Psalm both negatively, in his abstaining from sin; and positively, in his practice of a most important duty, introductory to all other duties. It is then illustrated by a beautiful similitude, borrowed from vegetation; and, lastly, contrasted with the opposite character of the ungodly. In this verse we have the negative part of his character in three particulars: 1st, He walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. The word רשׁעים, reshagnim, here rendered ungodly, according to Aben Ezra, signifies inquietos, qui nunquam in eadem constitutione permanent, the restless, who are never at one stay; according to Isa 57:20: “Those,” says Henry, “who are unsettled, aim at no certain end, and walk by no certain rule;” who may indeed be moral in their conduct toward their fellow-creatures, and outwardly unblameable, but live without a due regard to God and religion, which all unconverted persons do. Now the man that is truly pious, and therefore happy, doth not walk in the counsel of such; doth not lead his life according to their advice, or manner of living; doth not associate with them, give ear to their suggestions, or follow their example. This part of the happy man’s character is put first, because those that would keep the commandments of their God must say to evil-doers, Depart from us, Psa 119:115, and because wisdom begins in departing from evil. 2d, Nor standeth in the way of sinners — Of open and notorious sinners, to be picked up and gathered with them: but he avoids as much as may be the company of such, lest he should be insnared by them, and drawn by degrees into an imitation of their practices. He keeps at a distance from them, as he would from persons or places infected with the plague, for fear of the contagion. Or, standing in their way may imply a continuance in their manner of conversation. 3d, Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful — Of those who make a mock of sin, and of God’s threatenings and judgments against sinners: who deride all wholesome reproofs and counsels, and scoff at goodness and good men. So that there seems to be a double climax, or gradation, in this verse, each following clause exceeding the former in two respects. For standing, or delaying, in an evil course, implies a greater degree of guilt than being occasionally entangled and induced to walk therein, and sitting denotes a more settled and resolved perseverance than standing. Again, the term sinners, in Scripture language, implies more wickedness than the word ungodly, and the scornful are the worst of sinners. Observe, reader, by what steps men arrive at the height of impiety. Nemo repente fit turpissimus: No one becomes very wicked all at once. They are ungodly first, casting off the fear of God, and living in the neglect of their duty to him. But they rest not there; when the services of religion are laid aside, they come to be sinners, that is, they break out into open rebellion against God, and engage in the service of sin and Satan: omissions of duty make way for the commission of crimes, and by these the heart is so hardened that at length they come to be scorners: they openly defy all that is sacred, scoff at religion, and make a jest of sin. Thus is the way of iniquity down hill; the bad grow worse, and sinners become tempters to others and advocates for Baal.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Blessed is the man - That is, his condition…
Blessed is the man - That is, his condition is a happy or a desirable one. The word used here, אשׁר 'esher means properly, “happiness” or “blessedness.” It is found, however, only in the plural form and in the construct state, and takes the nature and force of an interjection - “ O the happiness of the man!” or “O happy man!” Deu 33:29 : “happy art thou, O Israel!” 1Ki 10:8 : “happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants!” Job 5:17 : “happy is the man whom God correcteth!” Psa 2:12 : “blessed are all they that put their trust in him!” See also Psa 32:1-2; Psa 33:12; Psa 34:8; Psa 40:4; Psa 41:1; Psa 65:4; Psa 84:4-5, Psa 84:12, et al., where it is rendered “blessed.” The word is of the most general character, and, in itself, would embrace all that is supposed to constitute real happiness. The particular kind of blessedness referred to here, as explained in the subsequent part of the psalm, consists in the fact that he avoids the companionship of the wicked; that he has pleasure in the law of the Lord; that he will be prospered in this world; and that he will not perish at lasts. The word “man” here, also, is of the most general character, and is designed to include all people, of all times and of all conditions, who possess the character referred to. The term is applicable to the poor as well as to the rich; to the low as well as to the exalted; to the servant as well as to the master; alike to the aged, the middle-aged, and the young. All who have the character here described come under the general description of the happy man - the man whose condition is a happy and a desirable one.
That walketh not - Whose character is that he does not walk in the manner specified. Prof. Alexander renders this, “Who has not walked.” But it implies more than this; it refers to more than the past. It is the characteristic of the man, always and habitually, that he does not thus walk; it has not only been true in the past, but it is true in the present, and will be true in the future. It is that which distinguishes the man. The word “walk” is often used in the Scriptures to denote a way of life or conduct - since life is represented as a journey, and man as a traveler. Psa 15:2 : “who walketh uprightly.” Compare 1Ki 9:4; Deu 19:9; Deu 28:9; Psa 81:12-13; Isa 33:15.
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In the counsel - After the manner, the principles, the plans of this class of men. He does not take counsel of them as to the way in which he should live, but from the law of the Lord, Psa 1:2. This would include such things as these: he does not follow the advice of sinners, 2Sa 16:20; 1Ki 1:12; he does not execute the purposes or plans of sinners, Isa 19:3; he does not frame his life according to their views and suggestions. In his plans and purposes of life he is independent of them, and looks to some other source for the rules to guide him.
Of the ungodly - The wicked. The word used here is general, and would embrace all kinds and degrees of the unrighteous. It is not so specific, and would, in itself, not indicate as definite, or as aggravated depravity, as the terms which follow. The general sentiment here is, that the man referred to is not the companion of wicked men.
Nor standeth - This indicates more deliberation; a character more fixed and decided.
In the way - The path where they are found, or where they usually go. His standing there would be as if he waited for them, or as if he desired to be associated with them. Instead of passing along in his own regular and proper employment, he stations himself in the path where sinners usually go, and lingers and loiters there. Thus, he indicates a desire to be with them. This is often, in fact, illustrated by men who place themselves, as if they had nothing to do, in the usual situation where the wicked pass along, or where they may be met with at the corners of the streets in a great city.
Of sinners - חטאים chaṭṭâ'iym. This word means literally, those who miss the mark; then, those who err from the path of duty or rectitude. It is often used to denote any kind or degree of sin. It is more specific than the former word rendered “ungodly,” as denoting those who depart from the path of duty; who fail in regard to the great end of life; who violate positive and known obligations.
Nor sitteth - This implies still greater deliberation and determination of character than either of the other words employed. The man referred to here does not casually and accidentally walk along with them, nor put himself in their way by standing where they are ordinarily to be found; but he has become one of them by occupying a seat with them; thus deliberately associating with them. He has an established residence among the wicked; he is permanently one of their number.
In the seat - The seat which the scornful usually occupy; the place where such men converse and sit together - as in a ball-room, or in a “club,” where wicked men hold their meetings, or where infidels and scoffers are accustomed to assemble.
Of the scornful - לצים lētsiym. This word properly means those who mock, deride, scoff; those who treat virtue and religion with contempt and scorn. Pro 1:22; Pro 3:34; Pro 9:7-8; Pro 13:1; Pro 15:12, et saepe. It denotes a higher and more determined grade of wickedness than either of the other words employed, and refers to the consummation of a depraved character, the last stage of wickedness, when God and sacred things are treated with contempt and derision. There is hope of a man as long as he will treat virtue and religion with some degree of respect; there is little or none when he has reached the point in his own character in which virtue and piety are regarded only as fit subjects for ridicule and scorn. We have here, then, a beautiful double gradation or climax, in the nouns and verbs of this verse, indicating successive stages of character. There is, first, casual walking with the wicked, or accidentally falling into their company; there is then a more deliberate inclination for their society, indicated by a voluntary putting of oneself in places where they usually congregate, and standing to wait for them; and then there is a deliberate and settled purpose of associating with them, or of becoming permanently one of them, by regularly sitting among them.
So also it is in regard to the persons with whom they associate. They are, first, irreligious men in general; then, those who have so far advanced in depravity as to disregard known duty, and to violate known obligations; and then, those who become confirmed in infidelity, and who openly mock at virtue, and scoff at the claims of religion. It is unnecessary to say that, in both these respects, this is an accurate description of what actually occurs in the world. He who casually and accidentally walks with the wicked, listening to their counsel, will soon learn to place himself in their way, and to wait for them, desiring their society, and will ultimately be likely to be feared identified with open scoffers; and he who indulges in one form of depravity, or in the neglect of religion in any way, will, unless restrained and converted, be likely to run through every grade of wickedness, until he becomes a confirmed scoffer at all religion. The sentiment in this verse is, that the man who is truly blessed is a man who does none of these things. His associations and preferences are found elsewhere, as is stated in the next verse.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 1-41
THE PSALTER
FIRST BOOK
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Psalms 1-41
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Psalms 1
1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor standeth in the way of sinners,
Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord;
And in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
That bringeth forth his fruit in his season;
His leaf also shall not wither;
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
4 The ungodly are not so:
But are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous;
But the way of the ungodly shall perish.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Division and Composition. Four Codd. Kennic., and 3 De Rossi, as many of the Jews and the Fathers take the first and second Psalms together as one whole; comp. Wetstein on Act_13:33, where the Apostle Paul cites a passage from our second Psalm as from the first Psalm (according to the corrected reading). This however does not decide, for two Codd. De Rossi do not number our Psalm at all, and the Apostle Paul may have shared that conception, in accordance with which Basil calls it a “short preface” which the compiler placed before as an introduction (Calvin, Amyrald [Hupfeld, Riehm, Hitzig, et alii]). Besides some similarity in the structure of the strophes, there are, it is true, turns in the closing verse of the 2d Psalm which are strikingly similar in part to the beatitude with which the 1st Psalm begins, and in part to the threatening with which the 1st Psalm closes; and in the hagah, Psa_2:1, there is an antithetical reference to Psa_1:2. These facts cannot be overlooked. But with the diversity of subject and treatment which otherwise prevails, they do not even justify the conclusion of one and the same author, whom Hengstenberg supposes to be David, Hitzig the compiler of the Psalms. These are not without predecessors. Nevertheless, design may be acknowledged at any rate only with reference to the arrangement, and not with reference to the poetry. This is clear from the following facts: (1) that two Psalms, without titles, should stand at the beginning of a group of Psalms which have David’s name in their titles, the second of which carries out into a concrete historical situation the truth expressed in Psalms 1 in general terms; (2) that the entire first book is opened (1:1; 2:12) as well as closed (40:4; 41:1) by two Psalms, with אַשְׁרֵי ashrê. But Psalms 32 of the same book likewise begins with ashrê, so also Psalms 112; Psalms 119; Psalms 128 in a later book.
Again, the mention of David as the author by some of the Fathers and of the MSS. of the Septuagint has no historical foundation. The historical application of the subject to the persecution of David by Saul (Venema) or to the rebellion of Absalom, is a false use of history. So likewise the explanation from the circumstances of the Maccabean age (Rüdinger, Olshausen,1Hitzig). We would urge against so late a composition not so much the simplicity and freshness of the Psalm (Köster) as the following considerations: 1) The designation of the scorner leads to the sententious style of the age of Solomon, to which also the loose structure of the strophes points [Delitzsch]. 2) Psa_1:2 decidedly looks back to Jos_1:8, whereas Psa_1:3 is carried further out in Jer_17:5-8. Ezech. 19:10, 11 expresses only a corresponding thought in a similar form [Riehm]. The same idea is particularized, Psa_92:12. There is a possible allusion, 2Ch_22:5.
[Ewald supposes this Psalm to be an introduction to a more ancient and smaller collection of Psalms, giving the pith of many of them, the disposition with which an ancient poet selected and grouped them, and the spirit with which he would have them read. Delitzsch says that the collections of the prophecies of Isaiah and the Psalms are alike in that they both begin with a prologue. Barnes considers it as a general introduction to the book of Psalms, stating the general principle of the Jewish theocracy, “that a righteous life will be attended with prosperity and happiness, and that the life of the wicked will be followed by sorrow and ruin.”2 The true view is this: The Psalm was probably composed as an introduction to the earlier collection of the Davidic Psalms, made in the age of Solomon, perhaps under his direction, retaining its place at the head of the entire collection after it had been formed.—C. A. B.]
Of the three verses of the 1st strophe, two are of many members; those of the 2d strophe are all of two members, but they run along entirely parallel in their subject, that is: the description of the righteous and the wicked according to their respective behaviour and destiny.
Str. I. Psa_1:1. אַשְׁרֵי = Ashrê, etymologically, from the signification of the straight and direct course, gives the idea of welfare, grammatically, it is an exclamation of congratulation, or rather a declaration of recognition and of praise: beatitudines illius viri.3 The substantive renders the language more emphatic than the verb fin., Psa_41:2, or the partic, Pro_3:18. Luther aptly: “The prophet, when he sees that there are few such people on earth, suddenly bursts forth and says, ‘Blessed is the man.’ ”
The use of the plural to mark the abstract with emphasis is ancient, especially in the Hebrew (Ewald, Ausführliches Lehrbuch VII. Ausg. § 179).
Walketh—standeth—sitteth,etc.—The three perfects in Psa_1:1, the change of the verbal into a nominal sentence in Psa_1:2 a, the future (correctly called imperf. by Ewald) in Psa_1:2 b give a shading to the thought. This shading cannot be entirely expressed in translation owing to an entire difference between the Hebrew and the English conjugations. It is effaced by the remark of Aben Ezra that the Hebrew authors used for the present partly the preterite and partly the future. [The perfect is used to give the abstract present of our language, indicating an already long-continued and still enduring condition or characteristic, vid.Ges.Heb. Gram., edit. Rödiger XX. Auf. § 126. Ewald, § 135. Barnes: “It is the characteristic of the man, always and habitually that he does not thus walk.”—C. A. B.]
It is questionable whether the three members of Psa_1:1 form only three parallel clauses of like signification as poetical variations of the thought that we must have no intercourse at all with evil in any way (Musculus, Rosenm., De Wette, Hengst., Hupf.), or whether there is not illustrated in the choice of expression an intensification of the possible participation in the chief forms of iniquity (Aben Ezra, Stier, Delitzsch, Hitzig [Barnes)] somewhat after the type impii corde, peccatores opere, illusores ore. By the former view we are usually referred to the assertion of David Kimchi, that going, standing, and sitting are the three chief conditions of the human body when awake. The latter view is not shaken by the fact that we cannot ascribe to רשעrâsha’, etymologically the meaning of wild restlessness, and passionate agitation, whence follow disturbances of the peace (Geier et alii). Hitzig supposes from the Æthiopic that the fundamental meaning is forgetfulness (of God). Böttcher (Neue exeget. crit. Aehrenlese, II. 220), likewise from the Æthiopic interprets it as greasy, stained, soiled, and hence derives the idea of guilty. Hupfeld finds in the idiomatic use of the word a simple contrast to צדיק. This general meaning, extending far beyond the idea of guilty (Sachs), suits very well the use of the word in the 2d strophe of the Psalm. In any case the characteristics of rasha’im, given in Isa_57:20, remain essentially indisputable, and the statement is of a עצה = council of these same persons who might serve as a model and measure for the walk of others. This is shown by the construction of halach with ב. This expression always refers to the sphere of sinful emotions of the heart whether we are to think of the resolutions of the will formed within the heart or the counsel imparted to others. [Hupfeld states that עצה, like the Latin consilium, has a twofold meaning: 1) absolutely, a resolution formed within the heart; 2) relatively, working upon another either as example or advice. He thinks that it is here used in the relative sense especially as example.—C. A. B.] There is no occasion for the correction עדהêdah = congregation, company (Olsh.,Emendationen zum A. T., 1826). For there is no reference to place except in moshab, whether this word denotes dwelling (Köster), or seat (Sept., Vulg., Hengst., Schegg) as 1Sa_20:18; 1Sa_20:25, or session (Syriac, Arab. et al.) as Psa_107:32 [A. V., assembly.—C. A. B.] For derech is a figurative designation of manner of acting, conduct.
We cannot see why ’amad, with ב, should not retain the meaning of stand fast, persevere in, the more since, according to Hupfeld, we need not infer with De Wette from the fundamental meaning of חטא, “slip, fall,” that of “evil from weakness or ignorance;” but rather are brought to that of “sinning habitually.”
Moreover the description of the scorner in the proverbs of Solomon (appropriately explained by Hupfeld) reaches the climax of wickedness. In the pictorial description, however, we are not to take every expression as dogmatic. The translation of לֵץ by pestilence, which expression Schegg applies to the influence of the devil, has no support in the language. Neither is the fundamental meaning that of turning (Paulus), but partly of lisping and stammering, partly of laughing and mocking. [Hupfeld: “This is not a scorner of religion in our sense, nor one who says there is no God, because the religion of the Old Testament was not theory, but essentially disposit on, practice. He is one who is frivolous, disregarding the Almighty, making sport of all things, of the worst class of the wicked.” Barnes: “We have here a beautiful double gradation or climax, in the nouns and verbs of this verse, indicating successive stages of character; walking, standing, sitting; irreligious men in general, those who disregard known duty and violate human obligation, and those who openly mock at virtue and scoff at the claims of religion.” Hengstenberg says that “scorners of religion are as old as the fall. Isa_5:19; Jer_18:15.” Ewald: “He who meditates evil is already a רשע, one driven by passion, he who does the advised evil is חטא, a sinner, he who is already so accustomed to suppress a good conscience that he scorns and perverts good in society, is לץ, a scorner.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_1:2. On the contrary.—כִּי אִם, literally, “but if,” after negative sentences introduce the contrast with emphasis (Ewald, § 354 a). With Jos_1:8 in view, which is anticipated, Deu_6:6 sq.; Deu_11:18; Deu_17:19, we cannot doubt that the thôrah (literally instruction) does not mean here the revelation in general (Michaelis, Stier) but the written law of Moses [De Wette, Hupfeld, Hengst., et al.] (Psa_40:7, the volume of the book). The repetition of this word in the second member of the verse is not tautological, so that we could be induced to regard thôdah=praise (Paulus), and not the thôrah, as the subject of the meditation.
The remarks of Geier: “Repetitur denuo nomen legis ceu rei adeo caræ ac pretiosæ cujus vel solo nomine intime delectantur pii,” certainly misses the sense. Hagah might, in itself, be a poetical designation of discourse, Psa_35:28, especially as the etymology leads back to the idea of murmuring, and has formed the meaning of thinking, meditating, only from the point of view of discourse within the soul. But the latter signification is set aside, not so much by its connection with ב as by the phrase day and night; for there is no reason to understand the phrase as figurative of happy and unhappy times. But it does not mean a brooding over the letter in the sense of Judaism, nor any other kind of theoretical contemplation, as is shown partly by the mention of delight (literally inclination), partly from the context which is throughout practical (Clauss against De Wette) [Delitzsch beautifully: “The quiet soliloquy of investigation and meditation.”—C. A. B.]
[Day and night.—Hupfeld regards it as the usual formula for continual, perpetual, as in all languages, Psa_32:4; Psa_42:3.—C. A. B.] The expression “night” has a special appropriateness here, in that among the Jews the night was from 6 o’clock in the evening till 6 o’clock in the morning.
Psa_1:3. And so he is like a tree planted by brooks of water.—The perfect with vav consecutive shows that we have here not the reason of the beatitude, but a further expansion of it by a statement of the consequences of the conduct of the pious, just described. The etymology of פלגי (Alex. διέξοδοι) does not compel us (Hupfeld) to think of canals (De Wette). [Hupfeld: פּלג = cleave, divide. The usual name of brooks in Hebrew, as in Arabic and Æthiopic, for streams. Riehm: “Because brooks and streams cleave and divide the surface of the earth.”—C. A. B.] The double plural refers partly to the abundance of water, which is very important in the Orient; partly to the rich distribution of brooks for the fructification of every tree of that kind.4 Luther reminds us of the ever green date palms in the Jordan valley at Jericho, Sir_24:18; Deu_34:3.5 [Delitzsch: “In the relative clause the emphasis is not entirely upon בְעִתּוֹ (Calvin) but פִרְיוֹ is the first and בְעִתּוֹ the second emphatic word. The fruit expected, it affords, and indeed at the proper time, without ever in the course of the seasons disappointing the hopes.” “The fresh foliage is a figure of faith, which changes the water of life of the divine word into sap and strength, and the fruit is the figure of works which gradually ripen and spread their blessings around.”—C. A. B.]
כל cannot be nominative, for the intransitive meaning of the following verb (Sept., Vulg., Vatabl., Rosenm.) rests only upon the doubtful pointing of Jdg_18:5. The subject of the sentence is either in the causative signification Jehovah, or since this is too distant, and the transitive signification is the usual one, the pious. Some suppose that tree is the subject because עשה and צלח are used with it, Isa_5:4; Isa_37:31; Ezech. 17:9, 10; but such a repetition would be feeble and cold [Hupfeld].
Str. II. Psa_1:4. Not so.—These words are repeated at the end of the first member of Psa_1:4 by Sept., Vulg., and Syr. The following figure describes not only the destiny, but, at the same time, the condition of the wicked contrasted with the figure of the righteous, which likewise embraces both points. If this be overlooked, we mistake the close connection with Psa_1:5.
[Hupfeld, נדף = drive, or chase away. In the East the threshing-floors are in the open air, upon heights (Isa_17:13), on which the winds more readily blow the chaff away. (De Wette and Barnes, in loco; also RobinsonBib. Researches, I. 550, II. 83; SmithBib. Dict. ‘Agriculture.’) “Hence it is the usual figure of the rapid and traceless destruction of the enemies of God and the ungodly. Psa_35:5; Job_21:18; Hos_13:3; Mat_3:12. There is here also an illustration of their inner condition, their emptiness and nullity, in contrast with the good grain, which remains behind and abides.”—C. A. B.]
Psa_1:5. [Therefore. Hupfeld: “not a consequence of the moral condition of the unrighteous, as indicated in the figure of the chaff, but rather a logical consequence from Psa_1:4. From the general statement of the destiny of the unrighteous follows the special: that they are by Divine judgment severed from the congregation of God.”—C. A. B.]
Many of the older interpreters suppose that there is in קוּם an exclusion of the wicked from the resurrection (Sept. οὐκ ἀναστήσονται). But this is against the meaning of the word and the context. The judgment is not directly nor even exclusively the Messianic (Chald. and the Jewish exegetes), still less human judgment or judgment in civil cases (Rosenm.), but it is the Divine judgment, Psa_1:6. For it is made prominent in Jehovah, as well by the participle as the characteristic attribute, that He knoweth the way of the righteous. That this knowing is not only a theoretical knowledge, but a nosse cum affectu et effectu, is involved in the fact that it is Jehovah of whom this is declared. Therefore it gains the closer meaning of “acknowledge in loving care.” Yet this meaning is not to be brought into the vocabulary of the word (Kimchi, et al.). Since now the participle precedes, Psa_1:6 a merely confirms the consequences threatened before, the sure occurrence of which rests upon the fact that error and deception are excluded by the idea of Divine judgment. The most of the interpreters push inio the text itself that which should only be its consequences as a comforting application to the pious. Moreover, they often give to way, Psa_1:6, a different meaning from that of Psa_1:1, viz. (quite frequently), that of destiny, the way in which they are led. But they thereby sensibly weaken the last member of the verse, with its dreadful closing word, which leaves nothing for the way of the wicked but the prospect of Abaddon (Pro_15:11; Job_26:6; Job_28:22).
The Codd. and the ancient interpreters of the Vulgate do not read in Psa_1:5 in concilio, as the later editions corrected according to the Hebrew; but in consilio, according to the reading of the Septuagint, ἐν βουλῆ . The Vulgate follows the Sept. version likewise in Psa_1:4 b, only that, weakening the proper figure still more, it understands ὁ χνοῦς the dust; ὅν ἐκρίπτει ὁ ἄνεμος ἀπὸ προσώπου τῆς γὴς. According to our exegesis the verse does not treat of a sudden, still less of a premature, but rather of an inevitable ruin of the ungodly, bearing the character of just punishment brought on by Divine judgment; and the closing verse contains not only an expression embracing both sides of the fundamental thought, rounding off the Psalm, but it directs its glance to the inevitable and endless destruction of the wicked. [Delitzsch: “This same fearful תֹּאבֵד closes Psalms 112, which begins with אַשְׁרֵי.”—C. A. B.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. For ethical and religious consideration there is only one, yet a decided contrast among men, before which all other differences retire, that is: the contrast between the ungodly and the righteous. Their lot in time and eternity corresponds with their disposition towards God.
2. The ungodly, even, partially and for a while unite with one another, come together in societies, in which they converse about evil things to their heart’s desire, plunge ever deeper into sin, and mutually strengthen one another in their wickedness by evil counsels, bad examples, and cunning wiles. Yet only the righteous form a congregation, that is: a people of God, organized according to Divine order, based on Divine institutions, governed according to the word of God.
3. As long as the congregation of God remains in this world it is opposed not only by external bands of the wicked, but it has sinners in its own midst, partly because its true and living members are not yet perfect and sinless saints, partly because there are false brethren, hypocrites, apostate and wicked men mingled with the congregation in its external appearance, as it presents itself in moral and human forms under the influence of its relations to this world.
4. On this account the external society, connections, and points of contact are more extensive than the internal membership relations and influences. Yet this does not cause a perplexity of conscience, or a suppression of the righteous, or an equality in the lots of the evil and the good. But there are characteristics which mark the ungodly and the righteous, as well as a Divine saving and sifting judgment, and a reward corresponding with the moral and religious conduct of men.
5. The marks of the righteous are negatively, principally, their turning away from the counsels, the walk, and the companionship of the wicked; positively, their joy in the revealed word and will of God, and their occupation in meditating upon the testimony of the Lord given as the rule and guidance for our faith and life, and this without regard to the changes of the hours. Contrasted with this are the counsels of the wicked, wherein they disclose the thoughts of their heart, as their walk is opposed to the manner of life ordained by the law of the holy God, and their assembly is the opposite of the assembly for the worship of God. They are to be earnestly avoided; for it is much easier and more frequent for men, when in the circle of the scorner, to be ruled by the prevailing tone of the company, and even to be carried away with it, than to withstand it, and witness against it, and confess the Lord as those who love His word and His way.
6. The ungodly are not always, and especially not immediately at the beginning, in the lowest grade of wickedness, in which the scorner is, who cannot be taught or improved, but in the overflow of haughty presumption (Pro_21:24; comp. 1:22; 9:7, 8; 13:1; 15:12, etc.) hates correction, and scorns discipline, and replies with scoff and persecution, and in the intoxication of boasting, treats everything except himself with petulance, and especially makes sport and scorn of holy things. But the gradations of evil pass ever into one another, and often tread closely upon one another. Even the first steps are already in opposition to the will of God, and evil thoughts are no less worthy of condemnation and dangerous than evil deeds. Those only can be called happy who do not associate in any way with the ungodly, or their practices, devices, or efforts.
7. Piety gives the righteous the power to withdraw from the society of the wicked, and to withstand their temptations. It nourishes him in the marrow of his life, and strengthens him by the supply of heavenly nourishment; whilst by his absorption in the holy law of God, it sinks the roots of his life into the revealed ground of salvation, and by his delight in the instruction of the Lord, affords the constant supply of the streams of grace, which make the man who belongs to God to grow and mature in fruits of righteousness.
8. Consequently man is righteous, not by birth, or nature, or through his own power, skill, or activity, but by the Divine agency, through the means of grace which Divine mercy has established for us; as a tree planted by an abundant and flowing brook, if he, like the tree, take up into his own life from the means afforded him by God, that which is necessary to his life and growth. Then he has the experience described in 1Ti_4:8, of the blessings of righteousness.
9. Although the ungodly are in similar circumstances with the righteous, yet they derive no profit from this favorable circumstance. They are spiritually dead and withered. That which has matured in them has faded prematurely; for they have not appropriated to themselves the nourishment of life, and they have not formed in themselves the faculty for this appropriation. Without root and without sap they have not attained any vigor, nor brought forth any fruit, (Mat_21:19). Thus they have ripened only for distruction; unsubstantial and worthless as chaff; the sport of the wind, until scattered by the storm they go to destruction, and leave no trace behind but the way on which they are whirled away to a ruin whose misery is inconceivable; for the way proves itself a “lost way.”
10. This sad condition of the ungodly, as well as their terrible fate, may be for some time concealed from themselves and others, but both will be disclosed by the divine judgment, which has its foundations in the ever ruling righteousness of the Almighty, its execution in the judgment of the world; yet its operation already appears in history, judging and sifting in theocratic acts, yea, according to the threatening (Lev_20:2) with respect to certain kinds of wickedness, already vindicates itself in bitter earnest in the regular administration of justice. “If the Scriptures speak of the ungodly, then see to it that you do not refer it to the Jews, or the Heathen, or any other people, but tremble yourselves at this word, for it concerns you and means you.” (Luther).
11. There is here a strong encouragement on the one side to turn away from all kinds of iniquity, and on the other to continue in righteousness by a conscientious use of the means of grace in the possession of the congregation. For God desires a pure and holy congregation (Lev_11:44; Eph. 6:27), and He knows the way of the righteous. There is no reference here to the well-known heathen maxim: that it must fare well with the good, and ill with the wicked; but the emphasis is upon this fact that Jehovah, the God of historical revelation, who has ordained and called His people to be a righteous congregation, is also the experienced Guardian of the purity of this congregation, and the infallible Judge and Rewarder. There is a striking parallel in the New Testament, 2Ti_2:19. Now, since no one except Jesus Christ is perfectly righteous, the most of the ancient interpreters have by direct Messianic interpretation, referred the first strophe to Him, as the ever green tree of life; and since no one is justified by fulfilling the law in his own strength but by faith in Jesus Christ, many, especially of the Evangelical interpreters (Calov. Bib. Illust.) have referred to the close connection between the first Psalm, the summa legis, with the second Psalm, the summa evangelii.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Either blessed or lost—so God’s word declares, so God’s judgment warns.—The pious and the wicked are together in the world; but their ways are entirely different from beginning to end.—Man’s lot is not determined by chance, but by righteous and infallible judgment.—It is not enough to avoid this or that single sin, we must walk in the way of life.—The Divine law shows the way in which the pious walk, and keeps God Himself in view as knowing that way.—He who would remain in the congregation of the righteous must avoid the society of the wicked, whilst he must use diligently the means of grace entrusted to the congregation of God. All things finally redound to the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of the wicked. He who is planted where the waters of life flow, should appropriate them in order that he may grow as a tree of life, and bring forth fruit in his season.—The lot of the pious is as delightful as that of the wicked is terrible.—Tell me the way in which you walk and the company you keep, and I will declare to you the end which you will attain.—The things in which you delight will either make you blessed or destroy you.—Divine judgment comes certainly, strikes surely, judges righteously, and decides our everlasting weal or woe.—He who diligently seeks communion with God, will earnestly avoid intercourse with the ungodly.—How shall we distinguish between the righteous and the wicked? The one keeps God’s law with de-light, the other transgresses it with contempt: the one associates with scorners, the other remains in the congregation; the one prospers with God’s assistance, the other perishes by God’s judgment.—True fear of God receives the noblest praise, the best blessing.
Starke: A Christian is not only to avoid the commission of sin, but as far as possible is to avoid temptation.—Sin grows constantly: At first we pass it by, then we stand still, then we sit with seornera. Blessed are those who shun the beginning (Sir_21:2; Job_4:6).—It is true, believers have their greatest pleasure in the Gospel, yet the law is likewise agreeable to them in Christ, for they are freed from its curse, and it is their joy by it to know God’s will, and to fulfil it with the power given unto them.—Among other characteristics of a state of grace is this: that we have a heartfelt desire for the word of God, and indeed that we are no more tired of it than a sound body is of its daily bread. As with a palm tree, all that is in it is profitable, leaves, wood, and fruit, so also with the Christian, all that he does is to redound to the honor of the Divine name, and the benefit of his neighbors.—It is as foolish to rely upon the ungodly as to fear them—they are like chaff.—Choose in time, and prudently, the society in which you wish to remain forever.—Luk. Osiander: To err and fall is human, but to continue in error and sin is the work of the devil.—One thing is necessary; to hear and learn the word of God (Luk_10:42; Rom_1:16; 2Ti_3:16).—Selnekker: Piety and the fear of God mean: (1) to avoid false doctrine and a scandalous life; (2) to desire the law of the Lord; (3) to freely and openly confess and speak of it.—No one can know the nature and the will of God without the Divine word.—Where there is no fear of God nor truth, talent and intellect are mere poison.—We must, as the fig and palm trees, show the fruit before the leaves.—Four promises are given to those who desire and love the word of God: 1) The grace of God; 2) fruitfulness and usefulness in their calling; 3) a sure and constant employment; 4) blessing and success.—Geier: We all naturally seek happiness; but only those attain it, who seek it in the revealed word of God. All depends upon the way we choose (Mat_7:13).—Renschel: Avoid evil and keep God’s word, then you will be happy in this world and the next.—Frisch: Thou standest between two ways which lead to everlasting weal or woe. Open your eyes and choose the best.—The Psalm begins with blessing and glory, but it ends with woe, in order that where the hope of blessedness is not strong enough to encourage us to the service of God and piety, the fear of the unhappiness and misery to be endured may deter us from wickedness.—Rieger: The fear of God teaches the righteous to avoid evil, whether quiet as a counsel, or common as a way, or fixed as a seat.—Without attachment to the good the hate of wickedness is not constant.—What is there in an ungodly man? A counsel and trust in his deceit; a way and a defiance of the crowd which travel in it; a seat from which he will not be driven. But what will become of him? Because he has no weight of truth from the Divine word in himself, he will be driven away as chaff. Since he has made so light of it in his mockery, he will be obliged to experience how incapable he is of standing in the judgment. Since he has ever sought only the society of sinners he will not then remain in the congregation of the righteous when he most desires to retain a place with them. So long as they are in the way many may think that they are as good as those who are called righteous, who likewise have their faults; but the issue will be different from what they expect—Otto von Gerlach: The ungodly maintain their position by chance because it is calm, and outward circumstances are favorable to them; but since they have no vital power, no support in God, the first misfortune drives them away.—Tholuck: He who has nothing sure in heaven can have nothing firm on earth.—Taube: He who has pleasure in God’s word, exercises himself therein without ceasing.
[Matt. Henry: The ungodly are forward to give their advice against religion; and it is managed so artfully that we have reasons to bless ourselves from it, and to think ourselves happy if we escape being tainted and ensnared by it.—We must not only set ourselves to meditate upon God’s word, morning and evening, at the entrance of the day and the night, but these thoughts should be interwoven with the business and converse of every day, and with the repose and slumbers of every night.—Barnes: If a man desires permanent prosperity and happiness, it is to be found only in the ways of virtue and religion.—Spurgeon: Our worst things are often our best things. As there is a curse wrapped up in the wicked man’a mercies, so there is a blessing concealed in the righteous man’s crosses, losses, and sorrows. The trials of the saint are a divine husbandry, by which he grows and brings forth abundant fruit.—The righteous man ploughs the furrows of earth, and sows a harvest there, which shall never be fully reaped till he enters the enjoyments of eternity; but as for the wicked he ploughs the sea, and though there may seem to be a shining trail behind his keel, yet the waves pass over it, and the place that knew him shall know him no more forever. The very “way” of the ungodly shall perish.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[1][This Olshausen is an entirely different person from the author of the well-known commentary on the New Testament.]
[2][Wordsworth regards the two first Psalms “as distinct, and as constituting a general introduction to the whole book, and as addressed to the whole world; and as the whole book is a composite one, not due to David alone, these two Psalms, which are a prologue to it, are not identified with him. These two Psalms form a pair. The first of them looks backward to the law of Moses (Psa_1:2); the second looks forward to the Gospel of Christ. They join the two Testaments together. Both of them speak of the blessings of obedience, and of the malediction which is reserved for rebellion against God. They stand at the beginning of the Psalter, like a Gerizim and an Ebal;—and they reveal the awful transactions of the Great day of Doom, when the Judge will gather all nations before Him, and place some on the right hand and others on the left.”—C. A. B.]
[3][Hupfeld: Like the formula of the beatitudes, Mat_5:8-11—C. A. B.]
[4][Barnes supposes that there is an allusion to the Oriental method of making artificial rivulets to irrigate their land. He refers to the practice in Egypt and in the gardens of Damascus. This is, however, a great mistake The Psalmist alludes to those brooks or streams which, having their source in some perennial fountain, flow through the wadies and valleys, fertilizing the land. Wherever these brooks are found, as at Engedi and in the wady Urtas, their banks are crowded with a rich luxuriance of plan’s and trees. These were the favorite streams in the time of Solomon, and the Psalmist probably had them in mind, vid. Robinson Bib. Researches, l., 477, 505. Psa_46:4; Psa_65:9; Son_1:14; Son_4:12-16, etc. It is true these brooks were diverted into many channels in order that their blessing might be more widely diffused, as is the case with the Abana at the present day. Its waters are divided by art into a hundred water courses, using every drop of water to fertilize a hundred villages. But this is a derivative idea, and was not the Psalmist’s ideal, which was the living brooks from the perennial fountain—an allusion to the garden of Eden with the river of life and the tree of life, frequently alluded to in the Psalms vid., Psa_36:8 sq.; Psa_46:4, etc.—C. A. B.]
[5][The fertility of the plain of Jericho is caused by the large fountains of Es Sultân and Dûk, with the streams they pour forth over the land, vid. Rob. Bib. Researches, I, 556.—C. A. B.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–6 law--all of God's word then written, especially the books…
law--all of God's word then written, especially the books of Moses (compare Psa 119:1, Psa 119:55, Psa 119:97, &c.).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–6 1. Blessed—Hebrew, blessings. The plural may stand for intensity,…
1. Blessed—Hebrew, blessings. The plural may stand for intensity, as “O, the exceeding happiness of the man!” etc., or for the variety of blessings belonging to such a character. It is treated simply as an idiom in our version, and translated ad sensum. The blessing, (Psa_1:1-3,) is followed by the cursing, (Psa_1:4-6,) as the voice from Gerizim was by that from Ebal. Deu_26:12-13; compare Mat_7:24-27. See note on Joh_4:5.
Walketh not— “Walking” figuratively denotes the habit of daily life. The description begins with negatives and advances to the positive, in order that by contrast the picture may be the more imposing.
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Ungodly—The word is usually translated wicked, and may denote any degree of moral turpitude; but as a rhetorical climax is indicated in the verse, it is supposed to denote simply a man devoid of true piety, though in other respects moral.
Standeth—The idea is that of to persist, to abide, to persevere in, as Ecc_8:3; 2Ki_23:3.
Sinners—A generic term for all who have missed the mark, wandered out of the way— transgressors.
Sitteth in the seat—A phrase indicating a finished work of unbelief. The description given of the scorner everywhere in the book of Proverbs is the best comment on the word. His iniquity is full; there is but a step between him and eternal death. The word “seat” is translated assembly in Psa_107:32, and its radical sense would justify that rendering here, though in both cases “seat” gives a better sense.
Of the scornful—Those who treat the divine law, and all godly obligation, with contempt and derision—utter mockers. This is about the farthest point in sin to which the transgressor can go. Heb_10:29; Mat_12:31. Noticeable is the threefold parallelism of “ungodly,” “sinner,” “scornful;” further severally distinguished by “counsel,” “way,” and “seat;” through which the unwary soul passes by “walking,” “standing,” “sitting.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–6 1. More exactly:
1. More exactly:
Happy the man who hath not walked in the counsel of wicked men,
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Nor stood in the way of sinners,
Nor sat in the session of scorners.
Blessed] Or, happy: LXX μακάριος. Cp. Mat_5:3 ff. The righteous man is first described negatively and retrospectively. All his life he has observed the precept, ‘depart from evil’ (Psa_34:14).
the ungodly] Rather, wicked men: and so in Psa_1:4-6. It is the most general term in the O.T. for the ungodly in contrast to the righteous. If the primary notion of the Hebrew word râshâ is unrest (cp. Job_3:17; Isa_57:20-21), the word well expresses the disharmony which sin has brought into human nature, affecting man’s relation to God, to man, to self.
sinners] Those who miss the mark, or go astray from the path of right. The intensive form of the word shews that habitual offenders are meant. Cp. Pro_1:10 ff.
the scornful] Better, as the word is rendered in Proverbs, scorners: those who make what is good and holy the object of their ridicule. With the exception of the present passage and Isa_29:20 (cp. however Isa_28:14; Isa_28:22, R.V.; Hos_7:5) the term is peculiar to the Book of Proverbs. There ‘the scorners’ appear as a class of defiant and cynical freethinkers, in contrast and antagonism to ‘the wise.’ The root-principle of their character is a spirit of proud self-sufficiency, a contemptuous disregard for God and man (Pro_21:24). It is impossible to reform them, for they hate reproof, and will not seek instruction (Pro_13:1; Pro_15:12). If they seek for wisdom they will not find it (Pro_14:6). It is folly to argue with them (Pro_9:7-8). They are generally detested (Pro_24:9), and in the interests of peace must be banished from society (Pro_22:10). Divine judgements are in store for them, and their fate is a warning to the simple (Pro_3:34; Pro_19:25; Pro_19:29; Pro_21:11).
The three clauses of the verse with their threefold parallelism (walk, stand, sit: counsel, way, session: wicked, sinners, scorners) emphasise the godly man’s entire avoidance of association with evil and evil-doers in every form and degree. They denote successive steps in a career of evil, and form a climax:—(1) adoption of the principles of the wicked as a rule of life: (2) persistence in the practices of notorious offenders: (3) deliberate association with those who openly mock at religion. With the first clause and for the phrase counsel of the wicked cp. Mic_6:16; Jer_7:24; Job_10:3; Job_21:16; Job_22:18 : for stood &c., cp. Psa_36:4. For both clauses cp. the concrete example in 2Ch_22:3-5. With the third clause cp. Psa_26:4-5.
1–3. The happiness of the righteous.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–6 (1) Blessed.—The Hebrew word is a plural noun, from…
(1) Blessed.—The Hebrew word is a plural noun, from the root meaning to be “straight,” or “right.” Literally, Blessings to the man who, &c.
Walketh . . . standeth . . . sitteth.—Better, went, stood, sat. The good man is first described on the negative side. In the short summary of evil from which he has been saved, it is the custom of commentators to see an epitome of the whole history of sin. But the apparent gradation was a necessity of the rhythm. The three terms employed, however, for evil have distinctive significations. (1) The ungodly. Properly, restless, wanting in self-control, victims of ungoverned passion, as defined in Isa_57:20. (2) Sinners. General term for wrong-doers. (3) Scornful. A proverbial word, defined in Pro_21:24 : Aquila has “mockers;” Symmachus “impostors;” the LXX. “pests;” Vulgate “pest.” The words expressing the conduct and the career, “counsel,” “way,” are aptly chosen, and correspond with “went,” “stood.” Possibly “seat” should be “assembly.” (Comp. Psa_107:32.) It has an official sound, and without unduly pressing the language, we think of the graduation in vice which sometimes ends in deliberate preference for those who despise virtue. (Comp. Psa_26:4-5.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–6 IT is remarkable that neither the first nor the…
IT is remarkable that neither the first nor the second psalm has any title. Titles are so much the rule in the first and second books of the Psalter, that, when they are absent, their absence requires to be accounted for. As thirty-eight out of the forty-one psalms in this section are distinctly assigned to David, we must suppose that the compiler did not view this psalm as his. Perhaps he did not know the author. Perhaps, if he was himself the author, he shrank from giving himself the prominence which could not but have attached to him if his name had, in a certain sense, headed the collection. Reticence would have specially become Solomon, if he was the author.
Commentators have generally recognized that this psalm is introductory and prefatory. Jerome nays that many called it "the Preface of the Holy Ghost." Some of the Fathers did not even regard it as a psalm at nil, but as a mere preface, and so reckoned the second psalm as the first. (in many manuscripts of the New Testament, the reading is "first psalm" instead of "second psalm" in Act_13:33) The composition is, as Hengstenberg observes, "a short compendium of tile main subject of the Psalms, viz. that God has appointed salvation to the righteous, perdition to the wicked; this is the great truth with which the sacred bards grapple amid all the painful experiences of life which apparently indicate the reverse.
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The psalm divides naturally into two nearly equal portions. In vers. 1-3 the character and condition of the righteous are described, and their reward is promised them. In vers. 4-6 the condition of the wicked is considered, and their ultimate destruction predicted.
Blessed is the man; literally, blessings are to the man. But the Authorized Version exactly gives the sense. (comp. Psa_2:12) That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. The margin gives, "or wicked," and this is probably the best rendering of the word used ( The righteous man is first described negatively, under three heads.
(1) He "does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly:" i.e. he does not throw in his lot with the wicked does not participate in their projects or designs;
(2) he standeth not in the way of sinners; i.e. he does not take part in their actions, does not follow the same moral paths; and
(3) he sitteth not in the seat of the scornful; i.e. has no fellowship with them in the "scorn" which they cast upon religion. The word used for scornful (xle) is Solomonian, (Pro_1:22 Pro_3:34 Pro_13:1) but in the Psalter occurs only in this place.
Vers. 1, 2. The godly man.
This psalm nobly fills the place of prologue to the whole Book of Psalms. It reminds us of our Saviour"s words when Nathanael drew near: "Behold an Israelite indeed!" With that marvellous, condensed fulness and graphic force which peculiarly mark the Scriptures, it, draws the portrait of the godly man. If we compare the Old Testament picture of an Israelite indeed with the New Testament picture of the true believers" a good man full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, "we find no discord, only a fulness, richness, tenderness, power, in the latter, Impossible before the Light of the world shone on human hearts and lives. The one is like a clear, perfect outline; the other, like the painting which adds to the outline colour, light, and shadow.
I The godly man is described NEGATIVELY, in sharp contrast with the ungodly. They are as little to his mind as he to theirs. The Revised Version here gives a stricter rendering But our English word "ungodly" expresses the real essence of all wickedness, the secret spring of sin. (comp. Psa_54:3 Psa_36:1 Jer_2:13)
1. He is not guided by this world"s maxims, walks not "in the counsel by the rule, of those who leave God out of their reckoning. N.B. The chief thing in life is the counsel plan, ruling principles, and maxims by which it is guided. E.g. one man"s aim in life is "to die rich;" another"s motto," Short life and merry;" another"s, "To me to live is Christ.
2. His conduct, therefore, openly contrasts. "Nor standeth," etc. Closely associated, it may be, in business, society, public affairs; for else he "must needs go out of the world"; (1Co_5:10) yet, as his aim is not theirs, so their means are not his means, nor their path his path. (Pro_4:14, Pro_4:15) Business life has temptations from which recluse life is free, but also opportunities for witnessing for truth and Christ.
3. His chosen company corresponds with counsel and conduct. "Nor sitteth," etc. Not frequenting their haunts, sharing their revels, making them his bosom friends. (Pro_1:15 Pro_13:20) N.B. A steady progress in sin is indicatedwalking, standing, sitting. First, stepping aside from the right path into crooked ways in compliance with evil counsel; secondly, continuing a line of conduct conscience condemns; at last, sitting down at the banquet of sinful pleasure, conscience drugged or scared, God openly despised. A picture of how many lives once bright with hope!
II POSITIVELY, by one unmistakable, distinguishing mark: delight in God"s Law.
1. The written Word is dear to him. The primary reference is, of course, to the Law of Moses, of which every letter was dear and sacred to the devout Israelite. How much dearer should the completed Scriptures be to the Christian! (1Jn_1:1-7)
2. The deep spiritual truth of God"s Word engages his profound study, is "the rejoicing of his heart". (Jer_15:16 Col_3:16) Take Psalm 119. as the consummate expression of the value of God"s Law to a mind taught by God"s Spirit. Note the great principles embodied that God rules by law; that each of us stands in direct relation to God, as subject to his Law; that this Law is plainly revealed, N.B. No Israelite, however ungodly, could call in question the fact that God spake to and by Moses, without pouring contempt on the law and constitution of his country; this was the cornerstone.
3. He loves God"s Law as the practical guide of his life. (comp. Joh_8:12, Joh_8:31, Joh_8:32)
CONCLUSION. This picture is realized in ideal perfection in our Lord Jesus. All the severity of vers. 4-6 is found in his denunciations of the impenitent cities, of guilty Jerusalem, of the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, of wilful unbelievers. (Joh_12:48) But joined to this is the tender, sympathizing compassion, gracious humility, Divine love and forgiveness which made him "who knew no sin" the "Friend of sinners to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," as well as "able to save to the uttermost". (Heb_7:25, 26 4:15 Mat_9:10-13)
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-6. The title: The Book of Psalms: the Psalms their variety and value.
In the Book of Psalms, or, strictly speaking, in the five Books of Psalms, we have illustrations of most of the varied kinds of documents of which the entire Bible is made up. In their entirety the collection forms the Hebrews" "Book of Praise," or, as Professor Cheyne puts it, "The Praises of Israel."It is probable, however, that very few, in their private devotions, read all the Psalms with equal frequency or delight. There are some "favourites," such as Ps 23 Ps 46 Ps 145, etc. The fact is that spiritual instincts are often far in advance of technical definitions, and the heart finds out that which is of permanent value over and above its historic interest, far more quickly than the intellect defines the reason thereof. Ere we pursue the study of the Psalms one by one, it may be helpful to note the main classes into which they may be grouped, as such classification will enable us the better to set in order the relation which each one bears to "the whole counsel of God." In the last of the Homiletics on Deuteronomy by the present writer, there is a threefold result indicated of communion between the Spirit of God and the spirit of man. When such fellowship is in the devotional sphere, it subserves the life of religion; when the Spirit of God impels to the going forth on a mission or the writing of a record, that is inspiration; when the Spirit of God discloses new truth or forecasts the future, that is revelation. These three divisions indicate three main groups under which the Psalms may be classified. For the most part, each one speaks for itself, and with sufficient clearness indicates to which of the three groups it belongs; and according to the group in which it is found will be the value and bearing of the psalm on the believers experience, faith, and life.
I MANY OF THE PSALMS ARE THE OUTCOME OF PRIVATE OR PUBLIC DEVOTION. It is in these that we get a priceless glimpse into the heart work of Old Testament saints, and see how constant was their habit of pouring out their souls to God. Ps 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, et alii, are illustrations of this. Whether the soul was elated by joy or oppressed with care, whether bowed down with fear or rejoicing over a great deliverance, whether the presence of God was enjoyed or whether his face was hidden, whether the spirit was soaring in rapture or sinking in dismay, amid all changes, from the overhanging of the blackest thundercloud to the beaming of the brightest sunshine, all is told to God in song, or plea, or moan, or plaint, or wail, as if the ancient believers had such confidence in God that riley could tell him anything! Many of these private prayers bear marks of limited knowledge and imperfect conception, and are by no means to be taken as models for us. But no saint ever did or could in prayer rise above the level of his own knowledge. Still, they knew that God heard and answered, not according to their thoughts, but according to his loving-kindness; hence they poured out their whole souls to God, whether in gladness or sadness. And so may we; and God will do exceeding abundantly for us above all that we ask or think.
II ANOTHER GROUP OF PSALMS CONSISTS OF THOSE WHICH ARE THE PRODUCTS OF ANOTHER FORM OF DIVINE INSPIRATION. These are not necessarily addresses to God; they are, for the most part, an inspired and inspiriting rehearsal of the mighty acts of the Lord, and a call to the people of God to join in the song of praise. Ps 33, 46, 48, 78, 81, 89, and many others, are illustrations of this. At the back of them all there is a revelation of God known, accepted, and enjoyed. And according to this great and glorious redemption are the people exhorted to join in songs of praise. There is, moreover, this distinction, for the most part, between the first group and the second the first group reflects the passing moods of man; the second reflects the revealed character and ways of God. The first group is mostly for private use, as the.moods of the soul may respond thereto; the. second group is also for sanctuary song, and indicates the permanent theme of the believer"s faith and hope, even "the salvation of God." With regard to the first group we may say, "As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." As to the second, the motto might be, "The Lord hath made known his salvation: therefore with our songs we will praise him." Under this head may also be set those calmly and sweetly meditative psalms, such as Ps 23 Ps 32, in which God"s revelation of his works and ways gives its own hue to the musings of the saint. These are now the delight of believers, in public and in private worship, as the expression of an experience which is renewed in regenerate hearts age after age. None of them could possibly be accounted for by the psychology of the natural man; they accord only with the pneumatology of the spiritual man.
III THE THIRD GROUP OF PSALMS CONSISTS OF THOSE IN WHICH THERE IS A DIRECT OR INDIRECT MESSIANIC REFERENCE AND FORECAST. Of these there are three kinds.
1. There are those directly and exclusively Messianic, such as Ps 2, 45, 47, 72, 110. Of all these, the second psalm is, perhaps, throughout, as much as any of the psalms, clearly and distinctly applicable to the Coming One, and to him only. For the purpose of seeing and showing this, it may well be carefully studied. Every verse, every phrase, every word, tells; in fact, even the glorious fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is scarcely more clearly Messianic than the second psalm. Even Professor Cheyne is compelled to admit its Messianic reference, and he tells us that Ibn Ezra does so likewise. And that some of the psalms apply to the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord himself assures us. (Luk_24:44) And in an age like this, when destructive criticism is so popular, it is needful for the believing student to be the more accurate, clear, and firm.
2. Some psalms point to the era rather than to the Person of the Messiah. Such are the fiftieth and the eighty-seventh psalms. They are prophetic expositions of truths which pertain to the Messianic times, and receive their full elucidation from the developed expositions of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament; they cover the ground of the Messianic age.
3. Other psalms refer immediately to the writer himself, and have come to be regarded as Messianic because some of the words therein were quoted the Lord Jesus Christ and adopted as his own. Such a one is the twenty-second psalm, in which the writer bemoans his own sufferings and (according to the LXX) his own transgressions. But it is not possible to apply every verse of this psalm to the Lord Jesus. He, however, being in all things made like unto his brethren, was "in all points tempted like as we are;" hence the very groans of his brethren fitted his own lips. He came to have fellowship with us in our sufferings that we might have fellowship with him in his! Thus there is established a marvellously close sympathy between Jesus and his saints, since his temptations, sorrows, and groans resembled theirs, To this discriminating and believing study of the first fifty psalms, the writer ventures to invite the Christian student and expositor. We must avoid the extreme of those who, with Home, would reheard most, if not all, the psalms as Messianic; and also the extreme of those who would regard none as such. Because our Lord said that all things must be fulfilled that were written in the Psalms concerning him, we may not infer that words which were written concerning him filled up all the Psalms; nor, with the unbeliever, may we regard the claim of prophecy as invalid through any repugnance to the supernatural. Intelligent discernment and loving faith are twin sisters; may they both be our attendants during our survey of these priceless productions of Hebrew pens! And may the Spirit of God be himself our Light and our Guide! C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-6. The happy man.
The word "blessed" means" happy." The phrase used might, indeed, be rendered, "Hail to the man," etc.! The psalm itself may be called "a psalm of congratulations," for the psalmist regards the man whom he here describes as one who has great reason for gladness, and who therefore may be fittingly congratulated. Ages ago the heathen said, "Call no man happy till he is dead." But we have before us the picture of one who is certainly happy even now; who has a joy, of which neither crosses nor losses can deprive him; who will be happy as long as he lives; and who has still more happiness in store for him when death is past. It may be asked whether it is the highest kind of virtue to aim at being happy, or whether it is the noblest inducement to it to assure us that to be virtuous is to be happy? Perhaps not. But such a question could scarcely be asked unless the point of the psalm is altogether missed; for the psalmist is not speaking of the good man as happy because he is aiming at happiness, but as being so because he follows the Law of God, and finds joy therein, without seeking for joy for its own sake. And, anyway, if it be so that God has annexed joy to a life of loyalty to him, it cannot make such loyalty less desirable if it is crowned with gladness of heart. But, as we hope to point out shortly, the personal happiness is but a very small part of the "blessedness" which the good man possesses. Let us consider
I THE LIFE HERE DESCRIBED. Several marks are furnished to us here of "the Messed man.
1. Negative. He is wisely careful not to have evil companionship. He knows that "he that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." Hence he shuns
(1) the ungodly those who have no fear of God before their eyes, and are perpetually restless in their self-will;
(2) the sinners those who indulge in open sin;
(3) the scornful these who ridicule religion and. laugh at such as fear the Lord. His separation from such is complete.
He will neither
(1) follow their counsel; nor
(2) sit in their seat; nor even
(3) stand in their way.
Note: If ever a man is to become wise, he must not mix promiscuously with others. We know well, in penning these words, that we are liable to the remark from some readers, "How commonplace!" We admit it. But it is just by non-attention to commonplace truth that millions are undone. We cannot reiterate too frequently, "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men.
2. Positive. In avoiding evil, he does not throw himself upon a blank. But it is remarkable that, as the antitheses of "ungodly, sinners," "scornful," we do not get "godly" "pure; "reverent." The fact is, the man whom this psalm describes will not be supremely anxious to have any companions. If he cannot have the right ones, he will do without them. And yet he will not be lonely. For the Law of Jehovah, the revealed covenant of God, wilt be before his eyes and in his heart. And herein he will have a safe guide for the pathway he should follow. In thus following God"s Law, he will have:
(1) Ample material for thought. "In his Law doth he meditate day and night" (ver. 2). "The Hebrew word torah has a much wider range of meaning than "law," by which it is always rendered in the Authorized Version. It denotes
(a) teaching, instruction, whether human (Pro_1:8) or Divine;
(b) a precept or law; a body of laws, and in particular the Mosaic Law, and so, finally, the Pentateuch. It should be taken to include all Divine revelation as the guide of life." We do not understand the psalmist as meaning that such a man will always be thinking of one topic.
But that
(a) by day he will use the Law of God as a direction-post to point the way;
(b) by night he will use it as a pillow on which to rest his head. For in the Law there are revealed to him mercy, forgiveness, sacrifice, intercession, grace, strength. He will enthrone the Word of God in the place of honour, above all other books in the world. Some may raise a difficulty hers, saying, "Yes; in the psalmist"s time that might have been so. Then the sacred books of the Hebrews comprised their national history and their religious literature. There was not so much to call off men"s thoughts from the Bible as there is now." That is so. But, nevertheless, the following facts remain: That in the Bible is the only authoritative revelation of the mind and will of God; that our Scriptures are to us a far richer treasure than the Scriptures of the psalmist"s time; that therein we have the only guide through life to immortality. Other books may inform the mind. The Bible still retains its supremacy as the book to regulate the life. Hence in the Bible the believer has:
(2) Rich nutriment for character. Hence he is described as "a tree planted by the rivers of water". (see also Jer_17:8) Psalmist and prophetagree. The Scriptures reveal God. In God the believer puts his trust. So that the study of the book makes him like a fruitful tree, because it leads up to God. Thus there will be
(a) unfailing supplies;
(b) fruit in season;
(c) a fadeless leaf;
(d) entire success. "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
II SUCH A LIFE HAS ITS OWN OUTLOOK AND DESTINY. As the man is now, so is his uplook and outlook here and hereafter.
1. There is now Divine approval. "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous.
2. His work and way will be influential for good long after he has ceased to live below. (Ver. 6)
3. He will be approved at the judgment-day. (Ver. 5) He will be found "in the congregation of the righteous." And all this is sot forth even more strikingly by the hints here given of the destiny of those with whom he would not be associated. As the Vulgate most touchingly has it, "Non sic impii, non sic." As he would not mingle with them here, he shall not be thrown with them hereafter. They will be as "chaff which the wind driveth away." Their quality, as chaff. Their destiny, as chaff. Terrible! How blessed to have a different destiny separately assigned, as the result of a course separately chosen!
III THE BLESSEDNESS OF SUCH A LIFE IS HERE DECLARED AND DEFINED. If we put the question, "By whom is this blessedness pronounced?" the answer is:
1. They are intrinsically blessed, ipso facto, in being what they are. They are right, good, glad, strong, full of living hope.
2. In the judgment of all good men they are blessed, and even men who are not godly know that a life spent in accordance with the will of God is the truly right one.
3. The Lord Jesus Christ declares them to be so now. (Mat_5:1-11)
4. At the last judgment the King will confirm the blessing. Note: The purposes to be served by such a psalm as this are manifold.
They are independent of its author, age, or land.
1. To parents this psalm is a treasure of infinite value, as giving them in outline what they may well desire their children to be; and the place of honour the Bible should occupy in their children"s hearts.
2. To teachers. It discloses to them the life to be urged on their scholars, and tells them whence alone the nutriment for such a life can be drawn.
3. To children. It shows them that true happiness, in the highest sense, is attained only through true goodness; that true goodness can only be attained by feeding on the truth of Cod; and that to such a God-like character there is ensured everlasting life, an ever-during home. "Light is sown for the righteous. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-6. The blessedness of the true.
"God is Love." He must, therefore, seek the happiness of his creatures. Man is the highest of his earthly creatures, and his happiness must be of the highest kind, not only fit for him to receive, but worthy of to bestow. Such is the happiness here depicted. It does not come anyhow, but in accordance with law. It does not depend upon what a man has, but upon what he is. It is inward, not outward. It is of the spirit, not of the flesh. Happiness is blessedness the blessedness of the true in character.
I MARK THE FOUNDATION. Sin is self-will. This implies separation from God; and this separation must be final, unless God himself prevent. But the godly man has been brought back into a right relation to God. God"s will is his will. To know and to love and to obey God is his delight. His life is centred in God. Thus he is able to receive the blessing in its fulness, which God is ready freely to bestow. His character is founded upon the rock of the eternal, and not upon the shifting sands of time.
II Mark next THE HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT. This is shown under the figure of a tree, fair and flourishing.
1. The situation is choice. It stands, not in the desert, but in a fit place. "Planted." The hand of God is seen in the godly man"s life. This is his security. Where God has put him, God can keep him.
2. The environment is favorable. From the heavens above sad the earth beneath nourishment is provided. The supply is rich and sure. Though worldly supplies may cease, and the waters of earth fail, (Isa_19:5) the river of God will still run free. (1Ki_18:5 Isa_55:1-3)
3. The progress is appropriate. There is the power of assimilating. (Mar_4:27, 28) Life develops according to its own order. What the plant does unconsciously, subject to the law of its being, the godly man does freely and consciously, under the benign rule of Christ.
III Lastly, mark THE CONSUMMATION. God"s work always tends to completeness. Every advance is an approach. Every fulfilment is a prophecy of the perfect end. In the life of the godly there is the truest pleasure, the noblest usefulness, the heavenliest beauty. And the charm of all is permanence. There is not only moral freshness, as where there is real soundness of health, but there is enduringness. This is brought out vividly by contrast. "The ungodly are not so." With them there is no reality. Separated from the true life, everything is unstable and uncertain. There may be a kind of prosperity, but it is false and delusive. The pleasures of sin are but for a season; but the love of God is for ever. In the day of trial the just shall stand, accepted and blessed; but the wicked shall be winnowed out of the society of the true Israel, and swept away, as the worthless chaff, by the swift and resistless judgment of God. W.F.
Vers. 1-6. Character.
This psalm supplies us with
I TEST OF CHARACTER. A man is known by the company he keeps. What doest thou, O my soul? With whom dost thou "walk" and "sit"? (Psa_119:63)
II RULE OF LIFE. What should we do? Surely the right thing is to ask counsel of God, and to submit ourselves to his holy and blessed rule. Let us do this, and we shall not only have life, (Psa_40:8) but food; (Joh_4:44) and not only food, but society; (Mat_12:50) and not only society, but education; (Psa_143:10) and not only education, but joy unspeakable and full of glory. (Psa_119:65 1Pe_1:8) "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever". (1Jn_2:16, 1Jn_2:17)
III FORESHADOWING OF DESTINY. Acts fix habits, habits settle character, and character determines destiny. "The wind" may represent the various trials which meet us, and which so far show what we are and whither we are going. By conscience, by public opinion, by experience of the results of conduct, we am premonished of the coming end and the perfect judgment of God. Thus, not in an arbitrary way, but by our own deeds and life, our destiny for weal or woe is being settled. Eternity is the harvest of time. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. W.F.
Vers. 1-6. Greatness, happiness, prosperity.
We learn here the true ides of
I GREATNESS. It is not mere intellectual power, but moral worth. Greatness is goodness the being like God.
II HAPPINESS. It is living together with God, doing his will, in the light and joy of his love.
III PROSPERITY. It is of the soul the true health of the soul. (3Jn_1:2) Its measure is personal activity. Deeds carry social influence. The weak and the unfortunate are too often despised, but let a man be true, let him stand up for the right, let him honestly serve God in his day and generation, and he will not only have peace within, but he wilt be "blessed in his deed." His influence will work for good, and will live and move others to noble ends when he himself is gone. "Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love, Our happiness, and all that we have been: Immortally must live, and burn, and move, When we shall be no more. W.F.
Vers. 1-6. Blessedness.
The word "blessed" might Be rendered "blessings." God"s people are blessed. (Num_6:24 Mat_5:1-10)
I There is the blessing of PEACE. The fruit of righteousness is peace. The heart is right with God.
II The Messing of a TRUE PURPOSE. Not gain, nor pleasure, nor merely to save the soul, but to do God"s will. This is the supreme thing. This gives strength to the heart and unity to the life.
III The blessing of the NOBLEST SOCIETY. Into what a goodly fellowship do we enter as we join the company of God"s people! The saints are our brethren; holy angels are our ministers; Christ is our abiding Friend.
IV The blessing of MORAL ADVANCEMENT. Our path is onward. The more good,a man does the nobler he becomes. By every act of self-denial and virtue he rises in dignity and strength.
V The blessing of SPIRITUAL USEFULNESS. Only the good can do good. To augment the happiness of others is the sweetest pleasure.
VI The blessing OF A BRIGHT FUTURE. Life"s interests are secured. The outlook, though at times clouded, ends in light.
VII The BLESSING OF GOD"S ETERNAL LOVE. (Ver. 6, "knoweth.") "There is nothing in the world worth living for, but doing good and finishing God"s work doing the work Christ did" (Brainerd). W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-6. A contrast.
This psalm is introductory to all the rest, perhaps written after the finding of the "book of the Law" in Josiah"s time, in an age of revival, when men were roused to consider the conflict between good and evil, and who were the truly Messed, and on what their blessedness was grounded. There is a contrast drawn in it between the righteous and the wicked.
I THE CHARACTER AND PRIVILEGES OF THE RIGHTEOUS.
1. They have no sympathetic relations with the wicked. (Ver. 1) They cannot help having some associations with them; but they do not walk with them, nor stand with them, nor sit with them, as they do with congenial friends. This description suggests the progress of the wicked. Walking only with a man we may soon part from him; but if we stand with him we linger in his company, and at last come to sit with him, scorning all goodness.
2. Irresistibly attracted to the Divine Law. (Ver. 2) He is "in" it with all his affection and with his unceasing thought, rather than the Law is "in" him. Though both are true, i.e. , it solicits, commands, and absorbs him, and rules the world of thought, affection, and imagination.
3. They are fruitful according to the time and circumstances of their Lives.(ver. 3) In youth, mature manhood, and ripe age. Patient in affliction, constant in trial, grateful in prosperity, and zealous when opportunity of work offers itself.
4. Unfading freshness of heart and experience (Ver. 3) His life is progressive, his faith grows deeper, and his power of achievement increase, and his hope becomes brighter, and his affections purer, and he blossoms with a green freshness for ever.
5. He prospers in hi, undertakings. (Ver. 3) As a general rule, because he deserves it; for he aims at only right and lawful things, and employs only right and lawful means.
II CHARACTER AND DESTINY OF THE WICKED.
1. Intrinsic worthlessness. (Ver. 4) Dead, unserviceable, without substance, and easily carried away dispersed by the wind. This is only s negative description, as a contrast with the living tree and its fruit. It says nothing of such a man"s poisonous influence.
2. Unable to endure the scrutiny of the great Lawgiver. (Ver. 5) One inquiring glance of God shatters the whole structure of his life. God does not "know" his way. "I never knew you.
3. Their relation to the Church only an outward one. (Ver. 5) Though they mingle with the congregation, they do not really "stand with them.
4. Their habits of life are destructive. (Ver. 6) Their "way" is not the way everlasting, but leads to perdition, if it be not forsaken. S.
Vers. 1-3. True blessedness.
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful," etc.
I THE NATURE OF TRUE BLESSEDNESS.
1. Vigorous life of the soul. "Like a tree planted," etc. The blessedness of the body is vigorous health.
2. Productiveness. Bringeth forth his fruit in his season. It must grow before it becomes fruitful.
3. Perpetuity of life. "His leaf also shall not wither.
4. Success in his undertakings. "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Success in the greatest undertaking, the true blessedness.
II THE MEANS OF BLESSEDNESS.
1. To shun the company and the counsels of the ungodly. Standing in their way, partaking in their designs.
2. Delight in Divine truth.
3. Persevering study of it. Converting it into juice and blood. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv1–6 My Preface shall at least possess the virtue of…
My Preface shall at least possess the virtue of brevity, as I find it difficult to impart to it any other.
The delightful study of the Psalms has yielded me boundless profit and ever-growing pleasure; common gratitude constrains me to communicate to others a portion of the benefit, with the prayer that it may induce them to search further for themselves. That I have nothing better of my own to offer upon this peerless book is to me matter of deepest regret; that I have anything whatever to present is subject for devout gratitude to the Lord of grace. I have done my best, but, conscious of many defects, I heartily wish I could have done far better.
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The Exposition here given is my own. I consulted a few authors before penning it, to aid me in interpretation and arouse my thoughts; but, still I can claim originality for my comments, at least so I honestly think. Whether they are better or worse for that, I know not; at least I know I have sought heavenly guidance while writing them, and therefore I look for a blessing on the printing of them.
The collection of quotations was an after-thought. In fact, matter grew upon me which I thought too good to throw away. It seemed to me that it might prove serviceable to others, if I reserved portions of my reading upon the various Psalms; those reserves soon acquired considerable bulk, so much so that even in this volume only specimens are given and not the bulk.
One thing the reader will please clearly to understand, and I beg him to bear it in mind; "I am far from endorsing all I have quoted". I am neither responsible for the scholarship or orthodoxy of the writers. The names are given that each author may bear his own burden; and a variety of writers have been quoted that the thoughts of many minds might be before the reader. Still I trust nothing evil has been admitted; if it be so it is an oversight.
The research expended on this volume would have occupied far too much of my time, had not my friend and amanuensis Mr. John L. Keys, most diligently aided me in investigations at the British Museum, Dr. William's Library, and other treasuries of theological lore. With his help I have ransacked books by the hundred, often without finding a memorable line as a reward, but at other times with the most satisfactory result. Readers little know how great labour the finding of but one pertinent extract may involve; labour certainly I have not spared: my earnest prayer is that some measure of good may come of it to my brethren in the ministry and to the church at large.
The Hints to the Village Preacher are very simple, and an apology is due to my ministerial readers for inserting them, but I humbly hope they may render assistance to those for whom alone they are designed, viz., lay preachers whose time is much occupied, and whose attainments are slender.
Should this first volume meet with the approbation of the judicious, I shall hope by God's grace to continue the work as rapidly as I can consistently with the research demanded and my incessant pastoral duties. Another volume will follow in all probability in twelve months' time, if life be spared and strength be given.
It may be added, that although the comments were the work of my health, the rest of the volume is the product of my sickness. When protracted illness and weakness laid me aside from daily preaching, I resorted to my pen as an available means of doing good. I would have preached had I been able, but as my Master denied me the privilege of thus serving him, I gladly availed myself of the other method of bearing testimony for his name. O that he may give me fruit in this field also, and his shall be all the praise.
C. H. Spurgeon
Clapham, December, 1869.
This Psalm may be regarded as THE PREFACE PSALM, having in it a notification of the contents of the entire Book. It is the psalmists's desire to teach us the way to blessedness, and to warn us of the sure destruction of sinners. This, then, is the matter of the first Psalm, which may be looked upon, in some respects, as the text upon which the whole of the Psalms make up a divine sermon.
This Psalm consists of two parts: in the first (from verse 1 to the end of the 3rd) David sets out wherein the felicity and blessedness of a godly man consisteth, what his exercises are, and what blessings he shall receive from the Lord. In the second part (from verse 4 to the end) he contrasts the state and character of the ungodly, reveals the future, and describes, in telling language, his ultimate doom.
Verse 1. "BLESSED" - see how this Book of Psalms opens with a benediction, even as did the famous Sermon of our Lord upon the Mount! The word translated "blessed" is a very expressive one. The original word is plural, and it is a controverted matter whether it is an adjective or a substantive. Hence we may learn the multiplicity of the blessings which shall rest upon the man whom God hath justified, and the perfection and greatness of the blessedness he shall enjoy. We might read it, "Oh, the blessednesses!" and we may well regard it (as Ainsworth does) as a joyful acclamation of the gracious man's felicity. May the like benediction rest on us!
Here the gracious man is described both negatively (verse 1) and positively (verse 2). He is a man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He takes wiser counsel, and walks in the commandments of the Lord his God. To him the ways of piety are paths of peace and pleasantness. His footsteps are ordered by the Word of God, and not by the cunning and wicked devices of carnal men. It is a rich sign of inward grace when the outward walk is changed, and when ungodliness is put far from our actions. Note next, he standeth not in the way of sinners. His company is of a choicer sort than it was. Although a sinner himself, he is now a blood-washed sinner, quickened by the Holy Spirit, and renewed in heart. Standing by the rich grace of God in the congregation of the righteous, he dares not herd with the multitude that do evil. Again it is said, "nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." He finds no rest in the atheist's scoffings. Let others make a mock of sin, of eternity, of hell and heaven, and of the Eternal God; this man has learned better philosophy than that of the infidel, and has too much sense of God's presence to endure to hear His name blasphemed. The seat of the scorner may be very lofty, but it is very near to the gate of hell; let us flee from it, for it shall soon be empty, and destruction shall swallow up the man who sits therein. Mark the gradation in the first verse:
He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor standeth in the way of sinners,
Nor SITTETH in the SEAT of SCORNFUL.
When men are living in sin they go from bad to worse. At first they merely walk in the counsel of the careless and ungodly, who forget God - the evil is rather practical than habitual - but after that, they become habituated to evil, and they stand in the way of open sinners who wilfully violate God's commandments; and if let alone, they go one step further, and become themselves pestilent teachers and tempters of others, and thus they sit in the seat of the scornful. They have taken their degree in vice, and as true Doctors of Damnation they are installed, and are looked up to by others as Masters in Belial. But the blessed man, the man to whom all the blessings of God belong, can hold no communion with such characters as these. He keeps himself pure from these lepers; he puts away evil things from him as garments spotted by the flesh; he comes out from among the wicked, and goes without the camp, bearing the reproach of Christ. O for grace to be thus separate from sinners.
Whole Psalm. As the book of the Canticles is called the Song of Songs by a Hebraism, it being the most excellent, so this Psalm may not unfitly be entitled, the Psalm of Psalms, for it contains in it the very pith and quintessence of Christianity. What Jerome saith on St. Paul's epistles, the same may I say of this Psalm; it is short as to the composure, but full of length and strength as to the matter. This Psalm carries blessedness in the frontpiece; it begins where we all hope to end: it may well be called a Christian's Guide, for it discovers the quicksands where the wicked sink down in perdition, and the firm ground on which the saints tread to glory. Thomas Watson's Saints Spiritual Delight, 1660.
Whole Psalm. This whole Psalm offers itself to be drawn into these two opposite propositions: a godly man is blessed, a wicked man is miserable; which seem to stand as two challenges, made by the prophet: one, that he will maintain a godly man against all comers, to be the only Jason for winning the golden fleece of blessedness; the other, that albeit the ungodly make a show in the world of being happy, yet they of all men are most miserable.
Sir Richard Baker, 1640
Whole Psalm. I have been induced to embrace the opinion of some among the ancient interpreters (Augustine, Jerome, etc.), who conceive that the first Psalm is intended to be descriptive of the character and reward of the JUST ONE, i.e. the Lord Jesus.
John Fry, B.A., 1842
Verse 1. The psalmist saith more to the point about true happiness in this short Psalm than any one of the philosophers, or all of them put together; they did but beat the bush, God hath here put the bird into our hand.
John Trapp, 1660
Verse 1. Where the word blessed is hung out as a sign, we may be sure that we shall find a godly man within.
Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 1. The seat of the drunkard is the seat of the scornful.
Matthew Henry, 1662 - 1714
Verse 1. "Walketh NOT....NOR standeth....NOR sitteth," etc.
Negative precepts are in some cases more absolute and peremptory than affirmatives; for to say, "that hath walketh in the counsel of the godly," might not be sufficient; for, he might walk in the counsel of the godly, and yet walk in the counsel of the ungodly too; not both indeed at once, but both at several times; where now, this negative clears him at all times.
Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 1. The word (Heb) haish is emphatic, that man; that one among a thousand who lives for the accomplishment of the end for which God created him.
Adam Clarke, 1844
Verse 1. "That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly." Mark certain circumstances of their differing characters and conduct.
I. The ungodly man has his counsel.
II. The sinner has his way; and
III. The scorner has his seat.
The ungodly man is unconcerned about religion; he is neither zealous for his own salvation nor for that of others; and he counsels and advises those with whom he converses to adopt his plan, and not trouble themselves about praying, reading, repentance, etc., etc.; "there is no need for such things; live an honest life, make no fuss about religion, and you will fare well enough at last." Now "blessed is the man who walks not in this man's counsel," who does not come into his measures, nor act according to his plan.
The sinner has his particular way of transgressing; one is a drunkard, another dishonest, another unclean. Few are given to every species of vice. There are many covetous men who abhor drunkenness, many drunkards who abhor covetousness; and so of others. Each has his easily besetting sin; therefore, says the prophet, "Let the wicked forsake HIS WAY." (Isaiah 55:7) Now, blessed is he who stands not is such a man's WAY.
The scorner has brought, in reference to himself, all religion and moral feeling to an end. He has sat down is utterly confirmed in impiety, and makes a mock at sin. His conscience is seared, and he is a believer in all unbelief. Now, blessed is the man who sits not down in his SEAT.
Adam Clarke.
Verse 1. In the Hebrew, the word "blessed" is a plural noun, ashrey (blessednesses), that is, all blessednesses are the portion of that man who has not gone away, etc.; as though it were said, "All things are well with that man who," etc. Why do you hold any dispute? Why draw vain conclusions? If a man has found that pearl of great price, to love the law of God and to be separate from the ungodly, all blessednesses belong to that man; but, if he does not find this jewel, he will seek for all blessednesses but will never find one! For as all things are pure unto the pure, so all things are lovely unto the loving, all things good unto the good; and, universally, such as thou art thyself, such is God himself unto thee, though he is not a creature. He is perverse unto the perverse, and holy unto the holy. Hence nothing can be good or saving unto him who is evil: nothing sweet unto him unto whom the law of God is not sweet. The word "counsel" is without doubt here to be received as signifying decrees and doctrines, seeing that no society of men exists without being formed and preserved by decrees and laws. David, however, by this term strikes at the pride and reprobate temerity of the ungodly. First, because they will not humble themselves so far as to walk in the law of the Lord, but rule themselves by their own counsel. And then he calls it their "counsel," because it is their prudence, and the way that seems to them to be without error. For this is the destruction of the ungodly their being prudent in their own eyes and in their own esteem, and clothing their errors in the garb of prudence and of the right way. For if they came to men in the open garb of error, it would not be so distinguishing a mark of blessedness not to walk with them. But David does not here say, "in the folly of the ungodly," or "in the error of the ungodly;" and therefore he admonishes us to guard with all diligence against the appearance of what is right, that the devil transformed into an angel of light do not seduce us by his craftiness. And he contrasts the counsel of the wicked with the law of the Lord, that we may learn to beware of wolves in sheep's clothing, who are always ready to give counsel to all, to teach all, and to offer assistance unto all, when they are of all men least qualified to do so. The term "stood" descriptively represents their obstinacy, and stiff-neckedness, wherein they harden themselves and make their excuses in words of malice, having become incorrigible in their ungodliness. For "to stand," in the figurative manner of Scripture expression, signifies to be firm and fixed: as in Romans 14:4, "To his own master he standeth or falleth: yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand." Hence the word "column" is by the Hebrew derived from their verb "to stand," as is the word statue among the Latins. For this is the very self-excuse and self-hardening of the ungodly their appearing to themselves to live rightly, and to shine in the eternal show of works above all others. With respect to the term "seat," to sit in the seat, is to teach, to act the instructor and teacher; as in Matthew 23:2, "The scribes sit in Moses' chair." They sit in the seat of pestilence, who fill the church with the opinions of philosophers, with the traditions of men, and with the counsels of their own brain, and oppress miserable consciences, setting aside, all the while, the word of God, by which alone the soul is fed, lives, and is preserved.
Martin Luther, 1536 - 1546.
Verse 1. "The scornful." Peccator cum in profundum venerit contemnet
when a wicked man comes to the depth and worst of sin, he despiseth. Then the Hebrew will despise Moses (Exodus 2:14), "Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?" Then Ahab will quarrel with Micaiah (1 Kings 22:18), because he doth not prophecy good unto him. Every child in Bethel will mock Elisha (2 Kings 2:23), and be bold to call him "bald pate." Here is an original drop of venom swollen to a main ocean of poison: as one drop of some serpents' poison, lighting on the hand, gets into the veins, and so spreads itself over all the body till it hath stifled the vital spirits. God shall "laugh you to scorn," (Psalm 2:4), for laughing Him to scorn; and at last despise you that have despised him in us. That which a man spits against heaven, shall fall back on his own face. Your indignities done to your spiritual physicians shall sleep in the dust with your ashes, but stand up against your souls in judgment.
Thomas Adams, 1614.
Verse 1. May furnish an excellent text upon "Progress in Sin," or "The Purity of the Christian," or "The Blessedness of the Righteous." Upon the last subject speak of the believer as BLESSED
1. By God;
2. In Christ;
3. With all blessings;
4. In all circumstances;
5. Through time and eternity;
6. To the highest degree.
Verse 1. Teaches a godly man to beware, (1) of the opinions, (2) of the practical life, and (3) of the company and association of sinful men. Show how meditation upon the Word will assist us in keeping aloof from these three evils.
The insinuating and progressive nature of sin.
J. Morrison.
Verse 1. in connection with the whole Psalm. The wide difference between the righteous and the wicked.
The Way to Blessedness: a Commentary on the First Psalm. By PHINEAS FLETCHER. London. 1632
A Discourse about the State of True Happiness, delivered in certain Sermons in Oxford, and at Paul's Cross. By ROBERT BOLTON. London. 1625
David's Blessed Man; or, a Short Exposition on the First Psalm, directing a Man to True Happiness. By SAMUEL SMITH, preacher of the Word at Prittlewell in Essex. 1635 Reprinted in Nicol's Series of Commentaries.
Meditations ad Disquisitions upon the First Psalm of David. Blessed is the Man. By SIR RICHARD BAKER, Knight. London. 1640 The same volume contains Meditations upon "Seven Consolatorie Psalms of David," namely, 23, 27, 30, 84, 103, and 116.
The Christian on the Mount; or a Treatise concerning Meditation; wherein the necessity, usefulness, and excellency of Meditation are at large discussed. By THOMAS WATSON. 1660.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the…
Psa_1:1-6
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.
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The 1st Psalm, introductory
This Psalm seems to have been placed first in the collection because, from its general character and subject, it formed a suitable introduction to the rest. It treats of the blessedness of the righteous and the misery of the wicked, topics which constantly recur in the Psalms, but it treats of them as if all experience pointed only in one direction. The moral problem which, in other Psalms, troubles the ancient poets of Israel, when they see the evil prospering and the good oppressed, has here no place. The poet rests calmly in the truth that it is well with the righteous. He is not vexed with those passionate questionings of heart which meet us in such Psalms as the 37th and 73rd. Hence we may probably conclude that his lot was cast in happier and more peaceful times. The close of the Psalm is, however, as Ewald remarks, truly prophetical, perpetually in force, and consequently descriptive of what is to be expected at all times in the course of the worlds history. In style the Psalm is simple and clear. In form it is little more than the expansion of a proverb. (J. J. Stewart Perowne, B. D.)
The felicity of the godly man, and infelicity of the wicked
Verse 1. Teacheth a godly man.
1. To beware of the ungodly mans persuasions;
2. Of their order of life; and,
3. Of their society and company keeping.
Verse 2. Teacheth him by the contrary what he must do.
1. Take delight and pleasure in Gods Word; because we do hardly profit by those things which we take no pleasure in;
2. Use all the means whereby we may be builded up in knowledge; for so generally do I take these words, meditate day and night.
Verse 3. A promise annexed for our better encouragement, which expresseth Gods wonderful goodness, and our dulness and heaviness, that have need of such spurs. By which also we may see the right use of Gods promises, namely, to provoke us to all well-doings (1Co_7:1).
Verse 4. Doth not only contain judgments against the wicked, but also teacheth, yea, spurreth forward the godly, by beholding their punishments, to more heedy walking; and whereas the Holy Ghost resembleth the wicked to chaff tossed before the wind, it teaches us, that though the wicked think themselves glorious, and of long continuance, yet they are neither the one nor the other.
Verse 5. Teacheth that God, with His fan, will make a separation between the good corn and the chaff (Mat_3:12).
Verse 6. Teacheth this, that God is the only judge to allow and disallow; men must not therefore stand upon themselves, or other mens judgments. For what are we that condemn another mans servant? He standeth or faileth to his own master. (Thomas Wilcocks.)
The godly man happy
The Prophet will maintain a godly man, against all comers, to be the only Jason, for winning the golden fleece of blessedness the other, that he will make it good upon the heads of all the wicked; that howsoever they make a show in the world of being happy, yet they of all men are most miserable. (Sir Richard Baker.)
The blessed man
Happiness is our natures end and aim, and David tells us here who finds it. He describes his character--
I. Negatively. But all this is negative; and in a world such as this, and with a nature such as ours, no small part of religion consists in avoiding evil. Still, a negative religion is not sufficient. Gods Word is, Cease to do evil, learn to do well. A man may not swear, but does he pray? He may not rob, but does he relieve the poor? Therefore we have the blessed man described--
II. Positively. His delight, etc. It is so, whether the law be the moral law or the Word of God. Much more may we say this who have the complete Bible. Day and night, our thoughts ever follow our affections. (W. Jay.)
The true Christian
1. He is set forth as a man. Sin un-mans, reduces the volume and value of manhood, until it brings its victim to a revolting animalism. The Christian is restored by grace to true manhood.
2. As a happy man. Happiness is the flower and fruit of piety. Misery, the natural child of sin. None are so happy as those whom God makes happy.
3. As avoiding unholy society. As oil will not mix with water, light cannot co-exist with darkness, so piety cannot live in the poisonous atmosphere of evil-doers. Where there is no affinity of nature there can be no sympathy and fellowship of spirit. The tropical plant will quickly die at the roots in the Arctic region; and the saint cannot pass over to the frigid zone of the worldlings society, but at the peril of his sainthood--his life.
4. As a student of Divine truth. Religion makes men thoughtful. He is a glad student. His delight is in; a diligent student. Day and night. It is not a nine days spell which novelty has thrown over him. He meditates ill it in the day of prosperity, and does not forget to do so in the night of adversity.
5. Under a beautiful and suggestive figure. Like a tree. He does not grow up a Christian, he is planted as such. Religion is not natural, but engendered:--He is well positioned. By the rivers of water. As a consequence he is fruitful. No fruit in the life is a proof of no grace in the heart. He is always in season. There are special times for the manifestation of suitable graces. Liberality when riches increase. Humility when cheered by others. Patience in suffering. Resignation in bereavement. Faith in trial. He is evergreen. His leaf also shall not wither. The beauty of the believer is holiness, the communicated beauty of the Lord our God. The sap of grace is always in circulation, hence his leaf does not wither.
6. Prosperous in all his undertakings. There is no lack to them that walk uprightly. Godliness is great gain.
7. As divinely known. Knoweth the way of the righteous (Psa_1:6). His knowledge covers the minutiae of his life as well as the particulars of the road. This Divine knowledge is comforting, stimulating, faith-embolding, etc. Such is the inspired portrait of the happy or godly man. In contrast we have the ungodly man. He is like chaff, without worth, or use, or root; the sport of the wind of circumstances, passions, frivolities, worldliness, sensuality, etc., devoid of true manliness, decision of character, etc. Verse 5 sets him forth as morally incapacitated to stand in the Court of Justice; and also as morally disqualified to associate with the holy. Both he and his way shall perish. (J. O. Keen, D. D.)
A certain prescription for happiness
There is a very beautiful story told of a king who, when he came to his throne a young man, had a silver bell made and placed in a high tower of his palace. Then the announcement was set forth that whenever the king was happy his subjects would know it by the ringing of this bell. It was never to be rung except when the king was perfectly happy, and then by no hand but his own, Days passed into weeks, and weeks into months, and the months into years; but no sound of the bell rang out either day or night to tell that the king was happy. At last the king, grown old and grey in his palace, lay on his death bed. His weeping subjects gathered around him, and he learned how through all the years his people had loved him; and then he was happy, and in his joy, with dying hands, he rang out the silver bell. How many years of wasted happiness because the king did not come to know and appreciate the love of his people! The little story may suggest to us a still greater loss in ourselves. Only the consciousness of Gods love can make us perfectly happy. Many people go through life from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, from manhood to age, and the lines of care deepen in their faces, and the silver bell of happiness never rings out, because all the while they are getting further from God, and there is no consciousness of that Divine love which alone can give perfect happiness and peace to the human heart. We have in this Psalm the thought of a keen-brained and spiritually instructed man as to what is required to make a happy man. We have here the testimony of a man of broad experience. David sets forth, at the beginning, that there are three things which it is important that we shall not do if we are to lead happy lives. The first of these is walking in the counsel of the ungodly. I do not understand that he intended to teach that to come under this head it is necessary for a man to seek out ungodly people and ask their advice as to how he shall live. The danger is far more insidious than that. The trouble is that ungodly people are always ready to speak their counsels of evil and lead others astray by them. Eve did not send for the devil to come and advise her, but he came of his own accord and spit forth his lying sophistries about the Lord. Many young men and women come to the city from Christian homes, expecting to live a frank Christian life; but in the boarding house, or the store or shop where they work, they are thrown into touch with ungodly people, who are ready at every turn with sceptical and insinuating remarks about the Church and about Christianity. Their counsels are for laxity of faith and conduct. Rev. W.L. Watkinson, in a recent sermon, recalls the fact that while we are careful to do our utmost to protect great buildings from fire and tempest, yet all the while those buildings are liable to another peril, certainly not less severe--the subtle decay of the very framework of the structure itself. The tissue of the wood silently and mysteriously deteriorates, and a calamity dire as a conflagration is precipitated. Many people think they are all right because they are not committing outbreaking sins, while the counsels to which they are listening, and the associations to which they are lending themselves, are really undermining all their spiritual strength. The fibre of will and conscience and feeling is secretly eaten away, and some day they awake to find they no longer possess the faith, the sensibility, and the resolution of other days. No swift and violent assault of world or flesh or devil has torn or stained them, but it has been like a moth fretting a garment. In the physical world sunshine is the sure antidote to the dry rot. So the only antidote to the counsels of the ungodly is to turn from them to the beams which fall from the Sun of Righteousness. Prosperous looking trunk. It was strongly made, and, although not very heavy, the speculators who examined its exterior concluded that it contained articles of value. One of them finally secured it for fifty-five dollars, and promptly prised it open, when he found within it only a disjointed human skeleton, which had probably been the property of some medical student. It is easy to understand the chagrin of the purchaser who, instead of gold and jewels, found only those relics of death. Multitudes have experienced a similar disappointment, but one infinitely more sorrowful, when they have discovered the real nature of the prizes which they gained by sin. There is still another place that a man if he will be really happy must avoid, and that is, the seat of the scornful. God have mercy on the boy who has gone so far that he can make a joke of his mothers religion, that he can make a sneer about his fathers God, that he can scorn the voice of Gods Word that calls him to repentance! The sarcasm and cynicism and scorn of a sharp wit is often very fascinating to young people, but I assure you that the man who exercises it is never happy. It is a blossom which grows on a tree that is bitter at the heart. I have seen many scornful men and women, but I have never yet seen one who was happy. Well, we have been looking at some of the things one must not do if he is to be happy; let us turn to the brighter side, and see what one may do to ensure happiness. The prescription is given here, and is very plain. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth he meditate day and night. But, you say, How can I delight in the law of the Lord, and how can I begin to think about Him, if I am taken up with other things? It is all very simple. You have been breaking Gods law, and therefore you cannot delight in it. Stop breaking it. Turn right about and begin to obey the law of the Lord, and then you will have a chance to delight in it. God has made happiness and obedience to go together. As you obey the Lord, and as you feel the warmth of His smile on your face, you will take delight in Him. All this is perfectly natural. The man who has committed a crime, and has broken the law of the land, and is fleeing from justice like a hunted animal or has been caught and is being punished, takes no delight in that law. But the man who obeys the law and finds its strong arm of protection thrown around him, and rejoices in its security, delights in it, and in the consciousness of the presence of the law he finds rest and peace And what a glorious result is assured from such delight in the law of the Lord: He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, etc. What a beautiful picture that is! Ah, but, you say, Does God live up to that? Do not many Christians have hard experiences, and trying difficulties like other people? Certainly, the hot sun beats down on the tree planted by the river just the same as it does on the one that is planted on the gravelly, sandy upland. But the one by the river runs its roots down into the refreshing streams beneath, and when the upland tree withers and turns brown the tree by the river is as green as ever. Christians meet the troubles of life like other people, but if they give themselves up whole heartedly to do Gods will, and delight in the law of the Lord, they have peace and content in the midst of the sorest trouble. You want happiness. There is only one certain prescription for happiness, and that is to obey God. (L. A. Banks, D. D.)
The happy man
The opening words of this Psalm furnish its title Ashrey ha-ish, O the happiness of that man! If ever a man pursued happiness under the most favourable conditions, it was King Solomon; yet this was his conclusion of the whole matter, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. John Trapp said quaintly, The Psalmist hath said here more to the point respecting happiness than all the philosophers; for while they beat the bush, he hath put the bird into our hand.
I. As to the character of this happy man. He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. We must needs be in the world--not dreamers among the shadows, but men among men. The world has need of us. The workshop and the office demand us. The secular cares of this world are, of necessity, upon us. But the secret of true happiness is moral nonconformity. Being in the world, we should not be of it. While our associations must needs be in some measure with the ungodly, their counsels, their ways, their seats are not for us. Gods people go to their offices and their workshops just like other men, but their affections are not set upon this world; they are ever mindful of their noble birth, their Divine inheritance, their glorious destiny.
II. His attitude towards the Divine law. The Law of the Lord was a Jewish phrase for the Scriptures. The happy man possesses a right estimate of the importance of the Word of God.
1. He is a reader of the Scriptures. Thomas a Kempis said, I am never so happy as when in a nook with the Book.
2. He reads with delight. We are much given in these times to a critical study of the Word. The way to appreciate the beauty of Murillos picture of the Immaculate Conception is not to approach it with spatula and ammonia for purposes of minute analysis, but to gaze upon it until we are filled with the mighty thoughts that went surging through the soul of the master genius who painted it.
3. He meditates in them. St. Augustine renders the word chattereth. So in these spring days we hear the sparrows chattering with their hearts full of the prophecy of bloom and fruitfulness. So glad and happy are the souls that meditate with delight in the Divine law.
III. The outcome of this happy life. Fruitfulness. Like a tree. This life is rooted well. Its leaf shall not wither. The leaf shows the character of the tree. The man whose soul is full of truth and righteousness need not be saying perpetually, I am a Christian, for his walk and conversation declare it. He bringeth forth fruit in his season. We shall be ever doing good as we have opportunity. There is an obverse to this picture. The ungodly are not so.
1. As to his life--it is chaff. There is no profit in it.
2. As to his death--it is like a furrow in the sea.
3. After death, he shall not stand in judgment. Most of us have been disappointed in our pursuit of happiness. There is, however, a right way and a sure way to pursue it. (D. J. Burrell, D. D.)
The way of the righteous
I. A striking description of the character of the righteous. Among the evil, as well as the good, there are classes and gradations. Here we have forgetters of God, overt and habitual sinners, and settled scorners. How graphically is the progressive tendency of sin here exhibited! Observe the indication we here have of the tendency of sin to fixedness. Walking, standing, sitting; wrong principles, then sinful habits, and last settled scorn. But the righteous man is not simply one who keeps aloof from the ways described. His character has its positive side. It is needful to discriminate with respect to the kind of delight the righteous man takes in the law. How much there is in the Bible of valuable history! Its truths and precepts kindle the intellect, feed the imagination, and commend themselves to mans natural sense of what is true and good. The delight of the Psalmist is, however, something deeper and other than this. It is delight in the law as Gods law, and because it is His. It is the delight of a mind in sympathetic accord with it and with its Author. Even in the Old Testament saint there was much of this spirit. Here is the difference between a truly righteous man and one who is only outwardly so. The latter obeys slavishly, and against his own will. The former serves joyfully, and in love. The interest the one takes in the Bible is intellectual; that of the other is also practical and spiritual.
II. A delightful picture of the condition of the righteous. Like a tree. The tree draws a portion of its nourishment from the surrounding atmosphere, but relatively this is small. Vastly the greater portion is taken up with the moisture at its root. Hence where there is little moisture the life of the tree is feeble, its growth is slow, its fruit is uncertain, its leaf withers. So it is doubtless true that the godly man derives material for growth, usefulness, enjoyment, and moral beauty from whatever surrounds him. He learns from nature, society, books; he derives profit and adornment from studies, companionship, and experience; but for that which is highest and best, whether of comfort, attainment, or serviceableness to his generation, he is indebted to revealed truth. It is this which sustains his true inner life. In Psa_1:3 there is a change of figure. Of the righteous it is said, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The meaning doubtless is that he shall prosper in all his godly doings; in the things to which the Divine will and word may prompt him; in those righteous undertakings by which he is distinguished. In other ages, if not now, it shall appear that nought of such labour was lost. It would be a mistake to understand, by the fruit here spoken of, external works only, or chiefly. The fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth. It is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. First of all, it is inward, then outward. It would be equally a mistake to suppose that the leaf, which does not wither, is the symbol only of the honour and beauty which crown the character of the godly. Doubtless it stands for this. But the leaf is also useful. And that, too, not only in the pleasure it ministers to the beholders eye, or the shade it affords to the passing traveller. Its benefits may reach very far. The fresh air we quaff from the hills has been purified and made healthy for us by the foliage of the trees, not merely those of our own country, but even the pines of Norway and the palms of India. And so the godly man is blessed in what he is and what he does.
III. A cheering intimation of the happy end which awaits the righteous. As is so often the case in the Bible, thought abruptly passes from time to eternity. Indeed, to the eye of faith, these are one: the latter is but the continuation of the former. Naturally, therefore, the characters contrasted in the Psalm are now made to appear for judgment. (Monday Club Sermons.)
The blessed mans likeness
Notes on verses.
Verse 1. Ignorance is often bliss. All the characters mentioned here may have their excellence. The ungodly may be rich, the sinners convivial, the scornful brilliant, yet blessed is the man that has nothing to do with them. Blessed is the man who knows not the language or the masonry of the wicked.
Verse 2. The idea is that of the man who sees the law of the Lord in all nature, history, and life, and delights to trace it out. The Law of the Lord is Lot simply so much letter press, it is a life, a presence, a government.
Verse 3. Where God is there is no famine. The likeness to a tree is full of suggestion. A tree is permanent, fruitful, beautiful; its branches are for refreshment, its shadow is for rest. It responds to the sun and the rain. It waits for God, and puts forth life at His bidding. Prosper. In no mean or narrow sense, but really and ultimately If you say that, as a fact, the good man does not always prosper, remember that you may say the same thing about God Himself.
Verse 4. Some ungodly men seem to be well established; they have more than heart can wish. But these are appearances only. At a distance chaff might be mistaken for wheat. The distinction is a vital one. To know where the wicked are, you must know where the wind is--the wind of popularity, success, Divine visitation.
Verse 5. There is a judgment, a true and final test of character. Where are the ungodly of the last generation?
Verse 6. Mark the three characters. The godly, ungodly, the Lord. The question is not what is the relation of the godly and the ungodly to each other; but what is that of each to the Lord? Are you blessed? Are you merely transiently happy? What is your fruit? (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The blessed man
1. He is partly described by negatives. We begin with children by teaching them what they must not do. The man who walketh in the counsel of the ungodly is not a happy man. Nowhere in the devils territories can you find the happy man. Men who have run the whole round of so called enjoyment unite to say, If you want to be happy, avoid our footprints. And yet it seems as if every young man must go and try for himself. He will not take the experience of others; or follow the directions of the caution board.
2. He is partly described by what he should do. God does not destroy our powers, but turns them in a right direction. How can we be happy? Study. He who thinks grows. Meditate in the Law of the Lord. We are not a Bible reading people. The old-fashioned people in the Church were. Note the consequences of this delight in the Law of the Lord. Beauty. Righteous men should have beauty of character. Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. When we fail the fault is ours, or if it be not, then the failure is for the sake of the success it shall lead to. The ungodly are not so. The sinner has a brief day. It may not seem so now; but God says, he is like the chaff. But we should not seek happiness as an end. Seek goodness, and the happiness will come. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The character of the pious and profane
I. A certain course described. Here is a two-fold gradation implied, the one relating to the characters referred to, and the other to the intercourse maintained.
II. A sacred exercise described. In His law doth he meditate. The godly man delights in the Law of the Lord for many reasons.
1. Because it enriches his mind.
2. It cheers his heart.
3. It sanctifies his nature.
III. An encouraging assurance given. He shall be like a tree. Note the connection between loving the Scriptures and spiritual prosperity.
IV. A solemn contrast drawn. The ungodly are like the chaff. Chaff is a thing that is--
1. Unsightly. There is nothing to excite pleasurable emotions in the ungodly.
2. Worthless. Chaff cannot be turned, even in our inventive age, to any beneficial purpose.
3. Light and unsubstantial. There is no stability in the ungodly. They are tossed to and fro with every wind of temptation; and, being influenced by caprice rather than principle, no confidence can be placed in them. The Psalmist adds, therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. To stand is a forensic term, and denotes to stand acquitted, and with those who live and die ungodly such cannot be the case.
V. A conclusive reason adduced. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish. (Expository Outlines.)
The refusals of godliness
But negatives in this case could not be denied; for if he had left out negatives, he had left out a great part of the worth and praise of godliness--for a godly man cannot always run in smooth ground--he shall sometimes meet with rubs; he cannot always breathe in sweet airs--he shall sometimes meet with ill savours; he cannot always sail in safe seas--he shall sometimes meet with rocks; and then it is his praise that he can pass over those rubs, can pass through those savours, can pass by those rocks, and yet keep himself upright and untainted, and untouched of them all. Besides, negative precepts are in some eases more absolute and peremptory than affirmatives: for to say, That hath walked in the counsel of the ungodly, might not be sufficient; for he might walk in the counsel of the godly, and yet walk in the counsel of the ungodly too; not both indeed at once, but both at several times; where now this negative clears him at all times. And may it not also be a cause of using negatives, because it seems an easier way of showing what a thing is, by showing what it is not, than by using only affirmative marks; especially where a perfect induction may be made. (Sir Richard Baker.)
Things marred by ungodliness
We must yet go further, and the next word we come to is ungodly, and now certainly we shall have a full negative, for ungodliness is the herb that marreth all the broth, it poisons all the company that it comes in,--not only walking, a thing in itself indifferent, but even counsel, a thing in its own nature most sovereign: they are both marred by this one ingredient of ungodliness. Walking in counsel had been a safe proceeding, if the ungodly had not given it; standing in the way had been a lawful calling, it sinners had not made it; sitting in a chair had been an easy posture, if scorners had not framed it; but if the ungodly, or sinners, or scorners have any hand at all in our actions, have anything to do in our doings, both safety, and lawfulness, and ease, and all are utterly overthrown. (Sir Richard Baker.)
The counsel of ungodly men
But have, then, ungodly men counsel? One would think it were want of counsel that makes them ungodly, for who would be ungodly if he had counsel to direct him? Certainly, counsel they have, and wise counsel too; that is, wise in the eye of the world, and wise for the works of the world: but wise in the sight of God, and wise for the works of godliness, they have not; and in that kind of wisdom ungodly men are your greatest counsellors--greatest in the ability of counsel, and greatest in the busying themselves with counselling. The poison of asps is under their lips. It serves not their turn to do wickedly in their own persons, but they must be drawing others into wickedness by poisoning and infecting them with wicked counsel. (Sir Richard Baker.)
Stages in sin
They which think it an ascent, conceive it thus, that he which walketh in the counsel of the ungodly is yet but wavering, as misled by opinion, and makes but an error; he that stands in the way of sinners, stands out with obstinacy, and makes a heresy; but he that sits in the chair of scorners is at defiance with God, and makes an apostasy. They who think it a descent do thus conceive it: he which walks in the counsel of the ungodly, delights and takes a pleasure in his sin; he which stands in the way of sinners, stands in doubt, and is unresolved in his sin; but he who sits in the seat of the scornful, sits down and sins but for his ease, as being unable to suffer persecution. They who think it an ascent, conceive that the ungodly are but beginners in ill; that sinners are proficients in ill; but the scorners are graduates and doctors of the chair in ill. They who think it a descent, conceive that the ungodly are opposite to the godly, and offend generally; that sinners offend, though actually, yet but in particulars; that scorners might be sound at heart, if they did not set themselves to sale, and sin for promotion. The ascent may be briefly thus: that walking expresseth less resolution than standing, and standing than sitting, but in sin, the more resolute, the more dissolute therefore sitting is the worst. The descent thus: that walking expresseth more strength than standing, and standing than sitting; for a child can sit when he cannot stand, and stand when he cannot walk; but the stronger in sin, the worse; therefore walking is the worst. Many such ways there are of conceiving diversity, either in ascending or descending; but it needs be no question which is the worse, because, without question, they are all stark nought: they are three rocks, whereof the least is enough to make a shipwreck; they are three pestilential airs, whereof the best is enough to poison the heart. This only may be observed, that howsoever the case alter with walkers and sitters, yet standers in the way of sinners keep their standing still; and whichsoever is first or last, yet they are sure to be the second. But is it not that we mistake the Prophet, and make his words a gradation, when, perhaps, he meant them for level ground? And for such, indeed, we may take them, and do as well, and then there will not be either ascent or descent in the sins themselves, but only a diversity in their causes; as that the first is a sin caused by ill counsel; the second, a sin caused by ill example; the third, a sin caused by the innate corruption of our own hearts. Or is it that the Prophet alludes here to the three principal ages of our life, which have every one of them their proper vices, as it were, retainers to them?--and therefore the vices of youth, which is the vigour of life, and delights most in motion and society, he expresseth by walking in the counsel of the ungodly; the vices of the middle age, which is the steadfast age, he expresseth by standing in the way of sinners; the vices of old age, which, being weak and feeble, is scarce able to go, he expresseth by sitting in the chair of scorners, and it is as if he had said, Blessed is the man that hath passed through all the ages of his life, and hath kept himself untainted of the vices that are incident unto them. (Sir Richard Baker.)
The way of sin dangerous
But a godly man is wiser than so; though he know that the way is large and broad, yet he knows also that the press is great; a man cannot stand here, but he shall be shouldered and thrust forward in spite of his teeth. (Sir Richard Baker.)
Walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.--
Companions
We are all of us naturally of such a social tendency that the influence of companionship is necessarily great. And this is so especially in youth. Moralists, like Cicero, have made friendship the theme of some of their purest teaching and counsel. Scripture tells us of Jonathan and David, and this Psalm gives a hint of the insidious gradations by which companionship attains its mastery over habit and character. Like a skilful angler playing a fish, so does a congenial associate attach us to his company. He draws the glamour of his power about us, till we become wholly his. At first we meet him from time to time, walking in his counsels; then we protract the interview, and invite ascendency as we stand in his way; and at length we capitulate to his domination as we sit down in his seat. Now, if it be good to resist such influence in the case of the ungodly, it is equally good to yield to it in the ease of the upright. Nothing more important than the choice of associates. Avoid such as--
I. Desire you rather as their prey than their friend. They protest vehement friendship; there is nothing they will not do for you; all that they have is at your service. These are not safe men who overact their part in this way.
II. The fop and roué. The plucking of pigeons has been an art studied and perfected by knaves of fashion in every age, and has flung filth upon escutcheons which had known no shame, and blasted many a prospect of a noble future.
III. The extravagant. We find it easy to declare that poverty is no disgrace; yet it is rare to find amongst the young the moral hardihood which can say, I cant afford it. In humbler life it is by tens of thousands, not by ones or twos, that you may count the well born and the well trained who have fallen, some into suicide, some into prisons, some to the gallows, all into disgrace by becoming companions of those who have tempted them into extravagance.
IV. Betting men. The slowly rising pittance of the clerk will not let him keep pace with the expensive pleasures of his rich associate, and fraud and forgery are led up to by the sure pathway of the betting ring.
V. The flatterer, the sponge, who desires only to exhaust your purse. The cynic too. He is a flatterer who has established his ascendency so completely that he can afford to be rude. You cannot make a friend of a bully.
VI. And let both young men and maidens be very careful of the companionships which they form, one with the other. A young man will do well who makes an honourable union the goal of his industry; and let her whose troth is challenged have nought to do with one whose life is stained with an unmanly taint. Choose Christian friendships, for companionship is the leaven of our lives and solitude their bane. But there is no solitude to him who has learned to cancel it with pure thought and spiritual communion. Healthy literature, taste, art, music, come with votive offerings to him who lingers by their chastened altars. But the best friendship is that of those whose Master is Christ. When the disciples were let go they went to their own company. Go you to yours, and let it be the company which gathers round the Lord. (Arthur Mursell.)
Avoiding evil doers
Like the Sermon on the Mount, this description of the way of the righteous begins with a blessed. Those who go down into the busy streets day by day are in constant contact with those who are without God in the world. Not necessarily bad men in the common phrase, but possibly high-minded, free-hearted, companionable men, who yet have left God out of their lives. They do nothing to please Him. A part of the testing of our characters comes out in the fact that we do not always know we are walking in the counsel of the ungodly when we are really doing so. It is a hard tiring not to adopt the way in which people around us look at things, and the way of looking at things accounts in large measure for what we do. An atmosphere, intangible and still real, is thrown around all characters, and the moment we come into this atmosphere it affects us. If it is the atmosphere of prayer, and faith, and high endeavour, we feel without realising it, even when nothing is said to show the trend of thought. Nor standeth in the way of sinners. We note the advance in wrong. Sinners is a stronger characterisation of bad associates than the phrase ungodly, and standing is a more thorough committal to them than walking. It implies more deliberation. Naturally, he who stands with sinners and gives his leisure to their friendship is fast reaching the day when he will sit with the scorners. What makes the scorner the worst case to reform? It is because a radical change has come over him, and evil has become his good. Embittered against the way which he has lost, he makes virtue a mockery. One who is in daily association with evil may not realise the loss he is meeting, may not see the bloom fade from the ripe peach, or from the hanging cluster of grapes, but the scorner is in a hell of his own. He has lost the childhood of the heart to which he must come back before he can see and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Coming to the positive marks of the way of the righteous, we find that he delights in the law of the Lord, and meditates upon it day and night. This marks a high and almost perfect stage of moral attainment, and creates a certain loveableness in its possessor which a mere determination to do right never can do. We love those who love to do right and sing in the ways of the Lord, whose moral movements are not the working of bands and pulleys, but the curves of the bird in the free air or the bending of the tender grasses under the breeze. Effort pains us, but ease charms us. What a rare and wonderful thing it is to find joy in a rule--the law of God. We must get the law into the heart and say it without thinking, and live it by a second nature. And never since the Bible was given to men has there been so much study upon its form and details. Is there a corresponding meditation upon it? Meditation is to thought and study what autumn is to summer--the ripe fruitage of past toil. (E. N. Packard.)
The triads of transgression
I. Three classes of transgressors. Shun them!
1. Ungodly.
Generally those who are
(a) ignorant of God,
(b) deny, or
(c) defy God. Here means restless people.
2. Sinners.--The restless missing his way.
3. Scorners.--Mockers, pests, impostors (Psa_26:4-9).
II. Three inducements to transgress. Resist them.
1. Counsel.--Flattering and deceptive. Satan in Eden and the wilderness.
2. Way.--Broad and attractive (Mat_7:13-14).
3. Seat.--Boisterous and popular. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
III. Three degrees of transgression. Avoid them!
1. Walking.--Initiatory.
2. Standing.--Secondary.
3. Sitting.--Grand Lodge degree in iniquity.
The way of transgressors is hard (Pro_4:14-18). Wherefore come out from among them (2Co_6:17). (Homiletic Review.)
Getting used to an ungodly atmosphere
To make my meaning clearer, suppose a person steps out of pure air into a rather close room: the air is at first disagreeable and oppressive, he does not breathe freely, but in a little while he gets more used to it, and after a while he hardly is aware that the room is close, and that he is breathing impure air. Suppose also that then he goes into another room, which is much closer, the air of it much more impure: it will not seem to him, coming as he does from the first room, to be worse than the first room seemed when he came from the pure air. This just describes the way in which the man who is beginning to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, allowing himself to be influenced by them, soon learns to breathe at ease in an ungodly atmosphere. Probably his conscience is uneasy as he steps from his place of safety, but he soon accustoms himself to his new position, and then he is ready for the next step, and there is every prospect of his taking it.
Nor standeth in the way of sinners.--
Counsels to the young
I. The infectious nature of sin, and the danger of walking in the counsel of the ungodly. These warnings have been so often repeated and are now commonplace, not because they are unimportant, but because the good and wise of all ages have felt the necessity of them.
1. We are all prone to sin.
2. And the young are ignorant and unsuspicious.
3. Vice is usually baited with pleasure.
4. The difficulty of bearing ridicule, which in corrupt society the young are exposed to.
II. The hardening nature of sin.
1. Its progress is gradual and insensible.
2. The strength and power of inveterate habit.
III. The finishing stage of wickedness. To be of the scornful. On which note--
1. The sin and danger of it to the scornful themselves. It is an audacious attack upon the majesty of the living God, and must strike every thinking person with horror. And this is not a sudden sin, but deliberate. Such contempt of sacred things shows an entire victory over conscience: all reluctance is gone. Also, over shame, and they design to destroy it in the minds of others.
2. Its sad influence. For it is public and intended to be so. It is an open advocacy of sin and an endeavour to break the restraints of conscience in others as well as themselves. Its malignant influence is seen in the fear that most persons have in opposing fashionable crimes. It lays hold on some human weakness that has been accidentally associated with religion, and ridicules religion as if it also were weak. Socrates was certainly the wisest and best of the men of Greece. His behaviour was such as demanded the esteem of all who knew him; yet was this worthy man successfully turned into ridicule by one whose writings are to the last degree contemptible. But yet this ridicule paved the way for the enmity which was raised against him, and which brought him to death. So ridicule often slays religion in the soul. Therefore let the young beware of evil company. Let parents strive to train their children in religion, and let all Christian men stand up boldly against profanity and vice and deal with these sins as they deserve. (J. Witherspoon, D. D.)
True and false friendship
False friendship is like the gaudy but scentless sunflower, that will bloom only in the sunshine of prosperity. True friendship, planted in mutual love and nourished by Christian principles, is like the sweet but modest violet that will flourish even in the dark shade of adversity, and will yield only fresh odours when trampled on by unkindly tread. (R. Venting.)
Association with sinners
The unhappy bids to associate with the profane arise from two causes.
1. That rigorousness and austerity which some gloomy-minded Christians attach to their religion. God and nature have established no connection between sanctity of character and severity of manners. To rejoice evermore is not only the privilege, it is also the duty of a Christian. The votaries of vice put on the mask of mirth, they counterfeit gladness amidst the horrors of guilt.
2. The opinion that wickedness, particularly some kinds of it, are manly and becoming; that dissoluteness, infidelity, and blasphemy are indications of a sprightly and a strong mind. Those who have shone in all ages as the lights of the world, with a few exceptions, have been uniformly on the side of goodness, and have been as distinguished in the temple of virtue as they were illustrious in the temple of fame. (J. Logan.)
Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.--
A happy retrospect
Sir Walter Scott near the end of his life said, I have been the most voluminous author of the day. It is a comfort to me to think that I have tried to unsettle no mans faith, to corrupt no mans principles. (Quiver.)
The fear of ridicule
As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool, and he is a poor invertebrate creature who allows himself to be laughed down when he attempts to stick to his principles and tries to do what he believes to be right. Learn from the earliest days, says Sydney Smith, to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule; you can no more exercise your reason if you live in the constant dread of laughter, than you can enjoy your life if you are in constant terror of death. No coward is greater than he who dares not to be wise because fools will laugh at him. (Quiver.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Psalms 1
Psalms 1
THE Psalter may be regarded as the hearts echo to the speech of God, the manifold music of its windswept strings as Gods breath sweeps across them. Law and Prophecy are the two main elements of that speech, and the first two psalms, as a double prelude to the book, answer to these, the former setting forth the blessedness of loving and keeping the law, and the latter celebrating the enthronement of Messiah. Jewish tradition says that they were originally one, and a well-attested reading of Act_13:33 quotes "Thou art my Son" as part of "the first Psalm." The diversity of subject makes original unity improbable, but possibly our present first Psalm was prefixed, unnumbered.
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Its theme, the blessedness of keeping the law, is enforced by the juxtaposition of two sharply contrasted pictures, one in bright light, another in deep shadow, and each heightening the other. Ebal and Gerizim face one another.
The character and fate of the lover of the law are sketched in Psa_1:1-3, and that of the "wicked" in Psa_1:4-6.
"How abundantly is that word Blessed multiplied in the Book of Psalms! The book seems to be made out of that word, and the foundation raised upon that Word, for it is the first word of the book. But in all the book there is not one Woe" (Donne).
It is usually taken as an exclamation, but may equally well be a simple affirmation, and declares a universal truth even more strongly, if so regarded. The characteristics which thus bring blessedness are first described negatively, and that order is significant. As long as there is so much evil in the world, and society is what it is, godliness must be largely negative, and its possessors "a people whose laws are different from all people that be on earth." Live fish swim against the stream; dead ones go with it.
The tender graces of the devout soul will not flourish unless there be a wall of close-knit and unparticipating opposition round them, to keep off nipping blasts. The negative clauses present a climax, notwithstanding the unquestionable correctness of one of the grounds on which that has been denied-namely, the practical equivalence of "wicked" and "sinner."
Increasing closeness and permanence of association are obvious in the progress from walking to standing and from standing to sitting. Increasing boldness in evil is marked by the progress from counsel to way, or course of life, and thence to scoffing. Evil purposes come out in deeds, and deeds are formularised at last in bitter speech. Some men scoff because they have already sinned. The tongue is blackened and made sore by poison in the system. Therefore goodness will avoid the smallest conformity with evil, as knowing that if the hem of the dress or the tips of the hair be caught in the cruel wheels, the whole body will be drawn in. But these negative characteristics are valuable mainly for their efficacy in contributing to the positive, as the wall round a young plantation is there for the sake of what grows behind it. On the other hand, these positive characteristics, and eminently that chief one of a higher love, are the only basis for useful abstinence. Mere conventional, negative virtue is of little power or worth unless it flow from a strong set of the soul in another direction.
"So did not I" is good and noble when we can go on to say, as Nehemiah did, "because of the fear of God." The true way of floating rubbish out is to pour water in. Delight in the law will deliver from delight in the counsel of the wicked. As the negative, so the positive begins with the inward man. The main thing about all men is the direction of their "delight." Where do tastes run? what pleases them most? and where are they most at ease? Deeds will follow the current of desires, and be right if the hidden man of the heart be right. To the psalmist, that law was revealed by Pentateuch and prophets; but the delight in it, in which he recognises the germ of godliness, is the coincidence of will and inclination with the declared will of God, however declared. In effect, he reduces perfection to the same elements as the other psalmist who sang, "I delight to do Thy will, yea, Thy law is within my heart." The secret of blessedness is self-renunciation, -
A love to lose my will in His,
And by that loss be free."
Thoughts which are sweet will be familiar.
The command to Joshua is the instinct of the devout man. In the distractions and activities of the busy day the law beloved will be with him, illuminating his path and shaping his acts. In hours of rest it will solace weariness and renew strength. That habit of patient, protracted brooding on the revelation of Gods will needs to be cultivated. Men live meanly because they live so fast. Religion lacks depth and volume because it is not fed by hidden springs.
The good mans character being thus all condensed into one trait, the psalm next gathers his blessedness up in one image. The tree is an eloquent figure to Orientals, who knew water as the one requisite to turn desert into garden. Such a life as has been sketched will be rooted and steadfast. "Planted" is expressed by a word which suggests fixity. The good mans life is deeply anchored, and so rides out storms. It goes down through superficial fleeting things to that Eternal Will, and so stands unmoved and upright when winds howl. Scotch firs lift massive, corrugated boles, and thrust out wide, gnarled branches clothed in steadfast green, and look as if they could face any tempest, but their roots run laterally among the surface gravel, and therefore they go down before blasts which feeble saplings, that strike theirs vertically, meet unharmed.
Such a life is fed and refreshed. The law of the Lord is at once soil and stream. In the one aspect fastening a life to it gives stability; in the other, freshening and means of growth. Truly loved, that Will becomes, in its manifold expressions, as the divided irrigation channels through which a great river is brought to the roots of each plant. If men do not find it life giving as rivers of water in a dry place, it is because they do not delight in it. Opposed, it is burdensome and harsh; accepted, this sweet image tells what it becomes-the true good, the only thing that really nourishes and reinvigorates. The disciples came back to Jesus, whom they had left too wearied and faint to go with them to the city, and found Him fresh and strong. Their wonder was answered by, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me."
Such a life is vigorous and productive. It would be artificial straining to assign definite meanings to "fruit" and "leaf." All that belongs to vigorous vitality and beauty is included. These come naturally when the preceding condition is fulfilled. This stage of the psalm is the appropriate place for deeds to come into view. By loving fellowship with God and delight in His law the man is made capable of good. His virtues are growths, the outcome of life. The psalm anticipates Christs teaching of the good tree bringing forth good fruit, and also tells how His precept of making the tree good is to be obeyed-namely, by transplanting it from the soil of self-will to that of delight in the law. How that transplanting is to be effected it does not tell. "But now being made free from sin, and become servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness," and the fruit of the Spirit in "whatsoever things are lovely and of good report" hangs in clusters on the life that has been shifted from the realm of darkness and rooted in Christ. The relation is more intimate still. "I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit."
Such a life will be prosperous. The figure is abandoned here. The meaning is not affected whether we translate "whatsoever he doeth shall prosper," or "whatsoever he shall cause to succeed." That is not unconditionally true now, nor was it then, it referred to what the world calls prospering, as many a sad and questioning strain in the Psalter proves. He whose life is rooted in God will have his full share of foiled plans and abortive hopes, and will often see the fruit nipped by frost or blown green from the boughs, but still the promise is true in its inmost meaning. For what is prosperity? Does the psalmist merely mean to preach the more vulgar form of the doctrine that religion makes the best of both worlds? or are his hopes to be harmonised with experience, by giving a deeper meaning to "prosperity"? They to whom the will of God is delight can never be hurt by evil, for all that meets them expresses and serves that will, and the fellow servants of the King do not wound one another. If a life be rooted in God and a heart delight in His law, that life will be prosperous and that heart will be at rest.
The second half of the psalm gives the dark contrast of the fruitless, rootless life (Psa_1:4-6). The Hebrew flashes the whole dread antithesis on the view at once by its first word, "Not so," a universal negative, which reverses every part of the preceding picture. "Wicked" is preferable to "ungodly," as the designation of the subjects. Whether we take the root idea of the word to be "restless," as most of the older and many modern commentators do, or "crooked" (Hupfeld), or "loose, flaccid" (Delitzsch), it is the opposite of "righteous," and therefore means one who lives not by the law of God, but by his own will. The psalmist has no need to describe him further nor to enumerate his deeds. The fundamental trait of his character is enough. Two classes only, then, are recognised here. If a man has not Gods uttered will for his governor, he goes into the category of "wicked." That sounds harsh doctrine, and not corresponding to the innumerable gradations of character actually seen. But it does correspond to facts, if they are grasped in their roots of motive and principle. If God be not the supreme delight, and His law sovereign, some other object is mens delight and aim, and that departure from God taints a life, however fair it may be. It is a plain deduction from our relations to God that lives lived irrespective of Him are sinful, whatever be their complexion otherwise.
The remainder of the psalm has three thoughts-the real nullity of such lives, their consequent disappearance in "the judgment," and the ground of both the blessedness of the one type of character and the vanishing of the other in the diverse attitude of God to each. Nothing could more vividly suggest the essential nothingness of the "wicked" than the contrast of the leafy beauty of the fruit-laden tree and the chaff, rootless, fruitless, lifeless, light, and therefore the sport of every puff of wind that blows across the elevated and open threshing floor.
Such is indeed a true picture of every life not rooted in God and drawing fertility from Him. It is rootless; for what hold fast is there but in Him? or where shall the heart twine its tendrils if not round Gods stable throne? or what basis do fleeting objects supply for him who builds elsewhere than on the enduring Rock? It is fruitless; for what is fruit? There may be much activity and many results satisfying to part of mans nature and admired by others. One fruit there will be, in character elaborated. But if we ask what ought to be the products of a life, man and God being what they are in themselves and to each other, we shall not wonder if every result of godless energy is regarded by "those clear eyes and perfect judgment" of heaven as barrenness. In the light of these higher demands, achievements hymned by the worlds acclamations seem infinitely small, and many a man, rich in the apparent results of a busy and prosperous life, will find to his dismayed astonishment that he has nothing to show but unfruitful works of darkness. Chaff is fruitless because lifeless.
Its disappearance in the winnowing wind is the consequence and manifestation of its essential nullity. "Therefore" draws the conclusion of necessary transiency. Just as the winnower throws up his shovel full into the breeze, and the chaff goes fluttering out of the floor because it is light, while the wheat falls on the heap because it is solid, so the wind of judgment will one day blow and deal with each man according to his nature. It will separate them, whirling away the one, and not the other. "One shall be taken and the other left." When does this sifting take effect?
The psalmist does not date it. There is a continually operative law of retribution, and there are crises of individual or national life, when the accumulated consequences of evil deeds fall on the doers. But the definite article prefixed to "judgment" seems to suggest some special "day" of separation. It is noteworthy and perhaps illuminative that John the Baptist uses the same figures of the tree and the chaff in his picture of the Messianic judgments, and that epoch may have been in the psalmists mind. Whatever the date, this he is sure of-that the wind will rise some time, and that, when it does, the wicked will be blown out of sight. When the judgment comes, the "congregation of the righteous"-that is, the true Israel within Israel, or, to speak in Christian language, the true invisible Church-will be freed from admixture of outward adherents, whose lives give the lie to their profession. Men shall be associated according to spiritual affinity, and "being let go," will "go to their own company" and "place," wherever that may be.
The ground of these diverse fates is the different attitude of God to each life. Each clause of the last verse really involves two ideas, but the pregnant brevity of style states only half of the antithesis in each, suppressing the second member in the first clause and the first member in the second clause, and so making the contrast the more striking by emphasising the cause of an unspoken consequence in the former, and the opposite consequence of an unspoken cause in the latter. "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous [therefore it shall last]. The Lord knoweth not the way of the wicked [therefore it shall perish]." The way which the Lord knows abides. "Know" is, of course, here used in its full sense of loving knowledge, care, and approval, as in "He knoweth my path" and the like sayings. The direction of the good mans life is watched, guarded, approved, and blessed by God. Therefore it will not fail to reach its goal. They who walk patiently in the paths which He has prepared will find them paths of peace, and will not tread them unaccompanied, nor ever see them diverging from the straight road to home and rest. "Commit thy way unto the Lord," and let His way be thine, and He shall make thy way prosperous.
The way or course of life which God does not know perishes. A path perishes when, like some dim forest track, it dies out, leaving the traveller bewildered amid impenetrable forests, or when, like some treacherous Alpine track among rotten rocks, it crumbles beneath the tread. Every course of life but that of the man who delights in and keeps the law of the Lord comes to a fatal end, and leads to the brink of a precipice, over which the impetus of descent carries the reluctant foot. "The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more till the noontide of the day. The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 “This psalm seems to have been placed first in…
INTRODUCTION
“This psalm seems to have been placed first in the collection, because, from its general character and subject, it formed a suitable introduction to the rest. It treats of the blessedness of the righteous, and the misery of the wicked—topics which constantly recur in the psalms, but it treats of them as if all experience pointed only in one direction. The moral problem which in other psalms troubles the ancient poets of Israel, when they see the avil prospering and the good oppressed, has here no place. The poet rests calmly in the truth that it is well with the righteous. He is not vexed with those passionate questionings of heart which meet us in such psalms as the 37th and 73d. Hence we may probably conclude that his lot was cast in happier and more peaceful times.”—Perowne.
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THE BLESSED LIFE
(Psa_1:1-3.)
Consider:
I. The secret of the blessed life.
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,” &c. (Psa_1:1.)
Wherever blessedness is to be found, it is not in these directions. What a direct contradiction is this first verse to the world’s philosophy! To keep the law may be safe, but it is to walk in the common light of day; to follow one’s own counsels is to dwell in the purple light of pleasure. So argues the natural man; and here the Psalmist gives a flat denial to his argument. The world is wrong; the Psalmist is right. Blessed is the man who abstains from ungodly policy, iniquitous action, scornful use of things divine and holy. According to a custom which is generally recognised in Central Africa, whenever a caravan mistakes its way, and is obliged to retrace its steps and return to a road from which it has deviated, a bough is thrown across the wrong path, and a furrow is scratched in the ground by means of the feet, so that no succeeding caravan may fall into the same error. Thus the generations which have gone astray have declared that the ways of ungodliness and sin are ways of bitterness and disappointment, and they have left their emphatic and sorrowful testimonies as boughs and furrows across these false ways, to admonish us to seek another and a truer path.
But a merely negative goodness will not ensure us true blessedness, therefore the Psalmist proceeds to lay down the grand secret of blessedness in profound spiritual words. “But his delight is in the law of the Lord.” How truly profound! How superior to the superficial theories of happiness which human moralists have from time to time put forth! Whichcote truly says: “Duty and happiness are vital acts, and must be put forth from vital principles.” The vital principle is here declared. “The philosophers’ discourses of this subject are but learned dotages. David saith more to the point in this short psalm than any or all of them put together; they did but beat the bush. God hath put the bird into our hands.”—Trapp.
The secret of bliss is the right attitude of the soul to the truth of God.
1. A right relation of the will to the law of God. “But his will is in the law of the Lord.”—Luther. The bias of the will is toward Divine truth. The “ungodly” are self-willed, and walk after their own “counsel;” the “blessed” man consults the Divine will, and is ever longing for the path of God’s commandments. “The ‘will’ which is here signified is that delight of heart, and that certain pleasure, in the law, which does not look at what the law promises, nor at what it threatens, but at this only, that ‘the law is holy, and just, and good.’ Hence it is not only a love of the law, but that loving delight in the law which no prosperity, nor adversity, nor the world, nor the prince of it, can either take away or destroy; for it victoriously bursts its way through poverty, evil report, the cross, death, and hell, and in the midst of adversities shines the brightest.”—Luther, quoted by Spurgeon.
2. A right relation of the affections to the law of God. “His delight.” “The law is more than a mere rule, after which the man is to frame his outward life.”—Perowne. It fills with admiration and delight. But can the law of God thus excite the affections and rejoice the heart? Yes; for, as Festus sings—
“Law is love defined.”
The godly man beholds in the spiritual law the declaration of the Divine nature, which is essential love, and he delights in that law after the inner man.
3. A right relation of the intelligence to the law of God. “He meditates on the law day and night.” We must know the law if we are to perceive its beauty and appreciate its worth, and the more we know of it, the greater shall be our joy in it. Many skim the Bible as a novel, when they should ponder it, and master it, line by line, like a grammar. He who is ignorant of the Divine law, or misconceives it, cannot know true freedom and blessedness; but he whose eyes are opened to the deep things of the law, walks at liberty, and knows peace unspeakable.
Let us not seek bliss in things of time and sense, but let us labour to know the will of God, and to have our hearts harmonised with that will, and we shall find rest to our souls.
Consider:
II. The picture of the blessed life.
“He shall be like a tree planted,” &c. (Psa_1:3.)
1. The security of this blessedness. “Planted by the rivers of water.” “Planted” means firmly planted. “Rivers,” indicate unfailing refreshment of spirit; the streams of Divine truth and influence. Carnal joys flourish and wither with changing circumstances, but his joy abides whose life is rooted in God. “His soul, watered by the streams of Paradise, knows not the parched season of the sunburnt heath.”—Sutcliffe. “By the side of the streams in the East may be seen trees, at all seasons covered with luxurious verdure, blossoms, or fruit; whilst at a distance, where no water is, may be seen dwarfish and unhealthy trees, with scarcely a leaf to shake in the winds of heaven.”—Roberts. Thus, drinking supplies from the living streams of God’s truth, our life is ever strong and blessed, whilst we faint and fade where no such water is.
2. The manifestation of this blessedness. The godly man is known by the beneficence of his life. “Bringeth forth his fruit in his season.” The truly blessed life is a life of beneficence; and if we delight in God’s law, it shall perfect our individual character, fit us for the sphere and season in which we live, and make us a blessing to our generation. “As with a palm-tree, all that is in it is profitable—leaves, wood, and fruit—so also with the Christian, all that he does is to redound to the honour of the Divine name and the benefit of his neighbour.”—Starke. The godly man is known by the beauty of his character. “His leaf also shall not wither.” As the foliage of the tree is its beauty and glory, so shall delight in the law of the Lord give grace and majesty to the character. In inner rectitude is the secret of all true and high visible excellence; out of a heart right with God spring all the poetry and utilities of life.
3. The perpetuity of this blessedness. The tree by the watercourses abides in bloom and fruition, and the joy and glory which spring in the heart and life of the lover of God’s Word are perennial and permanent. Our scientific gardeners enthusiastically anticipate the day when, through special culture, all our roses will have evergreen foliage, brilliant and fragrant flowers, and the habit of blooming for a greater part of the year. He whose life is grounded in the Divine truth and goodness, who draws daily vitality from the river of God’s pleasure, is an evergreen, and blooms all the year long, all life long, and death itself cannot blight his glory, or destroy his joy.
4. The universality of this blessedness. “And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” “He shall prosper in whatsoever he doeth.”—Wordsworth. Deference to the law of God secures universal prosperity. God’s blessing is on all the handiwork of the godly, and directs it to blessed and prosperous issues.
“Oh! the blessednesses” of the man who delights in the law of the Lord. As we long for the beatitudes, let us put ourselves in God’s hands. “Planted by the river.” “This is properly used of a transplanted tree. He is not left to the efforts of nature, but taken beneath the gardener’s care, and placed in a favourable soil.”—Kay. “Man is righteous, not by birth or nature, or through his own power, skill, or activity, but by the Divine agency, through the means of grace which Divine mercy has established for us, as a tree planted by an abundant and flowing brook, if he, like the tree, take up into his own life, from the means afforded him by God, that which is necessary to his life and growth.”—Moll.
May God take us from the wilds of nature, graft us into Christ, nourish us by the influence of the Holy Spirit, and thus shall we bear our fruit unto holiness, and in the end everlasting life.
THE PROGRAMME OF EVIL
Psa_1:1
“A climax is to be noted here in the choice of expressions. Thus we have, first, three degrees of habit, in the verbs ‘walked,’ ‘stood,’ ‘sat;’ next, three degrees of evil in the character, the ‘wicked,’ the ‘sinners,’ and the ‘mockers;’ lastly, three degrees of openness in the evil-doing, ‘counsel,’ ‘way,’ ‘seat.’ ”—Perowne.
We see here:
I. The evil life in its inception.
“Walketh in the counsel of the ungodly.”
The word used in the original for “ungodly” signifies the “loose man, the man loose from God.”—Delitzsch. We see here that ungodliness is the source of all evil; “becoming loose to God,” is the point of departure to positive and universal unrighteousness. This great truth is often forgotten; and where actual sin would be denounced, ungodliness is often regarded with in dulgence. Indeed, that temper of mind which is loose from God is by many considered the most philosophic and desirable condition of the mind; the morality loose from God, the truest morality; the science loose from God, the wisest science; the character loose from God, the most sound and noble character. The Psalmist in this place indicates the profound error of such reasoning. Looseness from God, ungodliness, is the original and fertile source of all transgression. Enmity with God is enmity with righteousness. The Psalmist teaches this same doctrine of the connection of atheism with transgression in Psa_14:1 : “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.” Beware of ungodly thoughts! Beware of a morality not built upon theology! Beware of an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God!
And this ungodliness seeks to justify itself. “The counsel of the ungodly.” Men are anxious that their opinions and conduct should have the sanction of reason, and so they seek to justify their ungodliness to their understanding. “No one sins without making some excuse to himself for sinning. He is obliged to do so: man is not like the brute beasts; he has a Divine gift within him which we call reason, and which constrains him to give an account to it for what he does. He cannot act at random; however he acts, he must act by some kind of rule or some sort of principle, else he is vexed and dissatisfied with himself. Not that he is very particular whether he finds a good reason or a bad, when he is very much straitened for a reason, but a reason of some sort he must have.”—Newman. Reason is never used in a more unnatural, ignoble, hopeless task, than when it is pressed into the service of atheism and irreligion: but it is pressed into such service, tortured and perverted, until the godless theory of life is “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,” and looks a very clever and plausible thing. The maxims which are used to justify a godless science and a godless life are essentially stupid and false, yet how frequently they wear a most philosophic air! Here, then, is the beginning of evil—an irreligious, ungodly way of thinking.
II. The evil life in its development.
1. “Standeth in the way of sinners.” By “sinners” are intended those “who pass their lives in sin, especially coarse and manifest sin.”—Delitzsch. “Open and avowed offenders, habitual transgressors.”—Kay. Here sinful thought has passed into conduct, action, life. We cannot hold unbelieving theories with impunity. Ideas rule men, ideas rule the world, and ideas fundamentally false, as are those of atheism, must soon work disaster, both in individual and national life. He who in thought lingers on the forbidden ground of scepticism, next takes his place with actual offenders against the law. Nothing is more evident than that loose thinking and loose living go together.
2. “Sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” “The scornful are the men who deride the thought of religious obligation.”—Kay. They delight in the company of those who scoff at religion. This state, and it is soon reached, argues the most desperate wickedness. There is something so exalted in reverence, that some commentators have expressed a sentiment of respect for Jacob, who buried his false gods with tenderness; but how utterly dead to every noble quality is the man who can blaspheme the true God and His Word! Here the poison-seed of unbelief has opened into the full-blown flower of wickedness. “The beginnings of sin are modest, the issues of it are impudent.”—Whichcote.
III. The evil life in its consummation.
The man is blessed who walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly; it follows that he is cursed who does follow ungodly counsels and conduct. “Cursed in his counsels, cursed in his actions, cursed in his end.”—Clarke. The further he goes, the further he is from blessedness.
We are reminded in this verse:
1. Of the insinuating nature of sin. It glides stealthily into the heart—stealthily into the life.
2. Of the prolific nature of sin. One sin leads to another sin; one sin leads to a darker sin; one sin leads to many sins. It is a traveller’s tale which tells that the Indian spiders weave webs so strong that men are sometimes imprisoned by them; but it is no fable that from the gossamer threads of ungodly thoughts, and slender transgressions, come at length dark convictions and habits which hold men in most cruel bondage.
3. Of the accursed nature of sin. It fills with misery; it ends in death. What God curses withers away. Let us pray, then, that we enter not into the path of the wicked.
RESULTS
(Psa_1:4-6.)
I. The destinies of men are various.
The godly flourish evermore: “The ungodly are not so.” The pious and the wicked are together in this world, but the text indicates that a separation will be effected. “They are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.” “This allusion describes the instability of the principles of the ungodly, rather than of their fortunes. Their want of principle is opposed to the good man’s steady meditation of Jehovah’s law, which is the foundation of his prosperity. On the other hand, because the ungodly want this principle, therefore they shall not stand in the judgment.”—Horsley. The ungodly have instability of principle, and therefore instability of fortune. “Their glory shall not descend after them.”
II. The destinies of men are decided by their moral character and conduct.
“Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment.” “Because they are like chaff, without root below, without fruit above, without spiritual vitality; therefore, on account of their inner worthlessness and instability, they do not stand.”—Delitzsch. “Although the ungodly are in similar circumstances with the righteous, yet they derive no profit from this favourable circumstance. They are spiritually dead and withered. That which has matured in them has faded prematurely; for they have not appropriated to themselves the nourishment of life, and they have not formed in themselves the faculty for this appropriation. Without root and without sap, they have not attained any vigour, nor brought forth any fruit (Mat_21:19). Thus they have ripened only for destruction; unsubstantial and worthless as chaff, the sport of the wind until scattered by the storm, they go to destruction, and leave no trace behind.”—Moll. And the righteous stand because they are righteous. Not chance, not social rank, not birth, not intellectual culture, not religious profession, not Divine decrees, shall determine our destiny, but our spirit and course of life.
III. The destinies of men are as widely contrasted as their character.
The righteous bloom for ever in the paradise of God; the wicked are driven away as chaff in the whirlwind of the Divine anger. “Whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Mat_3:12). And this teaching of the Scriptures commends itself to reason. “Nothing is more credible than that men’s states shall differ as much as their spirits and tempers do differ.”—Whichcote.
Blessed is the man whose will and life are thoroughly identified with the Divine law; for the law shall stand for ever, and none shall suffer loss who enjoy its shelter!
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. The blessed man is described in this verse…
Psa 1:1
I. The blessed man is described in this verse by negatives. We are told what he does not do. It so happens that we cannot understand some of the very highest things in life except they are put to us in precisely this way. There are more ways of saying "Thou shalt not" than there are of saying "Thou shalt."
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II. But a man who is thus instructed in negatives occupies a very peculiarly perilous position. Man has energies; he must be doing something, must be affirmative, practical, energetic. Therefore we await some further instruction as to the way in which to direct our life. We have it in ver. 2: "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night." God does not destroy our powers; He does not quench our aspirations and turn us into nonentities. He lays His hand upon the strength we are misusing and says, "You must use this strength in another direction and for another purpose." What is the happy man doing? He delights in the law of the Lord.
III. What will be the consequence of this delight? "He shall be like a tree," etc. Beauty is always associated with righteousness in the highest quarters. Then there comes the great promise, "Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." The great principle of the text is right as honour, truth as crown, goodness occupying the throne.
IV. "The ungodly are not so," etc. The sinner has a brief day. There is no life in the ungodly that abides; there is surface, there is no vitality; there is an outward attitude and display of comfort and enjoyment, but there is at the heart that which will give way under pressure.
Parker, City Temple, vol. iii., p. 289.
References: Psa 1:1.—E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 203; A. Mursell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 269; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons chiefly Practical, p. 245.
Psa 1:1-2
Psa 150:6
I. We have here a twofold declaration of God’s great purpose in all His self-revelation, and especially in the Gospel of His Son. Our first text may be translated as a joyful exclamation; our second is an invocation or a command. The one then expresses the purpose which God secures by His gift of the law, the other the purpose which He summons us to fulfil by the tribute of our hearts and songs—man’s happiness and God’s glory. (1) His purpose is man’s blessedness. That is but another way of saying that God is love. His purpose is not blessedness anyhow, but one which will not and cannot be given by God to those who walk in the way of sinners. His love desires that we should be holy and followers of God as dear children, and the blessedness which it bestows comes from pardon and growing fellowship with Him. It can no more fall on rebellious hearts than the pure crystals of the snow can lie and sparkle on the hot black cone of a volcano. (2) God seeks our praise. "The glory of God" is the end of all the Divine actions. His glory is sought by Him in the manifestation of His loving heart, mirrored in our illuminated and gladdened heart. First He showers down blessings, then looks for the revenue of praise.
II. We may also take this passage as giving us a twofold expression of the actual effects of God’s revelation, especially in the Gospel, even here upon earth. (1) God does actually, though not completely, make men blessed here. With all its sorrows and pains, the life of a Christian is a happy life, and the joy of the Lord remains with His servants. (2) So, too, God’s gift produces man’s praise. He requires from us nothing but our thankful recognition and reception of His benefit. The echo of love which gives and forgives is love which accepts and thanks.
III. We have also a twofold prophecy of the perfection of heaven. (1) It is the perfection of man’s blessedness. The end will crown the work. (2) It is the perfection of God’s praise. Our second text opens to us the gates of the heavenly temple, and shows us there the saintly ranks and angel companies gathered in the city whose walls are salvation, and its gates praise.
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 3rd series, p. 225.
Psa 1:1-2
I. This law, which we have to learn, and by keeping of which we shall be blessed, is nothing else than God’s will. If you wish to learn the law of the Lord, keep your soul pious, pure, reverent, and earnest; for it is only the pure in heart who shall see God, and only those who do God’s will as far as they know it who will know concerning any doctrine whether it be true or false, in one word whether it be of God.
II. This law is the law of the Lord. You cannot have a law without a Lawgiver who makes the law, and also without a Judge who enforces the law; and the Lawgiver and the Judge of the law is the Lord Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.
III. Christ the Lord rules, and knows that He rules; whether we know it or not, Christ’s law still hangs over our head, ready to lead us to light, and life, and peace, and wealth; or ready to fall on us and grind us to powder, whether we choose to look up and see it or not. The Lord liveth, though we may be too dead to feel Him. The Lord sees us, though we may be too blind to see Him.
C. Kingsley, Westminster Sermons, p. no.
References: Psa 1:2.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 359; Ibid., vol. i., p. 350; E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons, p. 209; M. G. Pearse, Some Aspects of the Blessed Life, pp. 1, 17.
Psa 1:1-3
In the figure of ver. 3 there are revealed three aspects of godly character.
I. Its variety. The comparison is with a fruit-tree, not of any particular kind, but one of that large class of trees. The variety which God stamps upon nature He means to have reproduced in character.
II. Its Divine culture. The godly man is not like a tree that grows wild. He is like a tree planted, and that in a place which will best promote its growth. Godly character is developed under God’s special supervision and with God’s own appliances.
III. Its fruitfulness. God’s tree by God’s river must be a fruitful tree. Notice: (1) The words are "his fruit," not any other tree’s fruit. (2) "In his season." The seasons are different for different fruits. The latest fruit is usually the best. But, early or late, the fruit of godly character is seasonable.
M. R. Vincent, Gates into the Psalm Country, p. 3.
Psa 1:3
The spiritual plant of God is placed by the running waters; it is nourished and recruited by the never-failing, the perpetual, the daily and hourly, supply of their wholesome influences. It grows up gradually, silently, without observation; and in proportion as it rises aloft, so do its roots, with still less observation, strike deep into the earth. Year after year it grows more and more into the hope and the posture of a glorious immobility and unchangeableness. What it has been, that it shall be; if it changes, it is as growing into fruitfulness, and maturing in its fruit’s abundance and perfection. Nor is that fruit lost; it neither withers upon the branches nor decays upon the ground. Angels unseen gather crop after crop from the unwearied, never-failing parent, and carefully store them up in heavenly treasure-houses. The servant of God resembles a tree (1) in his graciousness; (2) in his fruitfulness; (3) in his immobility.
J. H. Newman, Sermons on Various Occasions, p. 243.
References: Psa 1:3.—H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 100; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 73; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, pp. 79, 122; G. Orme, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 334; E. Johnson, Ibid., vol. xx., p. 347. Psa 1:3, Psa 1:4.—H. Macmillan, Two Worlds are Ours, p. 203; A. Blomfield, Sermons in Town and Country, p. 313. Psa 1:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 280.
Psa 1:4-5
I. Let us, first, find out who are the characters intended in our text. An ungodly man is simply a man who tries to get through the world without God. All he has to do to earn the title is to leave God out of his love. (1) A man may be most moral and yet most ungodly. For one that is dragged down to perdition by the millstone of vice, there are hundreds who are taken in the meshes of the net of a Christless virtue. (2) A man may be most religiously active and yet be ungodly.
II. Notice the description given of them. They are the very opposite of all that a godly man is. You have simply to take the picture of the saved man and then after every particular write, "The ungodly are not so." (1) Look at the first word of the Psalm. The Christian is "blessed," but the ungodly are not so. (2) The godly are like trees planted. A Christian is an evergreen; his joys in Christ last, though all his other pleasures be taken from him. But the ungodly are not so.
III. Notice the end of the ungodly. "They are like the chaff," etc. (1) There will be separation from the righteous. (2) Notice how sweeping and irresistible is the ruin. What can a feather-weight of chaff do against the wind? That great wind will catch all excuses from your lips, and before you have time to give God one of your paltry lies you, with them, will be swept with the speed of a hurricane into perdition. There will be only one thing that will stand that mighty tempest, and that will be the soul that rests upon the Rock, Christ Jesus.
A. G. Brown, Penny Pulpit, No. 767.
Psa 1:4-6
"The ungodly are not so." That "not" contains the germs of all moral disaster. We have set forth under this figure three aspects of the ungodly character.
I. Its instability. Take a life away from God, and you take from it unity of impulse. Passion, pride, selfishness, drive it hither and thither as the winds drive the dismantled ship. Nowhere but in God does man find a consistent law.
II. Its worthlessness. Chaff! The wind drives it away, and the husbandman is glad to have it driven away. An ungodly life is a worthless life, because, whatever it may be, however busy and bustling, it is not so. It is not used under God’s direction and for God’s uses.
III. Its insecurity. The contrast is between the tree, safe in its enclosure by the watercourses, watched and tended by the gardener, its fruits safe from the plunderer, and the chaff, loosely lying on the exposed threshing-floor, where the first blast can drive it no one cares whither. How safe is the man who abides in God, while he who puts himself outside of the restraints of Divine law forfeits likewise its protection.
M. R. Vincent, Gates into the Psalm Country, p. 21.
Reference: Psa 1:6.—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 10.
Psalm 1
Ver. 1. There are cases in which without a figure "ignorance is bliss." Observe that all the characters mentioned here may have their excellences and their attractions; for example, the ungodly may be rich, the sinners may be convivial, the scornful may be brilliant: yet blessed is the man who has nothing to do with them.
Ver. 2: "But his delight is in the law of the Lord," etc. The idea is that of a man who sees the law of the Lord in all nature, in all history, all life, everywhere and always, and delights to trace its beneficent and almighty power.
Ver. 3: "And he shall be like a tree," etc. A man’s life should be rooted in God, in God’s law, in God’s service. It should not be as a plucked flower, but as a flower unplucked growing on the eternal stem.
Ver. 4: "The ungodly are not so," etc. To know whose they are, you must know where the wind is—the wind of popularity, the wind of success, the wind of Divine visitation.
Ver. 5: "Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment," etc. These are the true and final tests of character. At present judgment is partial and uncertain, and at present society is mixed; but the time of judgment and separation is coming.
Ver. 6. Mark the three characters: the godly, the ungodly, the Lord! The final award is not with man, but with God. The destiny of the righteous and the ungodly is as distinct as their characters. There is no blending of one into the other—the one lives; the other perishes.
Parker, The Ark of God, p. 113.
References: Psalm 1—I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 74; S. Cox, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 81; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 123.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 The Blessedness of Obedience.
The Blessedness of Obedience.
The first psalm has only six verses, which are manifestly divided into two triplets; in the first of these the godly man is seen in the blessedness of being this; in the second, as contrasted with the character and portion of the wicked. Every verse moreover answers to its numerical place. Let us look briefly at this before we take up the psalm more deeply.
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First, then, we have the blessedness of the godly looked at by itself. In the first verse we see his consistent independency of all the various forms and degrees of ungodliness by which he is encompassed. He shakes them off from him, to walk, as far as their advocates are concerned, alone. Such is in fact the necessary commencement of a true walk with God. The first step with Him must be outside of all that is contrary to Him; and to be indifferent is to be contrary!
In the second verse the godly one is seen in his dependency and communion with God. His delight and meditation are in Jehovah’s law, which term, while it may include the whole of the inspired Word existing at the time, yet shows the deep subjection of the soul required and rendered.
In the third verse we have the fruitfulness resulting.
The second part contrasts the wicked with this in character and in end. First, their lightness and barrenness -mere chaff. Secondly, they are separated from the godly by the coming judgment in which it is impossible for them to stand. Thirdly, Jehovah’s approbation of the way of the righteous manifests itself thus for them; and the path of the wicked breaks down in ruin.
The thread of numerical structure runs evidently through the psalm, and certifies it to be a good note from the King’s treasury. One might trace it, I believe, more fully and minutely; but this may suffice us now. The psalm claims, however, from us more detailed exposition.
The psalm has no special title, as one perhaps not suggested by any special occasion, and its principles being of the widest application. Nor is it needful to speculate as to an author, whom Scripture itself has not made known. As to such things, the higher criticism has set itself to most unnecessary work, and necessarily been led astray by its own wisdom. Faith in the word of God -which, indeed, they will not call it -would have made them approve its silence as well as its speech, and found profit from both. Would it not have rather lessened than enhanced the authority of such words as these, to have them commended to us as from David, or from Any other? Conscience alone is needed to respond to them, and will do so with the upright in heart.
The description of the godly man is first negative, then positive. He is first seen in his refusal of any link with the ungodly, whatever be the phase of their ungodliness. The words certainly show us a down-grade of evil, and how its hold strengthens upon those drawn into its vortex. It begins with "counsel," which simply leaves out God. Walk by it, and you shall find that it leads into the way of sinners, -practical and open rejection of righteousness in deed and word. And this has for its natural consummation the brazen hardness of the scoffer, who says, "Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways!" (Job 21:14.) This is the way in which many travel, who strengthen each other by their mutual unbelief, and become for each other the authority which God has lost in their souls. Thus the mass hardens as it compacts together; and this is more and more being seen in days of widespread confederacy such as these are, -confederacy which for the Christian, in its lightest form, means compromise, the overthrow of conscience, of that which is the witness to God’s supremacy over man, the divine throne to which alone he is really subject.
The positive side of this description of the godly man is just this subjection of conscience and heart to God. A dependent creature, realizing his relationship to a Being of unchanged perfection, his delight is in conformity to His blessed will, to Jehovah’s law. He is exercised by it, occupied with it, meditates upon it day and night. As the psalms themselves even are quoted as "the law" in Scripture (Rom 3:19), there is no possible reason for limiting this here even to the books of Moses; and the soul delighting in God will seek to possess itself of all that He has communicated. "All Scripture . . . is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"; so there is nothing impractical in the whole range of that which God has given to us: if we neglect any of it, this may result in serious misunderstanding of the rest. It is a Jew, of course, who is contemplated here, and with the necessarily limited revelation that had as yet been made; and how much the more does this diligent study upon his part speak to us to whom so much more has been vouchsafed! "Labor not," says the Lord, amid an audience of the hard-working poor, whose poverty and need He so well knew, -"Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give you." And did not these wondrous psalms of praise themselves grow largely out of such day and night study of Jehovah’s law as characterizes the godly here?
We are next shown the fruit found and produced by one in such a course: "He is even like a tree, planted by the water-streams, that giveth its fruit in its season." No special tree is named; except that it has fruit, we have no further knowledge of it; the vegetable kingdom furnishes the great types of production, as the beast is the typical consumer; the fruit-tree is the natural figure here.
Like all other living things, the tree is also a growth from seed, the development of an organic unity; and this is what the believer is, himself the fruit of seed of God’s sowing, and so far as this goes, at one with himself and with the creation of God as such; an organic unity, mind, heart, and moral nature, in response to one another.
This, it is true, is not the whole picture of what the believer is, looked at as a man down here, in whom sin dwells, if it does not reign. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1Jn 1:7); and yet the same apostle who says this gives us afterwards the picture of one born of God, as fair as this is (Joh 3:9). It is the truth of what the child of God is, as that; it is the ideal regenerate man: for God, when He puts such pictures in His gallery, does it to win us to better imitation. He does not, therefore, in this case put the defects before us for such a purpose, or to dispirit us, as if we were given up to a blotched life, but the contrary. He paints what we dare not say, with the Spirit within us, is not possible, and so encourages us on to make it actual. The sin in our lives in no wise comes from the seed of His sowing.
Some have argued, from what I have called the idealizing of the picture, that it must be the king of Israel alone, the Lord Jesus Christ, that is portrayed in it. That He alone has fully answered to it, we may be sure is true; but it is not, therefore, untrue as a generalized type of the believer. Here is the happiness of the man who does so and so; and in doing this he becomes like so and so. So far as the previous conditions are fulfilled, so far is the likeness found to be like; there is no difficulty in understanding this.
To return: he is "like a tree planted by the water-streams." Here the figure is of tender care and ministry. The fruit-tree is not a natural growth of the soil: a Hand has planted it, and that amid the divided streams of an irrigated land. The "living water" -and we, know this living water prepares soil for root and root for soil; and not without such care will this dependent life be sustained.
Notice, that it is the man meditating day and night upon Jehovah’s law of whom this is said: the Spirit of God acts through the word of God; there is no other way than this. As, to handle the Word without the Spirit is but rationalism, so the dream of the Spirit ministering apart from the Word is delusion and fanaticism. The word of God is the work and gift of the Spirit in man’s behalf, and He cannot be expected to set aside the very instrument that He has prepared. It is by "all Scripture, inspired of God," that "the man of God" is to be perfect, "thoroughly furnished unto every good work." Let us take care not to sunder what God has joined thus together.
So nurtured, the result is sure: he "giveth his fruit in its season." There is no crude prematurity about it: truth has to be digested and assimilated; but the activity and energy of life are there, and progress day by day. That which presents itself as of God must needs meet the challenge of the conscience ere the heart is free to yield itself to it, and the life is cast into the mould of the doctrine. But the seasonable fruit is found which God can take pleasure in. It is not for the tree itself that the fruit is produced, and it is not what we find in ourselves that is the point, but what the Lord finds. Even when, with the apostle, "I know nothing by myself," -am conscious of nothing wrong, -"yet am I not hereby justified, but He that judgeth me is the Lord." (1Co 4:4.) The soul that is thus able to say nothing for itself is just that in which the Lord will find the fruit He seeks.
And "his leaf shall not wither": it is impossible to forget, as we think of this, that tree upon which once the Lord sought fruit; and finding none, He said, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever," and presently the fig-tree withered away. Thus the leaf withered because the fruit was not to be found, for in the case of the fig-tree the putting forth of leaves takes place after the fruit. "The time of figs" in general was, indeed, as we are told, not yet"; but on this tree, however precociously, there was already the leaf of profession, and the significance of the judgment is therefore apparent.
Not yet was there sign upon earth of subjection to God, save in one nation, to which, therefore, the Lord came. Israel was just as this fig-tree, covered with leaves, zealous of the law, parading their obedience to their "One Jehovah." Surely, then, they would recognize and reverence Him whom Jehovah had openly proclaimed His Son. So the Lord had just, in public fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy, entered the city amid the homage of the multitude, rebuking those who would have rebuked them for it. But He entered to find the temple, His Father’s house, made a den of thieves, and to meet the dogged, desperate opposition of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, all the leaders of the parties that divided the people, united only in refusal of Himself. Thus they had pronounced sentence upon themselves, and His upon the fruitless fig-tree was but the manifestation of their self-assumed position.
How evident the application of this psalm, then, to the real "time of figs" that yet shall be, when the remnant of true believers in Israel shall expand into a nation of rejoicing converts, born as in a day! The fruit being at last found in its season, their "leaf shall not wither"; the perpetuity which is in God’s favor shall be theirs. "Thy people shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation: I Jehovah will hasten it in his time." (Isa 60:21-22.)
It is plain, then, that we have Israel before us in this introductory psalm, and in the time of the end; and this is confirmed by the closing verses. It is equally plain that this does not hinder the widest possible application of principles that are ever true, and must abide while God abides. The practical use that all generations have made of the psalms, from the day that they were written, has not been mistaken, except indeed where the necessary differences between Jewish and Christian apprehension and experience have been lost sight of or never appreciated. Upon this there will be need to remark more particularly and frequently enough as we go through the book: we shall not at this time, therefore, dwell upon it.
The second part of the psalm shows the character and doom of the ungodly in contrast with the blessing of the godly. Brief enough is their description, and the image used with regard to them carries us once more onward to the gospels. The Baptist, in his denunciation of judgment to come, draws, as the psalmist does, his similitude from the threshing-floor: He will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather the wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Here the figure is not pursued so far: "they are like chaff which the wind driveth away." The rootless, fruitless vain-doer is shown in the judgment of God in his own nothingness, chased away out of the world, as the wind, from the top of the hills on which the threshing-floors were placed, carried off the useless husk of the grain.
The separation is dwelt on in the next verse, and in plain words, Israel thus becoming what it never yet has been, an "assembly of the righteous." And this once more Isaiah declares will be: "And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem; when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning." (Isa 4:3-4.)
In this Jehovah manifests Himself at last, from under the clouds and darkness which often now are round about Him. That which He approves abides, His seal upon it never will be broken. And thus He "knows" the way of the righteous, -knows it well as what is His own: it is the way in which He too walks, and in which communion is found with Himself. "But the way of the ungodly perisheth."
We have, then, in this introductory psalm the blessedness of a righteous remnant in Israel, cleaving to God in subjection while others wander from Him, and in view of coming judgment which shall leave the whole nation an assembly of the righteous. But this evidently is but a partial view of the matter: the word "faith" has not as yet been uttered; the Object of faith has as yet not been seen. The second psalm must complete, therefore, the picture by presenting these.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v1 Psa 1:1 - Psa 1:2. - Psa 150:6.
Psalms
BLESSEDNESS AND PRAISE
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Psa 1:1 - Psa 1:2. - Psa 150:6.
The Psalter is the echo in devout hearts of the other portions of divine revelation. There are in it, indeed, further disclosures of God’s mind and purposes, but its especial characteristic is-the reflection of the light of God from brightened faces and believing hearts. As we hold it to be inspired, we cannot simply say that it is man’s response to God’s voice. But if the rest of Scripture may be called the speech of the Spirit of God to men, this book is the answer of the Spirit of God in men.
These two verses which I venture to lay side by side present in a very remarkable way this characteristic. It is not by accident that they stand where they do, the first and last verses of the whole collection, enclosing all, as it were, within a golden ring, and bending round to meet each other. They are the summing up of the whole purpose and issue of God’s revelation to men.
The first and second psalms echo the two main portions of the old revelation-the Law and the Prophets. The first of them is taken up with the celebration of the blessedness and fruitful, stable being of the man who loves the Law of the Lord, as contrasted with the rootless and barren life of the ungodly, who is like the chaff. The second is occupied with the contemplation of the divine ‘decree’ by which the coming King is set in God’s ‘holy hill of Zion,’ and of the blessedness of ‘all they who put their trust in Him,’ as contrasted with the swift destruction that shall fall on the vain imaginations of the rebellious heathen and banded kings of earth.
The words of our first text, then, may well stand at the beginning of the Psalter. They express the great purpose for which God has given His Law. They are the witness of human experience to the substantial, though partial, accomplishment of that purpose. They rise in buoyant triumph over that which is painful and apparently opposed to it; and in spite of sorrow and sin, proclaim the blessedness of the life which is rooted in the Law of the Lord.
The last words of the book are as significant as its first. The closing psalms are one long call to praise-they probably date from the time of the restoration under Ezra and Nehemiah, when, as we know, ‘the service of song’ was carefully re-established, and the harps which had hung silent upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon woke again their ancient melodies. These psalms climb higher and higher in their rapturous call to all creatures, animate and inanimate, on earth and in heaven, to praise Him. The golden waves of music and song pour out ever faster and fuller. At last we hear this invocation to every instrument of music to praise Him, responded to, as we may suppose, by each, in turn as summoned, adding its tributary notes to the broadening river of harmony-until all, with gathered might of glad sound blended with the crash of many voices, unite in the final words, ‘Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.’
I. We have here a twofold declaration of God’s great purpose in all His self-revelation, and especially in the Gospel of His Son.
Our first text may be translated as a joyful exclamation, ‘Oh! the blessedness of the man-whose delight is in the law of the Lord.’ Our second is an invocation or a command. The one then expresses the purpose which God secures by His gift of the Law; the other the purpose which He summons us to fulfil by the tribute of our hearts and songs-man’s happiness and God’s glory.
His purpose is Man’s blessedness.
That is but another way of saying, God is love. For love, as we know it, is eminently the desire for the happiness of the person on whom it is fixed. And unless the love of God be like ours, however it may transcend it, there is no revelation of Him to our hearts at all. If He be love, then He ‘delights in the prosperity’ of His children.
And that purpose runs through all His acts. For perfect love is all-pervasive, and even with us men, it rules the whole being; nor does he love at all who seeks the welfare of the heart he clings to by fits and starts, by some of his acts and not by others. When God comes forth from the unvisioned light, which is thick darkness, of His own eternal, self-adequate Being, and flashes into energy in Creation, Providence, or Grace, the Law of His Working and His Purpose are one, in all regions. The unity of the divine acts depends on this-that all flow from one deep source, and all move to one mighty end. Standing on the height to which His own declarations of His own nature lift our feebleness, we can see how the ‘river of God that waters the garden’ and ‘parts’ into many ‘heads,’ gushes from one fountain. One of the psalms puts what people call the ‘philosophy’ of creation and of providence very clearly, in accordance with this thought-that the love of God is the source, and the blessedness of man the end, of all His work: ‘To Him that made great lights; for His mercy endureth for ever. To Him that slew mighty kings; for His mercy endureth for ever.’
Creation, then, is the effluence of the loving heart of God. Though the sacred characters be but partially legible to us now, what He wrote, on stars and flowers, on the infinitely great and the infinitely small, on the infinitely near and the infinitely far off, with His creating hand, was the one inscription-God is love. And as in nature, so in providence. The origination, and the support, and the direction of all things, are the works and the heralds of the same love. It is printed in starry letters on the sky. It is graven on the rocks, and breathed by the flowers. It is spoken as a dark saying even by sorrow and pain. The mysteries of destructive and crushing providences have come from the same source. And he who can see with the Psalmist the ever-during mercy of the Lord, as the reason of creation and of judgments, has in his hands the golden key which opens all the locks in the palace chambers of the great King. He only hath penetrated to the secret of things material, and stands in the light at the centre, who understands that all comes from the one source-God’s endless desire for the blessedness of His creatures.
But while all God’s works do thus praise Him by testifying that He seeks to bless His creatures, the loftiest example of that desire is, of course, found in His revelation of Himself to men’s hearts and consciences, to men’s spirits and wills. That mightiest act of love, beginning in the long-past generations, has culminated in Him in whom ‘dwelleth the whole fulness of the Godhead bodily,’ and in whose work is all the love-the perfect, inconceivable, patient, omnipotent love of our redeeming God.
And then, remember that this is not inconsistent with or contradicted by the sterner aspects of that revelation, which cannot be denied, and ought not to be minimised or softened. Here, on the right hand, are the flowery slopes of the Mount of Blessing; there, on the left, the barren, stern, thunder-riven, lightning-splintered pinnacles of the Mount of Cursing. Every clear note of benediction hath its low minor of imprecation from the other side. Between the two, overhung by the hopes of the one, and frowned upon and dominated by the threatenings of the other, is pitched the little camp of our human life, and the path of our pilgrimage runs in the trough of the valley between. And yet-might we not go a step farther, and say that above the parted summits stretches the one overarching blue, uniting them both, and their roots deep down below the surface interlace and twine together? That is to say, the threatenings and rebukes, the acts of retributive judgment, which are contained in the revelation of God, are no limitation nor disturbance of the clear and happy faith that all which we behold is full of blessing, and that all comes from the Father’s hand. They are the garb in which His Love needs to array itself when it comes in contact with man’s sin and man’s evil. The love of God appears no less when it teaches us in grave sad tones that ‘the wages of sin is death,’ than when it proclaims that ‘the gift of God is eternal life.’
Love threatens that it may never have to execute its threats. Love warns that we may be wise in time. Love prophesies that its sad forebodings may not be fulfilled. And love smites with lighter strokes of premonitory chastisements, that we may never need to feel the whips of scorpions.
Remember, too, that these sterner aspects both of Law and of Gospel point this lesson-that we shall very much misunderstand God’s purpose if we suppose it to be blessedness for us men anyhow, irrespective altogether of character. Some people seem to think that God loves us so much, as they would say-so little, so ignobly, as I would say-as that He only desires us to be happy. They seem to think that the divine love is tarnished unless it provides for men’s felicity, whether they are God-loving and God-like or no. Thus the solemn and majestic love of the Father in heaven is to be brought down to a weak good nature, which only desires that the child shall cease crying and be happy, and does not mind by what means that end is reached. God’s purpose is blessedness; but, as this very text tells us, not blessedness anyhow, but one which will not and cannot be given by God to those who walk in the way of sinners. His love desires that we should be holy, and ‘followers of God as dear children’-and the blessedness which it bestows comes from pardon and growing fellowship with Him. It can no more fall on rebellious hearts than the pure crystals of the snow can lie and sparkle on the hot, black cone of a volcano.
The other text that I have read sets forth another view of God’s purpose. God seeks our praise. The glory of God is the end of all the divine actions. Now, that is a statement which no doubt is irrefragable, and a plain deduction from the very conception of an infinite Being. But it may be held in such connections, and spoken with such erroneous application, and so divorced from other truths, that instead of being what it is in the Bible, good news, it shall become a curse and a lie. It may be so understood as to describe not our Father in heaven, but an almighty devil! But, when the thought that God’s purpose in all His acts is His own glory, is firmly united with that other, that His purpose in all His acts is our blessing, then we begin to understand how full of joy it may be for us. His glory is sought by Him in the manifestation of His loving heart, mirrored in our illuminated and gladdened hearts. Such a glory is not unworthy of infinite love. It has nothing in common with the ambitious and hungry greed of men for reputation or self-display. That desire is altogether ignoble and selfish when it is found in human hearts; and it would be none the less ignoble and selfish if it were magnified into infinitude, and transferred to the divine. But to say that God’s glory is His great end, is surely but another way of saying that He is love. The love that seeks to bless us desires, as all love does, that it should be known for what it is, that it should be recognised in our glad hearts, and smiled back again from our brightened faces. God desires that we should know Him, and so have Eternal Life; He desires that knowing Him, we should love Him, and loving should praise, and so should glorify Him. He desires that there should be an interchange of love bestowing and love receiving, of gifts showered down and of praise ascending, of fire falling from the heavens and sweet incense, from grateful hearts, going up in fragrant clouds acceptable unto God. It is a sign of a Fatherly heart that He ‘seeketh such to worship Him’. He desires to be glorified by our praise, because He loves us so much. He commences with an offer, He advances to a command. He gives first, and then {not till then} He comes seeking fruit from the ‘trees’ which are ‘the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.’ His plea is not ‘the vineyard belongs to Me, and I have a right to its fruits,’ but ‘what could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?-judge between Me and My vineyard.’ First, He showers down blessings; then, He looks for the revenue of praise!
II. We may also take these passages as giving us a twofold expression of the actual effects of God’s revelation, especially in the Gospel, even here upon earth.
The one text is the joyful exclamation built upon experience and observation. The other is a call which is answered in some measure even by voices that are often dumb in unthankfulness, often broken by sobs, often murmuring in penitence.
God does actually, though not completely, make men blessed here. Our text sums up the experience of all the devout hearts and lives whose emotions are expressed in the Psalms. He who wrote this psalm would preface the whole book by words into which the spirit of the book is distilled. It will have much to say of sorrow and pain. It will touch many a low note of wailing and of grief. There will be complaints and penitence, and sighs almost of despair before it closes. But this which he puts first is the note of the whole. So it is in our histories. They will run through many a dark and desert place. We shall have bitterness and trials in abundance, there will be many an hour of sadness caused by my own evil, and many a hard struggle with it. But high above all these mists and clouds will rise the hope that seeks the skies, and deep beneath all the surface agitations of storms and currents there will be the unmoved stillness of the central ocean of peace in our hearts. In the ‘valley of weeping’ we may still be ‘blessed’ if ‘the ways’ are in our hearts, and if we make of the very tears ‘a well,’ drawing refreshment from the very trials. With all its sorrows and pains, its fightings and fears, its tribulations in the world, and its chastenings from a Father’s hand, the life of a Christian is a happy life, and ‘the joy of the Lord’ remains with His servants.
More than twenty centuries have passed since that psalm was written. As many stretched dim behind the Psalmist as he sang. He was gathering up in one sentence the spirit of the past, and confirming it by his own life’s history. And has any one that has lived since then stood up and said-’Behold! I have found it otherwise. I have waited on God, and He has not heard my cry. I have served Him, and that for nought. I have trusted in Him, and been disappointed. I have sought His face-in vain. And I say, from my own experience, that the man who trusts in Him is not blessed’? Not one, thank God! The history of the past, so far as this matter is concerned, may be put in one sentence ‘They looked unto Him and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed,’ and as for the present, are there not some of us who can say, ‘This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles’?
Brethren! make the experiment for yourselves. Test this experience by your own simple affiance and living trust in Jesus Christ. We have the experience of all generations to encourage us. What has blessed them is enough for you and me. Like the meal and the oil, which were the Prophet’s resource in famine, yesterday’s supply does not diminish to-morrow’s store. We, too, may have all that gladdened the hearts and stayed the spirits of the saints of old. ‘Oh! taste and see that God is good.’ ‘Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.’
So, too, God’s gift produces man’s praise.
What is it that He desires from us? Nothing but our thankful recognition and reception of His benefits. We honour God by taking the full cup of salvation which He commends to our lips, and by calling, while we drink, upon the name of the Lord. Our true response to His Word, which is essentially a proffer of blessing to us, is to open our hearts to receive, and, receiving, to render grateful acknowledgment. The echo of love which gives and forgives, is love which accepts and thanks. We have but to lift up our empty and impure hands, opened wide to receive the gift which He lays in them-and though they be empty and impure, yet ‘the lifting up of our hands’ is ‘as the evening sacrifice’; our sense of need stands in the place of all offerings. The stained thankfulness of our poor hearts is accepted by Him who inhabits the praises of eternity, and yet delights in the praises of Israel. He bends from heaven to give, and all He asks is that we should take. He only seeks our thankfulness-but He does seek it. And wherever His grace is discerned, and His love is welcomed, there praise breaks forth, as surely as streams pour from the cave of the glacier when the sun of summer melts it, or earth answers the touch of spring with flowers.
And that effect is produced, notwithstanding all the complaints and sighs and tears which sometimes choke our praise. It is produced even while these last; the psalms of thanksgiving are not all reserved for the end of the book. But even in those which read like the very sobs of a broken heart, there is ever present some tone of grateful acknowledgment of God’s mercy. He sends us sorrow, and He wills that we should weep-but they should be tears like David’s, who, at the lowest point of his fortunes, when he plaintively besought God, ‘Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle’-could say in the same breath, ‘Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto Thee.’ God works on our souls that we may have the consciousness of sin, and He wills that we should come with broken and contrite hearts, and like the king of Israel wail out our confessions and supplications-’Have mercy upon me, O God! according to Thy loving-kindness.’ But, like him, we should even in our lowliest abasement, when our hearts are bruised, be able to say along with our contrition, ‘Open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise.’ Our sorrows are never so great that they hide our mercies. The sky is never so covered with clouds that neither sun nor stars appear for many days. And in every Christian heart the low tones of lamentation and confession are blended with grateful praise. So it is even in the darkest moments, whilst the blast of misfortune and misery is as a storm against the wall.
But a brighter hope even for our life here rises from these words, if we think of the place which they hold in the whole book. They are the last words. Whatever other notes have been sounded in its course, all ends in this. The winter’s day has had its melancholy grey sky, with many a bitter dash of snow and rain-but it has stormed itself out, and at eventide, a rent in the clouds reveals the sun, and it closes in peaceful clearness of light.
The note of gladness heard at the beginning, ‘Oh! the blessedness of the man that delights in the law of the Lord,’ holds on persistently, like a subdued and almost bewildered undercurrent of sweet sound amid all the movements of some colossal symphony, through tears and sobs, confession and complaint, and it springs up at the close triumphant, like the ruddy spires of a flame long smothered, and swells and broadens, and draws all the intricate harmonies into its own rushing tide. Some of you remember the great musical work which has these very words for its theme. It begins with the call, ‘All that hath life and breath, praise ye the Lord,’ and although the gladness saddens into the plaintive cry of a soul sick with hope deferred, ‘Will the night soon pass?’ yet, ere the close, all discords are reconciled, and at last, with assurance firmer for the experience of passing sorrows, loud as the voice of many waters and sweet as harpers harping with their harps, the joyful invocation peals forth again, and all ends, as it does in a Christian man’s life, and as it does in this book, with ‘Praise ye the Lord.’
III. We have here also a twofold prophecy of the perfection of Heaven.
Whilst it is true that both of these purposes are accomplished here and now, it is also true that their accomplishment is but partial, and that therefore for their fulfilment we have to lift our eyes beyond this world of imperfect faith, of incomplete blessedness, of interrupted praise. Whether the Psalmist looked forward thus we do not know. But for us, the very shortcomings of our joys and of our songs are prophetic of the perfect and perpetual rapture of the one, and the perfect and perpetual music of the other. We know that He who has given us so much will not stay His hand until He has perfected that which concerns us. We know that He who has taught our dumb hearts to magnify His name will not cease till ‘out of the lips of babes and sucklings, He has perfected praise.’ We know that the pilgrims in whose hearts are the ways are blessed, and we are sure that a fuller blessedness must belong to those who have reached the journey’s end.
And so these words give us a twofold aspect of that future on which our longing hopes may well fix.
It is the perfection of man’s blessedness. Then the joyous exclamation of our first text, which we have often had to strive hard not to disbelieve, will be no more a truth of faith but a truth of experience. Here we have had to trust that it was so, even when we could scarce cleave to the confidence. There, memory will look back on our wanderings through this great wilderness, and, enlightened by the issue of them all, will speak only of Mercy and Goodness as our angel guides all our lives. The end will crown the work. Pure unmingled consciousness of bliss will fill all hearts, and break into the old exclamation, which we had sometimes to stifle sobs ere we could speak on earth. When He says, ‘Come in! ye blessed of My Father,’ all our tears and fears, and pains and sins, will be forgotten, and we shall but have to say, in wonder and joy, ‘Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house; they will be still praising Thee.’
It is the perfection of God’s praise. We may possibly venture to see in these wonderful words of our text a dim and far-off hint of a possibility that seems to be pointed at in many parts of Scripture-that the blessings of Christ’s mighty work shall, in some measure and manner, pass through man to his dwelling-place and its creatures. Dark shadows of evil-the mystery of pain and sorrow-lie over earth and all its tribes. ‘We look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.’ And the statements of Scripture which represent creation as suffering by man’s sin, and participant in its degree in man’s redemption, seem too emphatic and precise, as well as too frequent, and in too didactic connections, to be lightly brushed aside as poetic imagery. May it not be that man’s transgression
‘Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed,’
and that man’s restoration may, indeed, bring back all that hath life and breath to a harmonious blessedness-according to the deep and enigmatical words, which declare that ‘the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God’? Be that as it may, at all events our second text opens to us the gates of the heavenly temple, and shows us there the saintly ranks and angel companies gathered in the city whose walls are salvation and its gates praise. They harmonise with that other later vision of heaven which the Seer in Patmos beheld, not only in setting before us worship as the glad work of all who are there, but in teaching the connection between the praises of men, and the answering hymns of angels. The harps of heaven are hushed to hear their praise who can sing, ‘Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood,’ and, in answer to that hymn of thanksgiving for unexampled deliverance and resorting grace, the angels around the throne break forth into new songs to the Lamb that was slain-while still wider spread the broadening circles of harmonious praise, till at last ‘every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them,’ join in the mighty hymn of ‘Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.’ Then the rapturous exclamation from human souls redeemed,-’Oh! the blessedness of the men whom Thou hast loved and saved,’ shall be answered by choral praise from everything that hath breath.
And are you dumb, my friend, in these universal bursts of praise? Is that because you have not chosen to take the universal blessing which God gives? You have nothing to do but to receive the things that are freely given to you of God-the forgiveness, the cleansing, the life, that come from Christ by faith. Take them, and call upon the name of the Lord, And can you refuse His gifts and withhold your praise? You can be eloquent in thanks to those who do you kindnesses, and in praise of those whom you admire and love, but your best Friend receives none of your gratitude and none of your praise. Ignoble silence and dull unthankfulness-with these you requite your Saviour! ‘I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out!’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Book 1
Book 1
The Pss. in this book are probably among the earliest in the Psalter, and include most of those generally regarded as Davidic. They seem to have existed separately as an early hymn-book, which, with some slight additions from the final editor, was used as the nucleus of the entire collection. They have two wellmarked characteristics: (1) the constant use of the name Jehovah (rendered the Lord), and the comparative absence of the name God (Heb. Elohim); the former occurring 272 times, the latter only 15 times: and (2) the description of them all, with the exception of Psalms 1, 2, 10, , 33, as 'of David' (Heb. Le David), a fact which has been taken to indicate their derivation from a still earlier collection which bore David's name. The first two Pss. seem to have been prefixed to the others when the present Psalter was formed. Historical notices are attached to some of them, connecting them with the life of David, but these are of doubtful importance. Most of the Pss. contained in the book are spontaneous and unaffected in their style, but a few of them are of artificial construction, Psalms 9, 10, 25, 34, , 37 being acrostics.
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The contents are exceedingly varied, and the same Ps. sometimes expresses such diverse feelings as joy and sorrow, bitter disappointment and lofty aspiration. Usually, however, there is some great thought more or less prominent, which enables us to make the following rough classification of their subjects:—(a) the contrast between the righteous and the wicked, 1, 5, 10, 37; (b) the cry of the righteous in presence of trouble, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 22, 31, 38, 39, 40; (c) the glory of God in nature, 8, 19, 29; (d) the law, 1, 19; (e) the king, 2, 18, 20, 21; (f) the future life, 16. In addition, there is a reference to sacrifice in Psalms 37, an allusion to the Temple services in Psalms 24, and a foreshadowing of the Messianic hope in Psalms 2, 20, 28, , 40. The following Pss. are either quoted from or distinctly referred to in NT.: 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 14, 16, 18, 22, 24, 32, 34, 40, 41. In several instances the NT. writer finds the fulfilment of the OT. passage in Christ. Thus Psalms 2, with its defence of Jehovah's righteous King, of whom He says, 'Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee,' is regarded as descriptive of Christ in Act_13:33 and Heb_1:5; Heb_5:5 and Psalms 22, with its pathetic presentment of the suffering Servant of Jehovah, is reported to have been actually quoted by Christ upon the cross (Mat_27:44; Mar_15:34), and Psa_22:18 is asserted in Joh_19:24 to have been literally fulfilled in one of the incidents of His crucifixion.
The moral teaching of this first book of Psalms is simple and emphatic. It rests upon an unswerving belief in the will and power of God to uphold the moral values of life, and mete out punishments and rewards according to personal desert. In whatever circumstances they may be placed, the writers never lose hold of their conviction of the ultimate prosperity of the righteous and destruction of the wicked. Appearances may seem to contradict their faith, but they cling to it all the more strenuously, and insist that in the long run the balance will be redressed. The ideal' character portrayed by them is that of the good man, defamed, wronged, and oppressed by irreligious foes, but holding fast his faith in God, and trusting confidently that, in His own good time, He will deliver him. Sometimes there is a note of joy and thankfulness at the accomplishment of the deliverance; and this leads on to the anticipation of a time when, throughout the whole world, the justice of God will be manifested, and His power felt.
This Ps. forms an appropriate introduction to the whole Psalter. In some Hebrew MSS it is not numbered with the Psalms, but stands before them as a prologue, and in others it is combined with Psalms 2. It is one of the 'orphan' psalms, and the want of a title indicates that it did not originally belong to the Davidic collection, 3-41. The subject of the Ps. is the blessedness of the righteous man who studies the Law of Jehovah, as contrasted with the unhappy end of the ungodly. It consists of two strophes, Psa_1:1-3 and Psa_1:4-6, the former describing the character and destiny of the righteous, and the latter the character and destiny of the wicked.
1. Blessed] EM 'happy.' The first of the Old Testament beatitudes. Walketh not] There seems a gradual progression intended in the three clauses of the v.: walk, stand, sit, and wicked, sinner, scoffer.
2. Law] the whole revelation of God's will as made known in the sacred writings, especially the Pentateuch.
Doth.. meditate] lit. 'crooneth over,' repeats again and again in a low tone.
3. And he shall be] better, 'for he becomes,' i.e. in consequence of his constant study of God's law. Like a tree, etc.] cp. Jer_17:7-8, where the illustration is more fully developed, and the character of the wicked is similarly illustrated (Psa_17:5-6); and Eze_47:12. And whatsoever, etc.] The illustration is dropped at this stage, and the words apply to the righteous man. Shall prosper] the simple faith of the pious Israelite, which no adversity was able wholly to overcome: cp. Psalms 112 and see Psalms 37, where the problem of the suffering of the righteous perplexes another Psalmist.
4. Chaff] A common OT. type of the wicked: cp Psa_35:5. Threshing-floors were usually on high ground, where the wind would easily catch the chaff when it was beaten from the corn and drive it away (Isa_17:13). Driveth away] PBY adds, 'from the face of the earth,' following LXX and “Vulgate. 5. The judgment] every visitation of God's providence, or perhaps the final judgment. Congregation] the faithful people of Israel.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Analysis and Annotations
Analysis and Annotations
I. THE GENESIS SECTION: BOOK ONE:Psalm 1-41
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Psalm 1-8
Psalm 1
The Godly and the Ungodly
1. The godly, his character and his fruit (Psa 1:1-3)
2. The ungodly in comparison with the godly (Psa 1:4-6)
The first eight Psalms are the Psalms in embryo, just as the opening chapters of the book of Genesis are the Bible in a nutshell. Throughout the Psalms we can trace the subjects of these eight Psalms, the godly and the ungodly; but especially the great theme of the Psalms, Christ, the Perfect Man, the King rejected, the suffering of the righteous during the time of His rejection, the King enthroned and all things put under His feet. These are the leading themes of Psa 1:1-6; Psa 2:1-12; Psa 3:1-8; Psa 4:1-8; Psa 5:1-12; Psa 6:1-10; Psa 7:1-17; Psa 8:1-9.
Psa 1:1-6; Psa 2:1-12 are introductory to the entire collection, put there by the Holy Spirit. In some ancient manuscripts the first Psalm is not numbered, in others the First and Second Psalms are put into one. The First Psalm begins with a beatitude and the second ends with a beatitude. The righteous man, negative and positive, nothing evil in him, no fellowship with sinners, and positive, obedience and entire devotedness to God, does not mean the natural man. The godly One is the perfect One who walked down here separated from sinners, and devoted to God. He walked in obedience, in dependence on God and in communion with Him, and therefore the blessing, honor and glory are His. But the godly man is also the believer, born of God, separated, a saint, who delights in the things of God, meditates in His Word day and night. It is still more, a description of what the true believing remnant of Israel will be some day, “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.” Such is converted, redeemed Israel’s future as revealed here and also by Isaiah: “Thy people shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that I may be glorified” (Isa 60:21). We behold then in these opening verses of the Psalms the Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect Man, the individual believer in his separation and devotion, and what Israel, saved and converted, will be in the future.
(The Romish church has a volume called “The Psalter of the Virgin Mary compiled by Doctor St. Bonaventura.” It is in Latin and contains the 150 Psalms, greatly abridged, and each addressed to Mary. Psa 1:1-6 begins as follows: “Happy is the man that loves thy Name, O Virgin Mary, thy grace will comfort his soul. Ave Maria.” Psa 19:1-14: “The Heavens declare thy glory, O Virgin Mary.” Horrible blasphemy!)
Then the ungodly: “Like the chaff which the wind driveth away” is a prophecy of the time when the ungodly are dealt with in judgment, when “He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Mat 3:12). Then the ungodly will forever disappear and cease troubling the righteous. They will have no place in the assembly of the righteous in millennial times.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Difference Between the Righteous and the Ungodly.
The Difference Between the Righteous and the Ungodly.
All men are sinners: all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Rom 3:23. No man is able to stand before God, by virtue of his own righteousness, Isa 64:6; Dan 9:7. But all believers have the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, appropriated to them by faith, Php 3:9. And so all true believers are righteous in the eyes of God, while all unbelievers are unrighteous and ungodly in His sight.
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v. 1. Blessed is the man, literally, "blessednesses, or happinesses, of the man," that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, making the plans of the wicked his concern, making it his business to follow out their godless undertakings, nor standeth in the way of sinners, making it a point to linger in the company of those whom he should shun, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, those who scorn the belief in God in the sense of mocking and sneering at true religion. Note the climax in the verse: first comes the meditating of evil, then a wilful performance of that which is sinful, then the suppressing of a good conscience and the mockery of everything sacred; and, on the other hand, first the seeking of the society of the godless, then a somewhat uncertain standing at the outside of their circle, then a deliberate participation in their mockery.
v. 2. But his delight is in the Law of the Lord, in the meditation and study of the Law, of the Word of Jehovah, he finds full inner satisfaction and happiness; and in His Law doth he meditate day and night, reflecting upon its injunctions, applying its instructions always and in all circumstances. Just how the blessings of Jehovah come upon such a person is now described.
v. 3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, where his roots reach deep down to the hidden reservoirs of moisture, where he has a never-ending supply of vitality and power, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, as the result of a faith grounded deep in the power of Jehovah, which never disappoints the hopes of the great Gardener above, Luk 13:7; his leaf also shall not wither, not be affected by the drought of hostility or adversity; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper, with a prosperity at least in the sight of God, no matter how little the world thinks of his success. Not an outward good fortune in amassing the riches of this earth counts in the sight of Jehovah, but the possession of a trusting faith abounding in real good works.
v. 4. The ungodly are not so, either in conduct or happiness, and therefore both their condition and their destiny in the sight of God differ widely and radically from that of the believers; but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away, they have been weighed and found wanting, and therefore utter destruction comes upon them in consequence of their emptiness and vanity, just as the chaff on the open threshing-floors of the Orient is scattered to the four winds, while the heavier grain remains.
v. 5. Therefore the ungodly, the wicked unbelievers, shall not stand in the Judgment, will not be acquitted before the tribunal of God, will not be able to stand up and hold their own in the last great investigation, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, they will not be placed with the blessed of the Father at the right hand of the Judge, Mat 3:12; Psa 35:5; Zep 2:1-2.
v. 6. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, He knows them and is known of them, He is united with them by the closest band of union, in the most intimate fellowship, Joh 10:14-15, and therefore their path through life is sure to lead to God, certain to reach the goal of everlasting bliss in Him; but the way of the ungodly shall perish, it leads into the abyss of everlasting destruction and damnation. Thus is the foolishness of the wicked punished and the hope of the believers rewarded.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 6 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
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who does not walk in the advice of the wicked
The "advice of the wicked" is spoken of as if it were a path to follow. AT: "who does not follow the advice of the wicked" or "who does not do what wicked people advise" (See: Metaphor)
stand in the pathway with sinners
Here the word "pathway" represents the way people live. The word "stand" is in parallel with "walk." AT: "imitate the behavior of sinful people" (See: Metaphor)
or sit in the assembly of mockers
Sitting with people who mock God represents joining people who mock God. AT: "or join those who mock God" or "or mock God with others who mock him" (See: Metonymy)
his delight is in the law of Yahweh
The word "delight" is an abstract noun that can be stated as a verb. A person who can "delight ... in the law" is happy because the law is good and because one is obeying it. AT: "what makes him truly happy is the law of Yahweh" or "what makes him truly happy is to know that he is obeying the law of Yahweh" (See: Abstract Nouns)
Yahweh
This is the name of God that he revealed to his people in the Old Testament. See the translationWord page about Yahweh concerning how to translate this.
translationWords
bless
walk
evil
sin
assembly
mock
delight
law
Yahweh
meditate
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–6 Pss 1–8 Psalms 1 and 8 form an inclusio…
Pss 1–8 Psalms 1 and 8 form an inclusio (set of literary bookends) that describes what God expects of the ideal person (cp. Pss 19; 33; 104; 145), contrasts the godly person with the wicked, and extols the godly person’s dignity. Jesus the Messiah (Ps 2)—the sovereign Lord (Heb 2:6-8; see 1 Cor 15:27) and perfection of humanity—embodies this ideal.
Pss 1–2 The first two psalms are an introduction to the entire Psalter. Psalm 1 introduces the Lord’s instruction in wisdom, while Ps 2 introduces God’s rule over a rebellious, sinful world. Together, these psalms invite people to leave the way of folly that leads to destruction and to enter the way of God that leads to wisdom and salvation. The New Testament affirms that God will rule the nations through Jesus Christ, his appointed agent (Heb 1:5; Rev 12:5; 19:15).
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Ps 1 This wisdom psalm sets the tone for the whole Psalter. The psalmist strongly contrasts the happiness of the godly with the condemnation of the wicked; in the end, the way of wisdom will triumph. This idealization of the godly person (as in Ps 8) highlights the Lord’s expectations of his people and especially of the coming Messiah (Ps 2). The people of Israel did not live up to this ideal, and neither did the kings of David’s dynasty. Not even the best of them could bring in the triumph of righteousness described in Psalms 1, 2, and 72. In the New Testament, the apostles’ use of the Psalter to describe the life and ministry of Jesus the Messiah confirms that Jesus alone fulfills the ideal of the godly person presented in the psalms. Only Jesus could please God and secure redemption, happiness, and peace. Psalm 1 introduces the hopeful anticipation of the final hallelujah (Ps 150), when the Lord will remove all evil from his creation and prosper his children.
1:1-2 The Lord gives true happiness to all who reject evil and delight in him.
1:1 Oh, the joys: This Hebrew term (’ashrey) is used twenty-six times in Psalms. Some translations render it as “blessed,” but a different term (barak) is used in contexts of blessing (5:12; 45:2; 107:38). • The godly do not permit themselves to live under the influence of sinners. Those who do not fear the Lord are wicked (36:1); they are the enemies of those who love God, those who do right, and the poor and oppressed (see 10:2-13; 37:14). The wicked might appear pious (50:16) and sometimes enjoy temporary prosperity (37:35), but sorrow (32:10) and destruction (1:4-6) await them when their deeds catch up with them (9:16). • Those who go astray (25:8) in rebellion against the Lord (78:17) are sinners; they commit heinous crimes such as adultery and murder (cp. Ps 51). • join in with: This expression (literally sit in the seat of) depicts a life in bondage to sin (cp. 1:2; 26:3-7; Deut 6:7). • Mockers hate the Lord, scorn his wisdom, and insult anyone who attempts to correct them (Prov 9:7-8). They seek only the “wisdom” that justifies their actions. These brash people have little regard for the Lord, his plans, or his children (see Pss 86:14; 119:51, 69, 78, 85, 122). These three terms (wicked, sinners, mockers) apply to all kinds of ungodly people.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.