Psalms

Psalm 37:34-40 – The Wise will Wait upon the Lord

In most Wisdom literature, the one who has hope in the Lord will succeed even if the wicked seem to prosper now. Psalm 37 describes the wise as “waiting for the Lord.” This refers to placing hope in the Lord to keep his promises of loving care for his people as well as rendering righteous judgment. The verb (קוה) refers to hope directed at a target, and “expectation of fulfillment” (HALOT). Perhaps “have confidence” is a better translation since this is an expression of certainty.

The wicked, on the other had, will fade from memory, while the righteous will endure forever. The foolish have “spread themselves out like a tree,” appearing prosperous. The noun translated as “green laurel tree” combines “native” (אֶזְרָח ) and “leafy” (רַעֲנָן). They were like a tree which is native to an area so that it flourishes and has thick leaves. Tanner suggests the wicked are doing well and “showing off” (NICOT, 352 n. 28).

October Snow_2011-10_snowImagine if you planted a banana tree in your backyard in Michigan in August. It would be warm and humid enough for the tree to flourish for a while. You could even make your yard look like the banana plant belonged there, maybe landscape the yard to look like Hawaii. But what happens when fall comes and the temperature drops? Or when the snow starts? The banana plant will naturally curl up and die since it simply does not belong there!

In most of the wisdom literature, the fool appears to prosper for a time and eventually their foolishness catches up with them and they naturally are forgotten. Memory of their existence will simply fade away. It will be like they never were!

The righteous, on the other hand, will continue to dwell in the good land the Lord has given them. The Lord will continue to be their fortress of protection (v. 39) and he will continue to deliver them (v. 40). The Lord is like a mountain fortress (מָעוֹז) which is for the enemy impossible to capture.

Perhaps the hardest part of living out a life of wisdom as described by this Psalm is to not worry about the current state of the world. It is very easy to look at the way things are going in the world, this country, this state, the local politics of the our city or town, and think the whole world has gone wrong. This is not true, the world was always wrong! It is simply no worse now than it was when a sage wrote this wisdom psalm.

The Lord guarantees a future for the righteous, then ones who have committed to live in this good and safe pasture. The foolish have willingly wandered from that good place and do not enjoy the promises of the Lord. Ultimately, these foolish wicked will receive exactly what they have asked for and deserve.

So, do not fret! The wise person understands there is nothing in this word which has escaped the Lord’s attention and he will set things right. Our responsibility as the people of God in the present age is trust in the Lord’s sovereign lordship of this world and to rest in our certain knowledge he will judge fairly.

 

Psalm 37:1-6 – Why Worry About the Wicked?

Do not worry about the wicked (v. 1-2). Fret and envy seem like two different ideas in English, although they are used parallel here in Psalm 37. To “fret” in Hebrew (hitpael of חרה) as the sense of burning with anger, a “passionate intensity, a consuming indignation” (Ross, 805, n. 28). Maybe a contemporary English equivalent would be “don’t get steamed about what the wicked are doing.” Beth Tanner (NICOT, 348) suggests, “Do not let your anger burn concerning the evil ones.”

Dry GrassThe main reason the wise person does not need to worry about the wicked is their fate will soon overtake them. The whole Psalm will repeat the coming judgment of the wicked, here they are described as like the green grass. Considering a Middle Eastern background for the Psalm, the wicked are like the beautiful green grass that quickly grows after the spring rains, but as soon as the rains stop and the heart of summer comes, they fade away. Recall again Psalm 1, the wicked are like bushes in the desert, far from springs of living water. It is a simple natural fact people who appear to prosper in their wickedness will fade away in the heat of the coming judgment.

Rather than fret, the wise will trust in the Lord (v. 3-6). To “trust in the Lord” in this context means to trust God to sort out the difficulties of life. He will judge these wicked people who appear to be prosperous at the proper time.” Beyond trusting the Lord to sort out the unfairness of life, the righteous will delight themselves in the Lord. The verb translated “delight” (ענג, hitpael imperative) can have the sense of “pamper” or “refresh,” probably “take pleasure” in this context.

There are some things we tend to relish, whether a nice cup of coffee with a piece of fresh apple pie (you fill in your own personal favorite, this one is mine). These are not things we get all the time, so when he get them we take a great deal of pleasure in eating them slowly, savoring every bite. Perhaps there is a sense of jealous pleasure here as well, since if we really like the dessert we do not want to share even a bite with anyone else.

I think this is not the way most people think of their opportunity for communion with the Lord. Most Christians are not jealous of their time at church, or protective of their time in the Bible. There are few people I know who jealously guard their time at church, most try to find ways to avoid worship in the interest of “family time.”

Yet Psalm 37 says the righteous delight in the Lord because they are ultimately committed to him.

 

Psalm 36:5-9 – The Lord’s Great Love

Allen Ross points out the psalmist does not compare his righteous heart to the wicked person. Most people would expect the writer to say “but not so me!” after this picture of the person who lives in total ignorance of impending doom. (Something like Godwin’s Law—as long as there are Nazis, I will always be righteous.)

Rather than compare his righteousness with the wicked, the Psalmist describes the Lord as the Ultimate Righteous One. To reject the deep, steadfast love of the Lord, is foolish indeed!

Mountain of GodThe Love of the Lord is Steadfast (v. 5). Steadfast love (חֶסֶד) of the Lord refers to his covenant faithfulness and loyalty his faithfulness (אֱמוּנָה) is honesty or trustworthiness. There is a great deal of rich theology in the Hebrew Bible based on the idea of God as loyal, his hesed toward his people is foundational for understanding much of the story of the people of Israel. God will be faithful to his promises despite human sin and rebellion. Sometimes the Hebrew Bible uses a marriage metaphor for this loyalty (Ruth, Hosea).

God’s righteousness (צְדָקָה) and judgments (מִשְׁפָּט) complement each other as well. God is wholly righteous in his character so that all his decisions are perfectly just. If he has decided to reward or punish, we can be assured his decisions are correct.

The psalmist compares God’s love and justice to the heights and depths of creation. These lines imply God’s character is built into the very fabric of creation—there is no place anyone can escape God’s love and justice! (McCann, “The Book of Psalms,” NIB 4:823). His love and faithfulness reaches to the skies and clouds, as high as the eye can see.

God’s righteous judgments reach to the “mountains of God.” This metaphor indicates God’s righteousness is like mountains which will not erode and pass away, they are permanent fixtures in the heavens.

The “great deep” (תְּהוֹם) refers to the bottom of the seas, the “primeval oceans” or the opposite of heavenly mountains. If the highest place in all creation is the “mountains of God,” then the ultimate lowest place is the deepest sea. Like other texts which contrast the highest heaven and the lowest place in sheol. The point here is that all of reality is infused with God’s righteousness and justice.

For many scholars, both God and “depths” evoke Canaanite mythology (Jacobson, 342, for example). El is the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon, and the Hebrew word for depths is similar to Tiamat, the god of chaos. The Lord’s love and justice are so great they permeate creation, but they are also far greater than any of the gods worshiped by the nations.

 

Psalm 36:1-4 – The Dread of the Lord

This is not the usual word used for “fear of the Lord.” This word (פַּחַד) has the connotation of terror or dread, the kind of fear that makes you tremble. It is used in passages where God’s wrath is poured out on an enemy (“the dread of the Lord fell upon them,” 1 Sam 11:7, 2 Chron 14:13).

The_ScreamThis is the certain knowledge you are about to be swept away in judgment and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Think about the feeling you have when you drive through an obvious speed trap going well over the speed limit. You know you are about to face a righteous judgment and no argument you can make will prevent getting a ticket.

These unbelievers lack the sense to know they are about to fall under God’s wrath and face a righteous judgment. They lack the sense to make provisions against the coming judgment, whether that is to hide, bargain, or repent.

The wicked are “unbelievers.” The noun is the same as Psalm 1:4 (רָשָׁע). These are people who simply do not recognize the God of Israel as having any authority over them. As a result, they live life outside of Wisdom.

  • They flatter themselves in their own eyes. The verb “flatter” (חלק) has the sense of “make smooth,” either by pounding something out with a hammer (Isa 41:7) or by using oil. In Wisdom literature, the metaphor is smooth, slippery words, usually to flatter someone. For example, Prov 2:16 and 7:5 refer to the smooth words of the adulteress. Psalm 55:21 describes the words of a false companion and betrayer as “smooth like butter, softer than
  • They think their iniquity cannot be found out and hated. Beyond self-deceptive flattery, the wicked think what they are doing is in secret and cannot be discovered. What makes this flattery self-destructive is the wicked platter themselves. They have adapted their thinking so they can imagine themselves as something other than people destined for destruction.
  • They speak “trouble and deceit,” or perhaps “disaster and disillusionment.” The second word (מִרְמָה) has the sense of fraud or trickery, such as fraudulent balances or weights (Hos 12:8, Amos 8:5). But these are not dishonest weights in the market, but rather the words coming from the person’s mouth. If one is going to flatter oneself, then the words they speak are more than likely going to be lies and deceptions.
  • They have ceased “to act wisely and do good.” To “act wisely” is a hifel infinitive construct of שׂכל, a word normally associated with success or have insight (cf. Gen 3:6). Some translations use “prudent” for this word. To act wisely or prudently is to make a good decision based on careful reflection which results in success. “Doing good” in the Hebrew Bible covers a wide range of moral and ethical choices, very often these are good deeds toward other people.
  • They plot trouble or disaster. The noun (אָוֶן) can have the sense of a looming disaster, but since the wicked person is plotting out the disaster, they intend to cause trouble for someone—they are “up to no good.”
  • They stand on the “not good” path and do not reject evil. This verse recalls Psalm 1 and much of the wisdom tradition. There are two “paths” one can follow, two ways to go through life. These wicked do not just flirt with disaster, they are actively seek it out!

In summary, when there is no fear of the Lord, there is nothing but trouble! The wicked as described here live in utter ignorance of the looming disaster them face.

Translating Psalm 36:1

I have been teaching through some of the Wisdom Psalms in my Summer Bible Study series at church. Psalm 36:1 presents several unusual challenges for a teacher since translations vary greatly:

NIV: I have a message from God in my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked

ESV: Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart

LXX: The lawless one, to sin, says in himself that there is no fear of God before his eyes

The vast differences in the translation of verse 1 are due to the difficulty of the Hebrew text and the way the Greek translation interpreted the verse. Both the NIV and ESV provide a note with an alternate translation. Rolf Jacobson comments the first few words of the verse are “undoubtedly corrupt” (Psalms NICOT; 339 n. 3).

LXX Psalm 88:4-8

LXX Psalm 88:4-8

As in most cases, the reason for the difference is the difficulty of the Hebrew text and the way the Septuagint (LXX) coped with the difficulties. It is always possible the translator had a different Hebrew manuscript, but that is not likely the case here. It is also possible the translator did not understand the Hebrew and made an attempt to make sense of what the Hebrew text says. This could be from a lack of Hebrew skills, as most first year Hebrew students will attest, Hebrew poetry can be difficult to translate! But in this case, it seems to me the translator became an interpreter when approaching Psalm 36:1. (To complicate matters, this verse is Psalm 36:2 in the Hebrew Bible and 35:1 in the LXX.)

The first word (נְאֻם) usually refers to an oracle of the Lord, so the first line could be a title analogous to the prophets: “An oracle of transgression concerning the wicked.” The LXX interpreted this as “the transgressor, in order to sin, says to himself” (Φησὶν ὁ παράνομος τοῦ ἁμαρτάνειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ). My overly-literal translation attempts to read the articular infinitive τοῦ ἁμαρτάνειν as the purpose or intent of the verb “he speaks.” This translates the Hebrew לָ֭רָשָׁע, a noun with a prefixed preposition (“to the sinner”).

Since the Hebrew text already has a word for sin (פֶּשַׁע), the LXX translator took the second sin word as an infinitive explaining why the sinner is speaking:  “in order to sin, a sinner has to speak within his own heart and convince himself there he has no dread of the Lord.” This is the gist of the Hebrew verse as well as the LXX, although one problem yet remains, the meaning of the first word of the Hebrew text, נְאֻם. Does this mean “speak” as the LXX has, or “an oracle”?

Allen Ross represents a more or less traditional response to this textual difficulty. He translates the first line, “An oracle concerning the transgression of the wicked is within my heart” (Ross, Commentary on the Psalms, 1:779). Kraus, on the other hand, suggests the word oracle (נְאֻם) ought to be read as “pleasing” (נָעִים), resulting in the translation “pleasing is the transgression to the wicked deep in his heart” (Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 396).

Jacobson reads נְאֻם as related to the Arabic naʾama to howl, growl or the Akkadian and translates “Transgression whispers to the wicked one deep in his heart” (Psalms, NICOT, 339). Transgression becomes an evil persona who speaks into the inner person of the wicked and prevents them from recognizing the “dread of the Lord.”

A final difficulty is the Hebrew first person “my heart” (לִבִּ֑י). If the first word is not “an oracle,” then the pronoun needs to be changed to the third person “his heart,” since again based on the reading of the LXX.

In any case, the verse refers to the inner machinations of a sinner who resists the fear of the Lord and lives outside of the Wisdom Lifestyle.