1 (א) Heat not thyself because of the evil-doers;
Be not envious because of the workers of perversity
2 For like grass shall they swiftly fade,
And like green herbage shall they wither.
3 (ב) Trust in Jehovah, and do good;
Inhabit the land, and feed on faithfulness.
4 And delight thyself in Jehovah,
And He shall give thee the desires of thy heart.
5 (ג) Roll thy way upon Jehovah,
And trust in Him, and He shall do [all that thou dost need].
6 And He shall bring forth as the light thy righteousness,
And thy judgment as the noonday.
7 (ד) Be silent to Jehovah, and wait patiently for Him;
Heat not thyself because of him who makes his way prosperous,
Because of the man who carries out intrigues.
8 (ה) Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;
Heat not thyself: [it leads] only to doing evil.
9 For evil-doers shall be cut off;
And they who wait on Jehovah--they shall inherit the land.
10 (ו) And yet a little while, and the wicked is no more,
And thou shalt take heed to his place, and he is not [there].
11 And the meek shall inherit the land,
And delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
12 (ז) The wicked intrigues against the righteous,
And grinds his teeth at him.
13 The Lord laughs at him,
For He sees that his day is coming.
14 (ח) The wicked draw sword and bend their bow,
To slay the afflicted and poor,
To butcher the upright in way;
15 Their sword shall enter into their own heart,
And their bows shall be broken.
16 (ט) Better is the little of the righteous
Than the abundance of many wicked.
17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,
And Jehovah holds up the righteous.
18 (י) Jehovah has knowledge of the days of the perfect,
And their inheritance shall be for ever;
19 They shall not be put to shame in the time of evil,
And in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.
20 (כ) For the wicked shall perish,
And the enemies of Jehovah shall be like the beauty of the
pastures;
They melt away in smoke: they melt away.
21 (ל) The wicked borrows, and does not pay;
And the righteous deals generously, and gives.
22 For His blessed ones shall inherit the earth,
And His cursed ones shall be cut off.
23 (מ) From Jehovah are a man's steps established,
And He delighteth in his way;
24 If he falls, he shall not lie prostrate,
For Jehovah holds up his hand.
25 (נ) A youth have I been, now I am old,
And I have not seen a righteous man forsaken,
Or his seed begging bread.
26 All day long he is dealing generously and lending,
And his seed is blessed.
27 (ס) Depart from evil, and do good;
And dwell for evermore.
28 For Jehovah loves judgment,
And forsakes not them whom He favours.
(ע) They are preserved for ever
(The unrighteous are destroyed for ever?),
And the seed of the wicked is cut off.
29 The righteous shall inherit the land,
And dwell thereon for ever.
30 (פ) The mouth of the righteous meditates wisdom,
And his tongue speaks judgment.
31 The law of his God is in his heart;
His steps shall not waver.
32 (צ) The wicked watches the righteous,
And seeks to slay him;
33 Jehovah will not leave him in his hand,
And will not condemn him when he is judged.
34 (ק) Wait for Jehovah, and keep His way,
And He will exalt thee to inherit the land;
When the wicked is cut off, thou shalt see [it].
35 (ר) I have seen the wicked terror-striking
And spreading himself abroad like [a tree] native to the soil
[and] green.
36 And he passed (I passed by?), and lo, he was not [there];
And I sought for him, and he was not to be found.
37 (ש) Mark the perfect, and behold the upright;
For there is a posterity to the man of peace.
38 And apostates are destroyed together;
The posterity of the wicked is cut off.
39 (ת) And the salvation of the righteous is from Jehovah,
Their stronghold in time of trouble.
40 And Jehovah helps them and rescues them;
He rescues them from the wicked, and saves them,
Because they take refuge in Him.
There is a natural connection between acrostic structure and didactic
tone, as is shown in several instances, and especially in this psalm.
The structure is on the whole regular, each second verse beginning
with the required letter, but here and there the period is curtailed
or elongated by one member. Such irregularities do not seem to mark
stages in the thought or breaks in the sequence, but are simply
reliefs to the monotony of the rhythm, like the shiftings of the place
of the pause in blank verse, the management of which makes the
difference between a master and a bungler. The psalm grapples with the
problem which tried the faith of the Old Testament saints--namely, the
apparent absence of correlation of conduct with condition--and solves
it by the strong assertion of the brevity of godless prosperity and
the certainty that well-doing will lean to well-being. The principle
is true absolutely in the long run, but there is no reference in the
psalm to the future life. Visible material prosperity is its promise
for the righteous, and the opposite its threatening for the godless.
No doubt retribution is not wholly postponed till another life, but it
does not fall so surely and visibly as this psalm would lead us to
expect. The relative imperfection of the Old Testament revelation is
reflected in the Psalms, faith's answer to Heaven's word. The clear
light of New Testament revelation of the future is wanting, nor could
the truest view of the meaning and blessedness of sorrow be adequately
and proportionately held before Christ had taught it by His own
history and by His words. The Cross was needed before the mystery of
righteous suffering could be fully elucidated, and the psalmist's
solution is but provisional. His faith that infinite love ruled and
that righteousness was always gain, and sin loss, is grandly and
eternally true. Nor is it to be forgotten that he lived and sang in an
order of things in which the Divine government had promised material
blessings as the result of spiritual faithfulness, and that, with
whatever anomalies, modest prosperity did, on the whole, attend the
true Israelite. The Scripture books which wrestle most profoundly with
the standing puzzle of prosperous evil and afflicted goodness are late
books, not merely because religious reflectiveness was slowly evolved,
but because decaying faith had laid Israel open to many wounds, and
the condition of things which accompanied the decline of the ancient
order abounded with instances of triumphant wickedness.
But though this psalm does not go to the bottom of its theme, its
teaching of the blessedness of absolute trust in God's providence is
ever fresh, and fits close to all stages of revelation; and its
prophecies of triumph for the afflicted who trust and of confusion to
the evil-doer need only to be referred to the end to be completely
established. As a theodicy, or vindication of the ways of God with
men, it was true for its age, but the New Testament goes beneath it.
As an exhortation to patient trust and an exhibition of the sure
blessings thereof, it remains what it has been to many generations:
the gentle encourager of meek faith and the stay of afflicted hearts.
Marked progress of thought is not to be looked for in an acrostic
psalm. In the present instance the same ideas are reiterated with
emphatic persistence, but little addition or variation. To the
didactic poet "to write the same things is not grievous," for they are
his habitual thoughts; and for his scholars "it is safe," for there is
no better aid to memory than the cadenced monotony of the same ideas
cast into song and slightly varied. But a possible grouping may be
suggested by observing that the thought of the "cutting off" of the
wicked and the inheritance of the land by the righteous occurs three
times. If it is taken as a kind of refrain, we may cast the psalm into
four portions, the first three of which close with that double
thought. Vv. 1-9 will then form a group, characterised by exhortations
to trust and assurances of triumph. The second section will then be
vv. 10-22, which, while reiterating the ground tone of the whole, does
so with a difference, inasmuch as its main thought is the destruction
of the wicked, in contrast with the triumph of the righteous in the
preceding verses. A third division will be vv. 23-29, of which the
chief feature is the adduction of the psalmist's own experience as
authenticating his teaching in regard to the Divine care of the
righteous, and that extended to his descendants. The last section (vv.
30-40) gathers up all, reasserts the main thesis, and confirms it by
again adducing the psalmist's experience in confirmation of the other
half of his assurances, namely the destruction of the wicked. But the
poet does not wish to close his words with that gloomy picture, and
therefore this last section bends round again to reiterate and
strengthen the promises for the righteous, and its last note is one of
untroubled trust and joy in experienced deliverance.
The first portion (vv. 1-9) consists of a series of exhortations to
trust and patience, accompanied by assurance of consequent blessing.
These are preceded and followed by a dehortation from yielding to the
temptation of fretting against the prosperity of evil-doers, based
upon the assurance of its transitoriness. Thus the positive precepts
inculcating the ideal temper to be cultivated are framed in a setting
of negatives, inseparable from them. The tendency to murmur at
flaunting wrong must be repressed if the disposition of trust is to be
cultivated; and, on the other hand, full obedience to the negative
precepts is only possible when the positive ones have been obeyed with
some degree of completeness. The soul's husbandry must be busied in
grubbing up weeds as well as in sowing; but the true way to take away
nourishment from the baser is to throw the strength of the soil into
growing the nobler crop. "Fret not thyself" (A.V.) is literally, "Heat
not thyself," and "Be not envious" is "Do not glow," the root idea
being that of becoming fiery red. The one word expresses the kindling
emotion, the other its visible sign in the flushed face. Envy, anger,
and any other violent and God-forgetting emotion are included. There
is nothing in the matter in hand worth getting into a heat about, for
the prosperity in question is short-lived. This leading conviction
moulds the whole psalm, and, as we have pointed out, is half of the
refrain. We look for the other half to accompany it, as usual, and we
find it in one rendering of ver. 3, which has fallen into discredit
with modern commentators, and to which we shall come presently; but
for the moment we may pause to suggest that the picture of the herbage
withering as soon as cut, under the fierce heat of the Eastern sun,
may stand in connection with the metaphors in ver. 1. Why should we
blaze with indignation when so much hotter a glow will dry up the cut
grass? Let it wave in brief glory, unmeddled with by us. The scythe
and the sunshine will soon make an end. The precept and its reason are
not on the highest levels of Christian ethics, but they are unfairly
dealt with if taken to mean, Do not envy the wicked man's prosperity,
nor wish it were yours, but solace yourself with the assurance of his
speedy ruin. What is said is far nobler than that. It is, Do not let
the prosperity of unworthy men shake your faith in God's government,
nor fling you into an unwholesome heat, for God will sweep away the
anomaly in due time.
In regard to the positive precepts, the question arises whether ver. 3
_b_ is command or promise, with which is associated another question
as to the translation of the words rendered by the A.V., "Verily thou
shalt be fed," and by the R.V., "Follow after faithfulness." The
relation of the first and second parts of the subsequent verses is in
favour of regarding the clause as promise, but the force of that
consideration is somewhat weakened by the non-occurrence in ver. 3 of
the copula which introduces the promises of the other verses. Still
its omission does not seem sufficient to forbid taking the clause as
corresponding with these. The imperative is similarly used as
substantially a future in ver. 27: "and dwell for evermore." The fact
that in every other place in the psalm where "dwelling in the land" is
spoken of it is a promise of the sure results of trust, points to the
same sense here, and the juxtaposition of the two ideas in the refrain
leads us to expect to find the prediction of ver. 2 followed by its
companion there. On the whole, then, to understand ver. 3 _b_ as
promise seems best. (So LXX., Ewald, Grätz, etc.) What, then, is the
meaning of its last words? If they are a continuation of the promise,
they must describe some blessed effect of trust. Two renderings
present themselves, one that adopted in the R.V. margin, "Feed
securely," and another "Feed on faithfulness" (_i.e._, of God).
Hupfeld calls this an "arbitrary and forced" reference of
"faithfulness"; but it worthily completes the great promise. The
blessed results of trust and active goodness are stable dwelling in
the land and nourishment there from a faithful God. The thoughts move
within the Old Testament circle, but their substance is eternally
true, for they who take God for their portion have a safe abode, and
feed their souls on His unalterable adherence to His promises and on
the abundance flowing thence.
The subsequent precepts bear a certain relation to each other, and,
taken together, make a lovely picture of the inner secret of the
devout life: "Delight thyself in Jehovah; roll thy way on Him; trust
in Him; be silent to Jehovah." No man will commit his way to God who
does not delight in Him; and unless he has so committed his way, he
cannot rest in the Lord. The heart that delights in God, finding its
truest joy in Him and being well and at ease when consciously moving
in Him as an all-encompassing atmosphere and reaching towards Him with
the deepest of its desires, will live far above the region of
disappointment. For it desire and fruition go together. Longings fixed
on Him fulfil themselves. We can have as much of God as we wish. If He
is our delight, we shall wish nothing contrary to nor apart from Him,
and wishes which are directed to Him cannot be in vain. To delight in
God is to possess our delight, and in Him to find fulfilled wishes and
abiding joys. "Commit thy way unto Him," or "Roll it upon Him" in the
exercise of trust; and, as the verse says with grand generality,
omitting to specify an object for the verb, "He will do"--all that is
wanted, or will finish the work. To roll one's way upon Jehovah
implies subordination of will and judgment to Him and quiet confidence
in His guidance. If the heart delights in Him, and the will waits
silent before Him, and a happy consciousness of dependence fills the
soul, the desert will not be trackless, nor the travellers fail to
hear the voice which says, "This is the way; walk ye in it." He who
trusts is led, and God works for him, clearing away clouds and
obstructions. His good may be evil spoken of, but the vindication by
fact will make his righteousness shine spotless; and his cause may be
apparently hopeless, but God will deliver him. He shall shine forth as
the sun, not only in such earthly vindication as the psalmist
prophesied, but more resplendently, as Christian faith has been gifted
with long sight to anticipate, "in the kingdom of my Father." Thus
delighting and trusting, a man may "be silent." Be still before
Jehovah, in the silence of a submissive heart, and let not that
stillness be torpor, but gather thyself together and stretch out thy
hope towards Him. That patience is no mere passive endurance without
murmuring, but implies tension of expectance. Only if it is thus
occupied will it be possible to purge the heart of that foolish and
weakening heat which does no harm to any one but to the man himself.
"Heat not thyself; it only leads to doing evil." Thus the section
returns upon itself and once more ends with the unhesitating
assurance, based upon the very essence of God's covenant with the
nation, that righteousness is the condition of inheritance, and sin
the cause of certain destruction. The narrower application of the
principle, which was all that the then stage of revelation made clear
to the psalmist, melts away for us into the Christian certainty that
righteousness is the condition of dwelling in the true land of
promise, and that sin is always death, in germ or in full fruitage.
The refrain occurs next in ver. 22, and the portion thus marked off
(vv. 10-22) may be dealt with as a smaller whole. After a repetition
(vv. 10, 11) of the main thesis slightly expanded, it sketches in
vivid outline the fury of "the wicked" against "the just" and the grim
retribution that turns their weapons into agents of their destruction.
How dramatically are contrasted the two pictures of the quiet
righteous in the former section and of this raging enemy, with his
gnashing teeth and arsenal of murder! And with what crushing force the
thought of the awful laughter of Jehovah, in foresight of the swift
flight towards the blind miscreant of the day of his fall, which has
already, as it were, set out on its road, smites his elaborate
preparations into dust! Silently the good man sits wrapped in his
faith. Without are raging, armed foes. Above, the laughter of God
rolls thunderous, and from the throne the obedient "day" is winging
its flight, like an eagle with lightning bolts in its claws. What can
the end be but another instance of the solemn lex talionis, by which a
man's evil slays himself?
Various forms of the contrast between the two classes follow, with
considerable repetition and windings. One consideration which has to
be taken into account in estimating the distribution of material
prosperity is strongly put in vv. 16, 17. The good of outward
blessings depends chiefly on the character of their owner. The
strength of the extract from a raw material depends on the solvent
applied, and there is none so powerful to draw out the last drop of
most poignant and pure sweetness from earthly good as is righteousness
of heart. Naboth's vineyard will yield better wine, if Naboth is
trusting in Jehovah, than all the vines of Jezreel or Samaria. "Many
wicked" have not as much of the potentiality of blessedness in all
their bursting coffers as a poor widow may distil out of two mites.
The reasons for that are manifold, but the prevailing thought of the
psalm leads to one only being named here. "For," says ver. 17, "the
arms of the wicked shall be broken." Little is the good of possessions
which cannot defend their owners from the stroke of God's
executioners, but themselves pass away. The poor man's little is much,
because, among other reasons, he is upheld by God, and therefore needs
not to cherish anxiety, which embitters the enjoyments of others.
Again the familiar thought of permanent inheritance recurs, but now
with a glance at the picture just drawn of the destruction coming to
the wicked. There are days and days. God saw that day of ruin
speeding on its errand, and He has loving sympathetic knowledge of the
days of the righteous (i. 6), and holds their lives in His hand;
therefore continuance and abundance are ensured.
The antithetical structure of vv. 16-22 is skilfully varied, so as to
avoid monotony. It is elastic within limits. We note that in the Teth
strophe (vv. 16, 17) each verse contains a complete contrast, while in
the Yod strophe (vv. 18, 19) one half only of the contrast is
presented, which would require a similar expansion of the other over
two verses. Instead of this, however, the latter half is compressed
into one verse (20), which is elongated by a clause. Then in the Lamed
strophe (vv. 21, 22) the briefer form recurs, as in vv. 16, 17. Thus
the longer antithesis is enclosed between two parallel shorter ones,
and a certain variety breaks up the sameness of the swing from one
side to the other, and suggests a pause in the flow of the psalm. The
elongated verse (20) reiterates the initial metaphor of withering
herbage (ver. 2) with an addition, for the rendering "fat of lambs"
must be given up as incongruous, and only plausible on account of the
emblem of smoke in the next clause. But the two metaphors are
independent. Just as in ver. 2, so here, the gay "beauty of the
pastures," so soon to wilt and be changed into brown barrenness,
mirrors the fate of the wicked. Ver. 2 shows the grass fallen before
the scythe; ver. 20 lets us see it in its flush of loveliness, so
tragically unlike what it will be when its "day" has come. The other
figure of smoke is a stereotype in all tongues for evanescence. The
thick wreaths thin away and melt. Another peculiar form of the
standing antithesis appears in the Lamed strophe (vv. 21, 22), which
sets forth the gradual impoverishment of the wicked and prosperity as
well as beneficence of the righteous, and, by the "for" of ver. 22,
traces these up to the "curse and blessing of God, which become
manifest in the final destiny of the two" (Delitzsch). Not dishonesty,
but bankruptcy, is the cause of "not paying again"; while, on the
other hand, the blessing of God not only enriches, but softens, making
the heart which has received grace a well-spring of grace to needy
ones, even if they are foes. The form of the contrast suggests its
dependence on the promises in Deut. xii. 44, xv. 6, 28. Thus the
refrain is once more reached, and a new departure taken.
The third section is shorter than the preceding (vv. 23-29), and has,
as its centre, the psalmist's confirmation from his own experience of
the former part of his antithesis, the fourth section similarly
confirming the second. All this third part is sunny with the Divine
favour streaming upon the righteous, the only reference to the wicked
being in the refrain at the close. The first strophe (vv. 23, 24)
declares God's care for the former under the familiar image of
guidance and support to a traveller. As in vv. 5, 7, the "way" is an
emblem of active life, and is designated as "his" who treads it. The
intention of the psalm, the context of the metaphor, and the
parallelism with the verses just referred to, settle the reference of
the ambiguous pronouns "he" and "his" in ver. 23 _b_. God delights in
the good man's way (i. 6), and that is the reason for His establishing
his goings. "Quoniam Deo grata est piorum via, gressus ipsum ad lætum
finem adducit" (Calvin). That promise is not to be limited to either
the material or moral region. The ground tone of the psalm is that the
two regions coincide in so far as prosperity in the outer is the
infallible index of rightness in the inner. The dial has two sets of
hands, one within and one without, but both are, as it were, mounted
on the same spindle, and move accurately alike. Steadfast treading in
the path of duty and successful undertakings are both included, since
they are inseparable in fact. True, even the fixed faith of the
psalmist has to admit that the good man's path is not always smooth.
If facts had not often contradicted his creed, he would never have
sung his song; and hence he takes into account the case of such a
man's falling, and seeks to reduce its importance by the
considerations of its recoverableness and of God's keeping hold of the
man's hand all the while.
The Nun strophe brings in the psalmist's experience to confirm his
doctrine. The studiously impersonal tone of the psalm is dropped only
here and in the complementary reference to the fall of the wicked (vv.
35, 36). Observation and reflection yield the same results. Experience
seals the declarations of faith. His old eyes have seen much; and the
net result is that the righteous may be troubled, but not abandoned,
and that there is an entail of blessing to their children. In general,
experience preaches the same truths to-day, for, on the whole,
wrong-doing lies at the root of most of the hopeless poverty and
misery of modern society. Idleness, recklessness, thriftlessness,
lust, drunkenness, are the potent factors of it; and if their
handiwork and that of the subtler forms of respectable godlessness and
evil were to be eliminated, the sum of human wretchedness would shrink
to very small dimensions. The mystery of suffering is made more
mysterious by ignoring its patent connection with sin, and by denying
the name of sin to many of its causes. If men's conduct were judged by
God's standard, there would be less wonder at God's judgments
manifested in men's suffering.
The solidarity of the family was more strongly felt in ancient times
than in our days of individualism, but even now the children of the
righteous, if they maintain the hereditary character, do largely
realise the blessing which the psalmist declares is uniformly theirs.
He is not to be tied down to literality in his statement of the
general working of things. What he deals with is the prevailing trend,
and isolated exceptions do not destroy his assertion. Of course
continuance in paternal virtues is presupposed as the condition of
succeeding to paternal good. In the strength of the adduced
experience, a hortatory tone, dropped since ver. 8, is resumed, with
reminiscences of that earlier series of counsels. The secret of
permanence is condensed into two antithetical precepts, to depart from
evil and do good, and the key-note is sounded once more in a promise,
cast into the guise of a commandment (compare ver. 3), of unmoved
habitation, which is, however, not to be stretched to refer to a
future life, of which the psalm says nothing. Such permanent abiding
is sure, inasmuch as Jehovah loves judgment and watches over the
objects of His loving-kindness.
The acrostic sequence fails at this point, if the Masoretic text is
adhered to. There is evident disorder in the division of verses, for
ver. 28 has four clauses instead of the normal two. If the superfluous
two are detached from it and connected as one strophe with ver. 29, a
regular two-versed and four-claused strophe results. Its first word
(L'olam = "for ever") has the Ayin, due in the alphabetical sequence,
in its second letter, the first being a prefixed preposition, which
may be passed over, as in ver. 39 the copula Vav is prefixed to the
initial letter. Delitzsch takes this to be the required letter; but if
so, another irregularity remains, inasmuch as the first couplet of the
strophe should be occupied with the fate of the wicked, as
antithetical to that of the righteous in ver. 29. "They are preserved
for ever" throws the whole strophe out of order. Probably, therefore,
there is textual corruption here, which the LXX. helps in correcting.
It has an evidently double rendering of the clause, as is not
unfrequently the case where there is ambiguity or textual difficulty,
and gives side by side with "They shall be preserved for ever" the
rendering "The lawless shall be hunted out," which can be re-turned
into Hebrew so as to give the needed initial Ayin either in a somewhat
rare word, or in one which occurs in ver. 35. If this correction is
adopted, the anomalies disappear, and strophe, division, acrostic, and
antithetical refrain are all in order.
The last section (ver. 30 to end), like the preceding, has the
psalmist's experience for its centre, and traces the entail of conduct
to a second generation of evil-doers, as the former did to the seed of
the righteous. Both sections begin with the promise of firmness for the
"goings or steps" of the righteous, but the later verses expand the
thought by a fuller description of the moral conditions of stability.
"The law of his God is in his heart." That is the foundation on which
all permanence is built. From that as centre there issue wise and just
words on the one hand and stable deeds on the other. That is true in the
psalmist's view in reference to outward success and continuance, but
still more profoundly in regard to steadfast progress in paths of
righteousness. He who orders his footsteps by God's known will is saved
from much hesitancy, vacillation, and stumbling, and plants a firm foot
even on slippery places.
Once more the picture of the enmity of the wicked recurs, as in vv.
12-14, with the difference that there the emphasis was laid on the
destruction of the plotters, and here it is put on the vindication of
the righteous by acts of deliverance (vv. 32, 33).
In ver. 34 another irregularity occurs, in its being the only verse in
a strophe and being prolonged to three clauses. This may be intended
to give emphasis to the exhortation contained in it, which, like that
in ver. 27, is the only one in its section. The two key words
"inherit" and "cut off" are brought together. Not only are the two
fates set in contrast, but the waiters on Jehovah are promised the
sight of the destruction of the wicked. Satisfaction at the sight is
implied. There is nothing unworthy in solemn thankfulness when God's
judgments break the teeth of some devouring lion. Divine judgments
minister occasion for praise even from pure spirits before the throne,
and men relieved from the incubus of godless oppression may well draw
a long breath of relief, which passes into celebration of His
righteous acts. No doubt there is a higher tone, which remembers ruth
and pity even in that solemn joy; but Christian feeling does not
destroy but modify the psalmist's thankfulness for the sweeping away
of godless antagonism to goodness.
His assurance to those who wait on Jehovah has his own experience as its
guarantee (ver. 35), just as the complementary assurance in ver. 24 had
in ver. 25. The earlier metaphors of the green herbage and the beauty of
the pastures are heightened now. A venerable, wide-spreading giant of
the forests, rooted in its native soil, is grander than those humble
growths; but for lofty cedars or lowly grass the end is the same. Twice
the psalmist stood at the same place; once the great tree laid its large
limbs across the field, and lifted a firm bole: again he came, and a
clear space revealed how great had been the bulk which shadowed it. Not
even a stump was left to tell where the leafy glory had been.
Vv. 37, 38, make the Shin strophe, and simply reiterate the antithesis
which has moulded the whole psalm, with the addition of that reference
to a second generation which appeared in the third and fourth parts. The
word rendered in the A.V. and R.V. "latter end" here means posterity.
The "perfect man" is further designated as a "man of peace."
The psalm might have ended with this gathering together of its
contents in one final emphatic statement, but the poet will not leave
the stern words of destruction as his last. Therefore he adds a sweet,
long-drawn-out close, like the calm, extended clouds, that lie
motionless in the western sky after a day of storm, in which he once
more sings of the blessedness of those who wait on Jehovah. Trouble
will come, notwithstanding his assurances that righteousness is
blessedness; but in it Jehovah will be a fortress home, and out of it
He will save them. However the teaching of the psalm may need
modification in order to coincide with the highest New Testament
doctrine of the relation between righteousness and prosperity, these
confidences need none. For ever and absolutely they are true: in
trouble a stronghold, out of trouble a Saviour, is God to all who
cling to Him. Very beautifully the closing verse lingers on its theme,
and wreathes its thoughts together, with repetition that tells how
sweet they are to the singer: "Jehovah helps them, and _rescues_ them;
He _rescues_ them, ... and saves them." So the measure of the strophe
is complete, but the song flows over in an additional clause, which
points the path for all who seek such blessedness. Trust is peace.
They who take refuge in Jehovah are safe, and their inheritance shall
be for ever. That is the psalmist's inmost secret of a blessed life.