1 Good is it to give thanks to Jehovah,
And to harp to Thy name, Most High;
2 To declare in the morning Thy loving-kindness,
And thy faithfulness in the night seasons,
3 Upon a ten-stringed [instrument], even upon the psaltery,
With skilful music on the lyre.
4 For Thou hast gladdened me, Jehovah, with Thy working,
In the works of Thy hands will I shout aloud my joy.
5 How great are Thy works, Jehovah,
Exceeding deep are Thy purposes!
6 A brutish man knows not,
And a fool understands not this.
7 When the wicked sprang like herbage,
And all the workers of iniquity blossomed,
[It was only] for their being destroyed for ever.
8 But Thou art [enthroned] on high for evermore, Jehovah!
9 For behold Thy enemies, Jehovah,
For behold Thy enemies--shall perish,
All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.
10 But Thou hast exalted my horn like a wild ox,
I am anointed with fresh oil (?).
11 My eye also gazed on my adversaries,
Of them that rose against me as evil-doers my ear heard.
12 The righteous shall spring like the palm,
Like a cedar in Lebanon shall he grow.
13 Planted in the house of Jehovah,
They shall spring in the courts of our God.
14 Still shall they bear fruit in old age,
Full of sap and verdant shall they be.
15 To declare that Jehovah is upright,
My Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
Authorities differ in their arrangement of this psalm. Clearly,
the first three verses are a prelude; and if these are left out of
account, the remainder of the psalm consists of twelve verses, which
fall into two groups of six each, the former of which mainly deals
with the brief prosperity and final overthrow of the wicked, while
the latter paints the converse truth of the security and blessedness
of the righteous. Both illustrate the depth of God's works and
purposes, which is the psalmist's theme. A further division of each
of these six verses into groups of three is adopted by Delitzsch, and
may be accepted. There will then be five strophes of three verses
each, of which the first is introductory; the second and third, a
pair setting forth the aspect of Providence towards the wicked; and
the fourth and fifth, another pair, magnifying its dealings with the
righteous. Perowne takes the eighth verse, which is distinguished
by containing only one clause, as the kernel of the psalm, which
is preceded by seven verses, constituting the first division, and
followed by seven, making the second. But this arrangement, though
tempting, wrenches ver. 9 from its kindred ver. 7.
Vv. 1-3 are in any case introductory. In form they are addressed
to Jehovah, in thankful acknowledgment of the privilege and joy
of praise. In reality they are a summons to men to taste its
gladness, and to fill each day and brighten every night by music of
thanksgiving. The devout heart feels that worship is "good," not
only as being acceptable to God and conformable to man's highest
duty, but as being the source of delight to the worshipper. Nothing
is more characteristic of the Psalter than the joy which often
dances and sings through its strains. Nothing affords a surer test
of the reality of worship than the worshipper's joy in it. With much
significance and beauty, "Thy loving-kindness" is to be the theme of
each morning, as we rise to a new day and find His mercy, radiant as
the fresh sunshine, waiting to bless our eyes, and "Thy faithfulness"
is to be sung in the night seasons, as we part from another day which
has witnessed to His fulfilment of all His promises.
The second strophe contains the reason for praise--namely, the
greatness and depth of the Divine works and purposes. The works
meant are, as is obvious from the whole strain of the psalm, those
of God's government of the world. The theme which exercised earlier
psalmists reappears here, but the struggles of faith with unbelief,
which are so profoundly and pathetically recorded in Psalm lxxiii.,
are ended for this singer. He bows in trustful adoration before the
greatness of the works and the unsearchable depth of the purpose of
God which directs the works. The sequence of vv. 4-6 is noteworthy.
The central place is occupied by ver. 5--a wondering and reverent
exclamation, evoked by the very mysteries of Providence. On either
side of it stand verses describing the contrasted impression made
by these on devout and on gross minds. The psalmist and his fellows
are "gladdened," though he cannot see to the utmost verge or deepest
abyss of Works or Plans. What he does see is good; and if sight does
not go down to the depths, it is because eyes are weak, not because
these are less pellucid than the sunlit shallows. What gladdens the
trustful soul, which is in sympathy with God, only bewilders the
"brutish man"--_i.e._, the man who, by immersing his faculties in
sense, has descended to the animal level; and it is too grave and
weighty for the "fool," the man of incurable levity and self-conceit,
to trouble himself to ponder. The eye sees what it is capable of
seeing. A man's judgment of God's dealings depends on his relation to
God and on the dispositions of his soul.
The sterner aspect of Providence is dealt with in the next strophe
(vv. 7-9). Some recent signal destruction of evil-doers seems
to be referred to. It exemplifies once more the old truth which
another psalmist had sung (Psalm xxxvii. 2), that the prosperity
of evil-doers is short-lived, like the blossoming herbage, and not
only short-lived, but itself the occasion of their destruction. The
apparent success of the wicked is as a pleasant slope that leads
downwards. The quicker the blossoming, the sooner the petals fall.
"The prosperity of fools shall destroy them." As in the previous
strophe the middle verse was central in idea as well as in place, so
in this one. Ver. 8 states the great fact from which the overthrow
of the wicked, which is declared in the verses before and after,
results. God's eternal elevation above the Transitory and the Evil
is not merely contrasted with these, but is assigned as the reason
why what is evil is transitory. We might render "Thou, Jehovah, art
high (lit. a height) for evermore," as, in effect, the LXX. and other
old versions do; but the application of such an epithet to God is
unexampled, and the rendering above is preferable. God's eternal
exaltation "is the great pillar of the universe and of our faith"
(Perowne). From it must one day result that all God's enemies shall
perish, as the psalmist reiterates, with triumphant reduplication
of the designation of the foes, as if he would make plain that the
very name "God's enemies" contained a prophecy of their destruction.
However closely banded, they "shall be scattered." Evil may make
conspiracies for a time, for common hatred of good brings discordant
elements into strange fellowship, but in its real nature it is
divisive, and, sooner or later, allies in wickedness become foes, and
no two of them are left together. The only lasting human association
is that which binds men to one another, because all are bound to God.
From the scattered fugitives the psalmist turns first to joyful
contemplation of his own blessedness, and then to wider thoughts
of the general well-being of all God's friends. The more personal
references are comprised in the fourth strophe (vv. 10-12). The
metaphor of the exalted horn expresses, as in Psalms lxxv. 10,
lxxxix. 17, triumph or the vindication of the psalmist by his
deliverance. Ver. 10_b_ is very doubtful. The word usually rendered
"I am anointed" is peculiar. Another view of the word takes it for
an infinitive used as a noun, with the meaning "growing old," or, as
Cheyne renders, "wasting strength." This translation ("my wasting
strength with rich oil") is that of the LXX. and other ancient
versions, and of Cheyne and Baethgen among moderns. If adopted, the
verb must be understood as repeated from the preceding clause, and
the slight incongruity thence arising can be lessened by giving a
somewhat wider meaning to "exalted," such as "strengthen" or the
like. The psalmist would then represent his deliverance as being like
refreshing a failing old age, by anointing with fresh oil.
Thus triumphant and quickened, he expects to gaze on the downfall
of his foes. He uses the same expression as is found in Psalm xci.
8, with a similar connotation of calm security, and possibly of
satisfaction. There is no need for heightening his feelings into
"desire," as in the Authorised and Revised Versions. The next clause
(ver. 11_b_) "seems to have been expressly framed to correspond with
the other; it occurs nowhere else in this sense" (Perowne). A less
personal verse (ver. 12) forms the transition to the last strophe,
which is concerned with the community of the righteous. Here the
singular number is retained. By "the righteous" the psalmist does not
exactly mean himself, but he blends his own individuality with that
of the ideal character, so that he is both speaking of his own future
and declaring a general truth. The wicked "spring like herbage" (ver.
7), but the righteous "spring like the palm." The point of comparison
is apparently the gracefulness of the tree, which lifts its slender
but upright stem, and is ever verdant and fruitful. The cedar in
its massive strength, its undecaying vigour, and the broad shelves
of its foliage, green among the snows of Lebanon, stands in strong
contrast to the palm. Gracefulness is wedded to strength, and both
are perennial in lives devoted to God and Right. Evil blooms quickly,
and quickly dies. What is good lasts. One cedar outlives a hundred
generations of the grass and flowers that encircle its steadfast feet.
The last part extends the thoughts of ver. 12 to all the righteous.
It does not name them, for it is needless to do so. Imagery and
reality are fused together in this strophe. It is questionable
whether there were trees planted in the courts of the Temple; but
the psalmist's thought is that the righteous will surely be found
there, and that it is their native soil, in which rooted, they are
permanent. The facts underlying the somewhat violent metaphor are
that true righteousness is found only in the dwellers with God, that
they who anchor themselves in Him, as a tree in the earth, are both
stayed on, and fed from, Him. The law of physical decay does not
enfeeble all the powers of devout men, even while they are subject to
it. As aged palm trees bear the heaviest clusters, so lives which are
planted in and nourished from God know no term of their fruitfulness,
and are full of sap and verdant, when lives that have shut themselves
off from Him are like an old stump, gaunt and dry, fit only for
firewood. Such lives are prolonged and made fruitful, as standing
proofs that Jehovah is upright, rewarding all cleaving to Him and
doing of His will, with conservation of strength, and ever-growing
power to do His will.
Ver. 15 is a reminiscence of Deut. xxxii. 4. The last clause is
probably to be taken in connection with the preceding, as by Cheyne
("And that in my Rock there is no unrighteousness"). But it may also
be regarded as a final avowal of the psalmist's faith, the last
result of his contemplations of the mysteries of Providence. These
but drive him to cling close to Jehovah, as his sole refuge and his
sure shelter, and to ring out _this_ as the end which shall one day
be manifest as the net result of Providence--that there is no least
trace of unrighteousness in Him.