THE MOST IMMEDIATELY obvious characteristic of Book 1 of the Psalter is its dominant Davidic character. Assuming the special character of the untitled Psalms 1 and 2 as introductory, we are left in this initial section with thirty-nine psalms, of which all but two bear attribution to David in their headings—employing the simple although somewhat ambiguous1 construction ledawid, meaning “to/for/by/concerning/under the authority of/in the style of David.” The two anomalous psalms (Pss. 10 and 33) have no headings, but each preserves a textual tradition of having been combined with the psalm that immediately precedes (Pss. 9 and 32 respectively). If we accept the tradition for the combination of these aberrant psalms with their immediate predecessors, Book 1 of the Psalter is a uniformly Davidic collection bounded at the beginning by Psalms 1 and 2 and concluded by the doxology in 41:13: “Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.”2
Between these two boundary posts, Book 1 is characterized largely by individual psalms and pleas for deliverance. Of the compositions in the book, twenty-seven are clearly individual psalms,3 of which eighteen are pleas for deliverance.4 An additional seven psalms (9; 10; 18; 21; 30; 32; 34) offer thanksgiving for deliverance from trouble, and five more (14; 15; 35; 36; 37) provide instruction regarding the experience of evil in the world. By contrast, unambiguous praise of Yahweh is encountered in only five psalms (8; 16; 19; 29; 33), and confident reliance on Yahweh is expressed in only three (11; 23; 27). A single psalm (24) represents an entrance liturgy.
Following the elevated hopes for kingship expressed in Psalm 2, Book 1 shifts decisively into a block of pleas for deliverance at its opening (3–7) and concludes with an extended block of psalms focused on instruction concerning continuing evil in the world (35–37) and additional pleas for deliverance (38–41). Between these two extremes, psalms with an awareness of evil and trouble (thanksgiving, instruction, pleas) outnumber psalms of praise and reliance two to one.5 The effect of this arrangement is to focus the collection on the experience of pain and suffering rather than on praise of God for a well-ordered and firmly established world.
Despite the appearance of reliance and praise scattered through the middle of this first book, the overriding sense expressed is of attack, suffering, and the need for divine deliverance. Even though the central expression of the collection (Ps. 21) is a thanksgiving psalm celebrating the victory granted the king against his enemies, this joyous psalm is preceded by a prayer for deliverance (20) and followed by agonized prayer of suffering and abandonment (22). This leaves the reader with the impression that any sense of victory is fleeting while suffering and distress are constant in life.
Elsewhere I have suggested that the first three books of the Psalter (Pss. 1–89) are arranged in a sort of rough commentary on the Davidic kingship by the strategic placement of royal psalms.6 Book 1 announces the institution of the kingship with the promises of universal dominion (Ps. 2), but quickly slides into mourning and pleas for divine deliverance in Psalm 3 and following. A real sense is established here of the frailty of human power,7 the secure refuge God affords, and the need for divine deliverance and protection. The last four psalms (38–41) are bounded before and after with prayers for deliverance from sickness—a circumstance that accords well with David at the conclusion of his own life and reign. While some may question whether these psalms were actually written by David, they do reflect the uncertainty, confusion, and plotting that characterize the transition between kings, even within the Davidic dynasty.
If this were the end of the Davidic collection, then the situation would seem dismal indeed. But the combination of this first book with the second, as the postscript in 72:20 suggests, expands the Davidic collection by the addition of Psalms 42–72. This provides the first Davidic collection with a different terminus (“This concludes the prayers of David son of Jesse”), and, as we will consider in “The Shape of Book 2,” with a different character. As it stands, Book 1 does not represent the end of the Davidic dynasty but mirrors at its conclusion (38–41) the difficulty of transition from one king to subsequent generations.
The uncertainty reflected in these concluding psalms is also consonant with that experienced by the Diaspora community, who had known not just the death of a king but of the monarchy altogether. The grouping of Psalms 38–41 here provides counsel and hope that would have resonated deeply with the needs of those struggling to survive in exile. These psalms affirm that despite the suffering of attack, Yahweh is the only source of salvation; he is salvation! (38:22). The appropriate response to the continuing suffering is to acknowledge it is a just, divine rebuke for sin (38:1; 39:10) and to wait silently for divine redemption (38:13–16; 39:1–3, 8–9). Psalm 40 mirrors this same kind of enduring patience in the face of suffering and adds an attitude of expectant anticipation (see the Bridging Contexts section of Ps. 40).
The whole grouping and Book 1 conclude with Psalm 41 and its description of the suffering weakness of one facing death from disease. Remarkably this psalm begins with the by-now familiar cry “Blessed” (ʾašre), which links this final psalm back to 2:8 and its triumphant celebration of the election of the Davidic dynasty for powerful rule over the nations. Although the situation reflected at the conclusion of Book 1 is radically different (as was the circumstance of the exilic community), the call for blessing remains unchanged. Those who took refuge in the conquering king in 2:8 have now become those who cast their lot with the “weak” (41:1), but both remain “blessed” in their enduring patience to wait for the coming one.
1Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Original Meaning
IF YOU WERE to open a handwritten medieval manuscript of the Psalms at its beginning, chances are that you would discover this psalm—the first in the canonical collection—written in red ink and without any evidence of a number.8 That is because at an early date the psalm we now know as Psalm 1 was understood to be an introduction to the whole Psalter rather than just another psalm. It is likely that the final editors of the Psalter chose Psalm 1 as the gateway to the psalms because it encourages the readers/hearers9 to consider the songs that follow to have the effect of divine guidance or torah. This psalm also exhorts the readers both to read the psalms and to meditate deeply on the message God is communicating through them. It strongly affirms that how one responds to the revelation of God unleashed by reading the psalms determines one’s ultimate destiny.
The use of Psalm 1 as an unnumbered preface to the whole Psalter may also explain the description in Acts 13:33 (in some Western manuscripts of the Greek New Testament) of a quotation from what we now consider Psalm 2:7 as having been taken from the “first psalm.” Apparently in that manuscript tradition what we now call Psalm 1 was either unnumbered or had not yet been appended to the beginning of the collection.10 In either case, the special character of this psalm as introductory is affirmed.
Psalm 1 is described both as a wisdom psalm and as a Torah psalm.11 The former designation recognizes the standard wisdom motif of the “two ways” (1:6) of righteousness and wickedness (1:1, 4–6) as well as the characteristic wisdom exhortation “Blessed!” (ʾašre) at the beginning of the psalm. The designation as a Torah psalm is a response to the centrality accorded the torah (NIV “law”) in verse 2. Other such Torah psalms (19; 119) appear in significant locations within the Psalter and provide a thematic focus for the final form of the whole collection.12
Structurally Psalm 1 is arranged into a series of two-verse comparisons between the lifestyle, consequences, and divine evaluation of the alternative “ways” taken by the righteous and wicked. Three such comparisons are offered: (1) guilt by association (1:1–2); (2) identifying fruits (2:3–4); (3) ultimate consequences (1:5–6). In addition, the first and fifth verses intentionally employ similar terms and motifs of standing in the public assembly to drive home the contrast between the ultimate destiny of the righteous and the wicked.
The psalm is, then, an exhortation—through positive and negative examples—to adopt the fruitful and satisfying life characterized by immersion in God. Then and only then will the faithful find themselves on the “way” that is blazed and watched over by God himself.
Guilt by Association (1:1–2)
THE OPENING BLESSING of the psalm (ʾašre) is common enough in the wisdom teaching of the Old Testament to recognize it as a characteristic method of the sages to exhort hearers to right action.13 The word “blessed” conveys the idea of happiness that flows from a sense of well-being and rightness. The same term probably originally underlies the “blessed” of the Beatitudes in Matthew 5.14
Who does not walk . . . stand . . . sit. The positive exhortation leads to a negative example. This is a lifestyle to be avoided, not emulated. The sequence of verbs employed describe a life immersed and focused on association with all that is opposed to God. The order of these verbs may indicate a gradual descent into evil, in which one first walks alongside, then stops,15 and ultimately takes up permanent residence16 in the company of the wicked.
The passage has interesting similarities with the important command following the Shema (Deut. 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one”) that faithful Israelites were to share Yahweh’s commandments with their children “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deut. 6:7).17 While the parallels are not exact, both passages illustrate a totality of experience in which one is immersed, focused, and committed to a culture of association that dominates and shapes a worldview. In light of the move in Psalm 1:2 to direct the hearer’s attention to constant meditation on and delight in Yahweh’s torah, the contrasting profession and command from Deuteronomy may well have been in the back of the psalmist’s mind.
Wicked . . . sinners . . . mockers. The categories of persons mentioned can be instructive as well, and these groups of opponents of God return often in the remainder of the psalms. The “wicked” (rešaʿim) are those who have been judged “guilty” in a court of law or would be if brought to trial. In a legal contest between two parties, a judge would hear the testimony of the parties and make a determination (mišpaṭ) of the facts of the case and what the individual parties should have done in response. What actually happened is then compared with this mišpaṭ, and judgment is pronounced on each party. Those who appropriately fulfilled the expectations of the mišpaṭ were proclaimed ṣaddiq (“righteous”), while those who failed to live up to this standard were pronounced rašaʿ (“guilty”). These pronouncements were made publicly, and so the rešaʿim (plural of rašaʿ ) bore the approbation of their community.
The second term, ḥaṭṭaʾim (“sinners”), emphasized the fallibility of individuals who have an inclination to sin. Such persons have not just committed an isolated act of evil but live lives dominated and shaped by their inclinations. The difference of nuance between rešaʿim and ḥaṭṭaʾim is perhaps similar to that of the person convicted of a single theft compared with a career criminal. In the psalms, however, these two terms are often synonyms.
The final term, leṣim (“mockers”), describes those who have gone beyond a few sinful acts and even a personal life marked by an inclination to wrong-doing. They actively seek through their mockery to express disdain for right living and seek to belittle and undermine those who want to be righteous.18 Mockers act out of overweening pride (Prov. 21:24) and refuse to seek or accept instruction or correction (9:7, 8; 13:1; 15:12). Through their disdain they stir up anger and strife (20:1; 22:10; 29:8). There is solidarity in numbers, and those who associate with such mockers often adopt their mocking ways and their ridicule of the path of righteousness.
Delight . . . in the law of the LORD. The psalmist now turns to describe an alternative lifestyle and association that lead to the blessing with which Psalm 1 begins. The transition is marked by a significant “but” (ki ʾim). This phrase is often used (as here) to introduce an exception after a negative statement and has the effect of “but rather,” expressing an appropriate alternative to what has preceded. Rather than associating with the proponents of evil, the readers/hearers are encouraged to immerse themselves in daily delight in Yahweh’s Torah.
Often the Hebrew word torah is identified with the Law—the primary identifying document of Israelite (and later Jewish) faith. The Torah in this sense refers to the first five books of our Old Testament—Genesis through Deuteronomy—which as a unified collection came to a final form as authoritative Scripture only in the exilic period (ca. 450–400 B.C.).19 While this is an appropriate understanding of torah in many contexts, the word often has a much more general sense of “guidelines, instruction.” This sense is by far the more common use in wisdom contexts, and since our psalm clearly moves in the wisdom environment, many have suggested it is this more general meaning that is appropriate here.
It may be possible to affirm both levels of meaning in this instance. As James L. Mays has shown us,20 Psalm 1 is the first of several Torah psalms strategically placed within the book of Psalms (1; 19; 119). These psalms exhort the hearers/readers to pay close attention to God’s commandments and to be faithful in their response to them. At the same time, however, the wisdom understanding of torah prevents easy limitation to the five books of the Torah. Biblical wisdom literature had already begun to identify torah (the life-giving commandments of Yahweh) with the life-giving insights given by Yahweh through the wisdom tradition.21 Thus, most likely torah here implies the traditional commandments of God in the Torah—commandments Israel is expected to obey—as well as the life-giving guidance God gives elsewhere in Scripture. Brevard Childs is undoubtedly right when he observes that the function of this exhortation in the introductory psalm of the Psalter is to encourage the readers to meditate on the book of Psalms as Scripture and to seek there God’s message that guides and establishes the life of faith.22
Meditates day and night. The verb hgh (“meditates”) is onomatopoeic in that it imitates the sound of low voices murmuring or muttering as one reads Scripture in a low undertone. It appears to have been normal practice at the time to read out loud in a low voice rather than silently. The term can also mean “ponder/reflect” by talking to oneself. In Psalm 2:1, the same verb may be rendered “hatch a plot” in low conversations with one’s coconspirators. Psalm 1, however, stresses careful, diligent attention to Scripture seeking God’s guidance for life.
The seriousness of the investigation is indicated by its duration during both “day and night.” This is, of course, a merism, in which the two extremes are mentioned to include all in between as well. The sectarian community of Essenes, who withdrew from general society to a commune near the shore of the Dead Sea from approximately 160 B.C. to A.D. 70, took seriously such enjoinders to constant study. Their community rule explicitly mandated that at every hour of day or night someone should be studying and interpreting God’s torah.23 The psalmist clearly sees such purposeful immersion in the torah as an effective antidote to the inappropriate association with evil described in verse 1. Not only are students of torah occupied, but torah so feeds and shapes the mind and heart of those who give themselves to it that their feet are kept firmly on the path of life.
Fruitful Living (1:3–4)
THE SECOND COMPARISON flows out of the first: Diligent study of torah is not only delightful occupation but yields fruitful results as well. The image of the tree planted by a source of abundant water is known to us also from the similar passage in Jeremiah 17:7–8. There as here the description of the fruitful tree is part of a balanced comparison between those who trust in humans and those who place their trust in Yahweh. In both passages, the tree is part of a blessing on the faithful—although in the Jeremiah passage the term “blessing” is baruk rather than Psalm 1’s ʾasre. The opening phrases of these descriptions are almost identical:
Jeremiah 17:8 | “He will be like a tree planted by the water. . . .” |
Psalm 1:3 | “He is like a tree planted by streams of water. . . .” |
Both passages go on to comment on the enduring quality of the tree’s leaves as well as its consistent fruitfulness, although not in terms as identical as the opening phrase. Thus, in both passages a fruitful tree planted near abundant water describes the effective future of the faithful who cast their lot with God rather than on human strength and evil.
Planted. The faithful tree is not simply a wild oak that takes its position by happenstance. Those who delight in Yahweh’s torah are “planted” (a passive participle)—as by a master gardener—in the place where they can receive the nourishment they need to flourish. Like a tree planted in a conservatory, well watered and provided with a protective climate, the leaves of this tree never wither, and it is able to remain consistently fruitful.
Whatever he does prospers. At the end the description shifts over to express more directly the consequence of faithfulness for the human being who delights in Yahweh’s torah. Like the well-watered tree, such a one rooted in the life-giving water of God’s torah will know fruitfulness. The term translated “prospers” here has more the sense of “be successful, bring to a successful conclusion.” Like the tree, the work of one who is rooted and grounded in God’s guiding Word is also fruitful.
Chaff that the wind blows away. By studied contrast, those who have rooted themselves in evil and have drawn their nourishment and delight from their association with the wicked will dry up and blow away. While the rooted and watered tree exudes an aura of endurance and stability, the unnourished wicked have no permanence. In the process of winnowing, the lightweight and useless chaff—the husk of grain that has been loosened from the kernel by beating—is swept away when the prepared grain is tossed into a strong wind, allowing the heavier seed to fall to the ground to be gathered. The contrast is acute: between fruitful tree and useless chaff; between well-watered stability and dry, dusty, windblown impermanence.
Ultimate Consequences (1:5–6)
HOW ONE LIVES and where one takes a stand has life-shaping consequences. The final set of comparisons sets out the contrasting ways and consequent result of the lives of the righteous and the wicked. The use of “two ways”—of righteousness and wickedness, wisdom and folly—is a characteristic teaching tool of biblical wisdom. Such a contrast provides readers with both positive and negative examples for life. This is the reason that so much of the proverbial literature (esp. that in Prov. 10–31) employs the poetic form of opposing parallelism.24
The appearance in these verses of words and ideas from the opening verse suggests the psalmist is intentionally balancing the beginning admonition with this concluding one. Verse 1 cautions the reader to beware of seeking and accepting the influence of three categories of persons—the “wicked,” the “sinners,” and the “mockers”—or of taking up residence there. Here the two most general of these categories—the “wicked” and “sinners”—return as examples of those who will be unable to “stand” in the final judgment. Nor will these guilty ones be able to associate with the assembly of those who are declared “righteous” (1:5b baʿadat ṣaddiqim; cf. 1:1b baʿaṣat rešaʿim) in that same judgment. The similar wording is intended to drive home the fact that the one who enjoys the “counsel of the wicked” will ultimately be cut off from any association with the “assembly of the righteous.”
The way of the righteous. The “way” (derek) of a person is a chosen life path that, if left unchanged, determines one’s ultimate goal. Biblical wisdom literature often contrasts the way of the righteous and the wicked (wise and fool) as a way of demonstrating the consequences of evil and encouraging righteousness (cf., e.g., Prov. 10:9, 16, 24; 15:19, 24, 26, 29; 16:4, 7, 17, 25). Here at the end of Psalm 1, the reader is presented with a choice: the way of righteousness that God oversees or the way of wickedness that will ultimately perish. The verb that the NIV translates “watches over” is ydʿ (“know”). Knowing in Hebrew understanding is not simply intellectual knowledge of information about something or someone. Rather, knowledge is the end result of experience and relationship. Thus, the “way of the righteous” is one that God knows well from experience because he has traveled it before and knows all its twists and turns. He is the great pathfinder who has blazed the safe and secure trail for those who come behind. By contrast, the way of the wicked seeks to explore territory in which God is absent and consequently will lead to separation from God and destruction.
Bridging Contexts
IT GOES WITHOUT saying that in these explanatory sections of the commentary, we cannot expound exhaustively every facet of each psalm. This is both the frustration and the beauty of the psalms and of Scripture as a whole: One never reaches the bottom of the well from which God’s life-giving water flows. There are always new insights to be gained, new moments of understanding to be experienced every time you read the psalms with an open heart and mind. Thus, in these sections of the commentary I will be dealing with certain insights and issues that seem to me most important for understanding how these ancient works make contact with our contemporary lives—how we can gain access to the guidance for life that God has chosen to reveal to us through these originally Hebrew words from a distant and now-extinct culture.
Psalm 1 introduces the Psalter. In the case of Psalm 1, perhaps the most important insight is for us to understand the role of this composition as an introduction to the whole Psalter. This function is the least understood among most general and even advanced students of the psalms. The fact of Psalm 1 as an individual composition is fairly straightforwardly apparent, but what does it mean to read this psalm as introduction to the book that follows? How might this understanding transform the way we read, understand, and appropriate the Psalms as a whole?
Meditation. A true approach to the psalms involves continual, long-term meditation on and study of these compositions. The wisdom nature of Psalm 1 encourages us to read the term torah (“law”) in the more general sense of “guidelines, instruction”—a meaning that incorporates the psalms (and indeed the whole of Scripture) as God’s revelation of his will and purpose for our lives. The psalms are no longer just songs to be sung in worship or even heartfelt prayers with which we resonate emotionally in our own heart. Even more, they are a source of God’s word to us—a word that must be considered carefully and incorporated daily into the very fabric of our lives. Beyond being models for our own prayers to God, the psalms, when meditated upon, become texts in which God speaks to us in all parts of our being: body, soul, mind, and spirit.
Close and enduring association. Kathleen Norris recounts how during a month-long retreat among Trappist monastics the daily recitation of the psalms began to reshape and restructure her spiritual understanding and priorities for life.25 Such an extended encounter with the depths of praise, lament, thanksgiving, and a myriad of other moments of life poured out before God can have the (intended) effect of challenging our often simplistic understanding of life and faith, tearing us down and rebuilding us from the ground up to be more in the image of the God who made us. There is something about reading the psalms from the beginning of the Psalter to the end, day after day, that does not allow us to master them—picking and choosing what suits us, shaping them to our will, fitting them to our perceived needs and moods. Instead, such daily and continuing familiarity with these texts—more than any other, I believe—ultimately masters us and shapes us to the will of God in ways we can hardly anticipate. That is the fearsome challenge of the psalms: In exposing ourselves to them for the long term, we discover that God knows us and our “way” far better than we know ourselves.
A matter of life and death. The “way” of the psalms is a path to life that is “known” by God himself (1:6). When we immerse ourselves in the world of the psalms and make it our own, we are following the path that God himself took, the path he took in Jesus—a path of suffering and hurt; rejection and abandonment; deliverance, salvation, exaltation, and great joy. Together the psalms lead us on the path of real life—not the pallid substitutes for life we sometimes construct for ourselves where everything is hermetically sealed, sterile, and safe.
The life of the psalms is messy life where pain and joy, self-knowledge and self-doubt, love and hatred, trust and suspicion break in upon one another, overlapping and competing for our attention. It is a life in which we have real choices on a daily basis between life and death. It is the life that still lives both outside and inside our windows—if we allow ourselves to admit it—and the psalms will never allow us to forget it.
And in these psalms this messy life—this real life—is constantly brought before God as our own messiness ought to be, before it is cleaned up and sanitized. God wants us to bring all of life before him as the psalmists do rather than just the parts we consider acceptable. How else can God’s healing, revealing, confronting, forgiving love penetrate to the darkest corners of our secret places unless we open the door to let in the light?
On avoiding association with evil. Psalm 1 makes it clear that the “way” God knows is not discovered by following the footsteps or taking up residence in the company of sinners. Just who are these wicked ones we are encouraged to avoid? A variety of studies have been made of the “enemies” who appear in the psalms.26 Most often the enemies confronted there fall into one of three broad categories: (1) pagan unbelievers hostile to the faith and Yahweh, (2) members of the faith community who nevertheless live contrary lives, and (3) those within the faith community who misguidedly attack what they see as the faithless living of the psalmists.
As Christians whose community of faith cuts across boundaries of nationality and ethnicity, we must find new ways of understanding those references to the national enemies of Israel. Our kingdom—the kingdom of God that Jesus says is not of this world—can never be equated with any particular nation of the world, regardless how tempted we are to do so. Perhaps the best response to these national enemies is to relate them in our experience to the enemies of the kingdom of God—those who stand outside the faith and seek to tear it down, or those who in all they say and do stand directly opposed to the world-shaping principles of love, forgiveness, and the absolute dependence on God that Jesus calls citizens of God’s kingdom to display.27
The wicked in the psalms are more than just national enemies. Many are clearly influential members of the psalmist’s society who use their influence and power for evil, oppressing those who are less powerful and exploiting them for personal gain. The collective voice of the psalmists calls the readers/hearers to take their stand with the oppressed, afflicted, and poor—and over against those who abuse power and pervert justice.
The psalmists’ treatment of the enemies is often harsh. Frequently they envision (and even desire) for the wicked complete rejection by God and total destruction. Such attitudes can leave us troubled when we remember Jesus’ encouragement to love our enemies and pray for rather than against them. Jesus himself was condemned for associating with sinners.28 How then can we justify the kind of separation Psalm 1 seems to enjoin? Two responses may help to set this question in its proper perspective.
(1) The psalmists are only too aware how narrow a line separates them from the wicked. While they may at points come across as very sure of their righteousness (e.g., Pss. 17; 26), they are also fully aware of their own sinfulness and how easy it would be to adopt the callous attitude and lifestyle of the wicked (cf. Pss. 32; 38; esp. 73). When Jesus’ association with sinners is questioned, he responds to his critics somewhat cryptically: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. . . . For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:12–13). The less than immediately obvious point of this retort is that the Pharisees themselves were sinners in need of the saving grace extended by Jesus to all those who acknowledged their sin. He was not implying that the Pharisees had no need of him, but rather that they needed to recognize their essential identity with the sinners they so strongly condemned. The psalmists are deeply aware of their need of God’s grace and the redeeming power of his forgiveness (cf. Pss. 32; 103).
(2) It is important to note that what Psalm 1 cautions against is adopting the attitude and lifestyle of the wicked, not some casual contact with them or especially not the kind of redemptive association that Jesus modeled. The warning is against taking the “way” or path of the wicked, standing with them, and ultimately taking up residence in their territory. The kind of association with unbelievers Jesus models is an essential part of our redemptive role as bearers of good news and witnesses to the transforming power of Jesus Christ in our own lives.
Contemporary Significance
DELIGHTING IN THE TORAH OF YAHWEH. If we truly wish to follow the “way” that God knows rather than a path that leads to destruction, how do we set about finding it? In the New Testament, toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns his hearers, in words similar to the conclusion of Psalm 1, that entering the kingdom of heaven is like choosing between a broad, well-trodden roadway and a barely distinguishable footpath. The incentive to find and take the narrow path is that it leads ultimately to life, while the broad and easy road ends in destruction (Matt. 7:13–14). But how does one find this path of life in order to enter it? And once on the road, what map ensures we won’t get lost?
Jesus’ response to such questions comes at the end of his sermon when he introduces the story of the wise and foolish house builders. The wise builder built on a rock-solid foundation so that his house continued to stand in the face of the storms and floods of life. The fool, by contrast, took the easy way and built on the shifting sands. His house suffered complete collapse when the storms blew and the floods rose (Matt. 7:24–27). The only difference between the two, Jesus says, is their attention and response to his teaching. The former both heard and put into practice what Jesus taught. The latter failed to listen deeply or else refused to act altogether.
Psalm 1 offers the same warning: Hear and do. Delight in the torah, meditate on it, and act. Let what you hear, read, and study so permeate your being that your life takes up residence on the path that God knows and exudes a character that sets it clearly apart from the wicked, sinners, and mockers of verse 1. Such a person is truly “blessed.” Jesus describes the characteristics of the “blessed” in the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:3–10). Taken together, these blessings set the citizen of God’s kingdom clearly apart from those who refuse to follow Christ along that path. The Beatitudes are not rules to be followed but characteristics growing in those who have bound their lives to Jesus Christ and have planted their roots deep in the stream of life that flows out from his words, life, and person.
In Psalm 1, the blessed one will send down roots deeply into the stream of life that flows out of God’s torah—his teaching and guidelines. These teachings cannot be confined to the laws of the Pentateuch but refer to the picture anywhere in Scripture of faithful living, miraculously lived by persons of little faith empowered by God when they heard and obeyed what he said. The psalmists are just such people who have their roots planted deep in the streams of God’s Word. They listen carefully, and they act out of what they hear. That is why their words of faith—sometimes anguished, often angry, deeply questioning, but always honest and coupled with an abiding sense of confidence and even joy—can be God’s words to us, guiding us, challenging us, shaping us, leading us. If only we will listen and obey.
Meditating day and night. How do we meditate “day and night” on God’s torah? Most of us have enough difficulty just establishing a daily routine of Bible study that marks our day. Who can give over the whole of each day to such study? Even the Essenes of Qumran, who took this responsibility seriously, established a rotation of interpreters to study and expound torah twenty-four hours a day, realizing that no one person could hope to accomplish the task.
Surely this is metaphorical language, but is it only hyperbole? Or is there some important truth behind it? Brother Lawrence, in his powerful little book Practicing the Presence of God, maintains that it is possible to call God and his guiding word to mind constantly throughout the hours of the day and even in the midst of the most mundane and distracting labors of life. By consciously dedicating each task to the service of God and our fellows, it is possible to make even the most unpleasant job a meditation on the grace and purpose of our God.
Some have encouraged the use of breath prayers—brief prayers repeated throughout the day whenever the person becomes aware of his or her breathing. Others have set their watch alarms to sound at regular intervals to remind them to be aware of God and his will and purpose in their lives. On television recently I heard the commentators at a golf tournament remarking on the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelet one of the top contenders was wearing.
These and other simple mechanisms can serve to remind us that there is—as Psalm 139 so beautifully affirms—no place in life where God is not already present before us and with us. Knowing this, we need only remind ourselves (as in the previous examples) to be aware of God, or, in the words of the step 11 of Alcoholics Anonymous, to seek “through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God. . . .”
The psalms can and should be a part of the constant practice of the presence of God. Regularly read from beginning to end, they lead us again and again to consider aspects of life and of God’s will that we might not otherwise choose to remember or confront—let alone to embody in our living. Memorized in chunks the psalms can provide ready response to the pressing realities of our days. When I have wakened in a panic in the darkness of the early morning hours—submerged in fear, self-pity, or self-doubt—the psalms have often provided the assurance that my anxieties are known by God, who enlightens my dark places. So, I encourage you to make the psalms your constant companion. Keep a copy at hand, and keep their words in your mind and heart and on your lips as you meet the challenges of your days and nights.
Planted by streams of water. When we meditate on and memorize the psalms, we are planting our roots deeply into the life-giving water of God’s Word. This is the same “living water” that Jesus offers to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). As the woman learned when she accepted that gift, the water of God’s Word reveals our innermost contradictions and points up our need for restoration (4:15–18). Also, the living water is not easily distracted by theological quibbling but cuts immediately to the quick (the “life”) of every matter.
The power of the psalms is not that they present us with a neat, theologically consistent package we can assent to (or reject!) intellectually. Instead, they confront us with the messiness and conflict of the life of faith lived out in the real word of body, mind, and spirit. In so doing they allow God’s Word to penetrate deeply to “dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow,” laying bare our inward contradictions, yet at the same time encouraging us to “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb. 4:12–16).