Psalm 37:3

Psalm 37 is a psalm of David written to teach. It gives practical wisdom for living rightly in a world where injustice is common, and it keeps setting the end of the wicked beside the end of the righteous. In Hebrew it is an alphabetic acrostic, with a new letter of the alphabet opening every second verse: verse 1 begins with aleph, verse 3 with beth and verse 5 with gimel. That pattern is lost in any translation, though it gives the psalm the feel of an orderly lesson. David probably wrote it in his later years, as his testimony in Psalm 37:25 suggests, where he tells what a long life has shown him of God’s care for the righteous.

The question behind these verses is as old as faith itself: why do the wicked so often flourish while the righteous struggle? In Israel prosperity was widely taken as a sign of God’s favour, so the sight of evildoers doing well could shake a believer badly. Asaph tells how his own feet almost slipped when he saw the prosperity of the wicked (Psalm 73:2–3), and Proverbs gives the same warning against fretting over evildoers (Proverbs 24:19–20). David answers the question with a reason and a way to live.

“Fret” translates chârâh, a verb for burning anger, used both of God’s anger and of human anger. In the form used here it means to heat oneself in vexation. That is what happens inside us when we keep looking at wrongdoers who prosper: we work ourselves up until resentment and worry burn in us. “Fret not thyself” places the matter in our own hearts, because this is a fire we feed ourselves.

The second command runs alongside the first: “neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.” The verb qânâʼ means to be zealous, jealous or envious, and here it is envy, the wish to have what the wicked have. Iniquity is ʻevel, wrong or injustice, so the workers of iniquity are people whose lives are given to doing wrong. Envy turns our eyes from God’s goodness to comparing ourselves with them. It breeds bitterness and discontent with what God provides, and it can tempt us to leave the right path and copy those who look as if they are getting ahead.

Both feelings rest on a mistake about God’s justice and his timing, and the next verse corrects it. Our peace rests on who God is and on his promise to judge rightly, and so the fortunes of the wicked lose their power over it. Paul gives the same counsel when he tells believers to leave vengeance to God (Romans 12:19).

“For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.” The “For” gives the reason for verse 1, and “they” are the evildoers it names. The word for soon, mᵉhêrâh, means quickly or in haste, so their end will come sooner than it looks. “Cut down” is nâmal, to be clipped or cut off, the picture of grass falling to the mower. “Wither” is nâbêl, to wilt, a verb that can also mean, figuratively, to be foolish or wicked. “The green herb” is fresh young growth, yereq, joined in the Hebrew to desheʼ, tender grass. Grass that is cut and grass that dries in the heat come to the same end, and so will the success of the wicked.

Israel knew this sight well. In the dry climate of the land, grass and wild herbs spring up quickly in the short rainy season, then dry up and die under the summer sun or are cut for fodder. The greener the growth, the more striking its fading. Scripture uses the same picture for the shortness of human life (Psalm 90:5–6), and James applies it to the rich man, who fades like the flower of the grass (James 1:10–11). Proverbs says, “Riches profit not in the day of wrath” (Proverbs 11:4), and that the righteous and the wicked alike receive their due (Proverbs 11:31).

The rest of the psalm sets the lasting good of the righteous against this short life of the wicked. The LORD knows the days of the upright (Psalm 37:18), the righteous shall inherit the land (37:29), the little a righteous man has is better than the wealth of the wicked (37:16–17), and “the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD” (37:39), who delivers them from the wicked (37:40).

After the warning come the commands that answer it. “Trust in the LORD” uses bâṭach, which properly means to hide for refuge, and so to trust, to be confident and sure. It is the leaning of your whole weight on someone you know will hold you, and it keeps leaning when circumstances are confusing. The one we trust is the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of the God of Israel, who has made promises to his people and kept them.

“And do good” joins action to trust. The word ṭôwb covers what is good in the widest sense: morally right, kind, beneficial and pleasing. Trust in God shows itself in honest, just and kind dealings with other people. Proverbs ties the two together in the same way: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

Two promises follow. “So shalt thou dwell in the land” spoke first to Israel of a settled, secure life in the land God had promised them, which lay at the heart of his covenant (Deuteronomy 4:40). “The land” comes back again and again in this psalm, which promises it to those that wait upon the LORD and to the meek (Psalm 37:9, 37:11), and it looks back to the promise of Canaan made to Abraham. To dwell there is to live settled and at peace.

“And verily thou shalt be fed” is the second promise. “Fed” is râʻâh, the verb for tending a flock and putting it out to pasture, so the picture is of a shepherd who watches over his flock and sees it well fed. For a farming people, being fed meant good harvests and freedom from famine. The word rendered “verily”, ʼĕmûwnâh, means firmness, faithfulness and truth, and it stresses that God’s provision can be relied on. Deuteronomy sets out the blessings of obedience in the land (Deuteronomy 28), and Jesus gives the same order of things: seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).

Many believers know this verse by heart. “Delight” is ʻânag, a verb whose root sense is to be soft or delicate, and in this reflexive form it means to take delight, to find deep pleasure and enjoyment. The same verb returns in Psalm 37:11, where the meek “shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” Here the delight is in the LORD himself, Yᵉhôvâh, the God who has made himself known to his people. The word “also” ties this command to the trust and good works of verse 3, and it describes the same kind of person as the blessed man whose “delight is in the law of the LORD” (Psalm 1:2).

Delight in God is something we choose and cultivate. It is joy in who he is, in his character, his presence and his word, more than in what he gives. Yet the one who seeks God for himself finds that God gives as well.

“And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” The word for desires is mishʼâlâh, a request or petition, the things a person asks for or longs for. It occurs only here and in Psalm 20:5, where the KJV renders it “petitions”: “the LORD fulfil all thy petitions.” The heart in Scripture is the whole inner person, mind, feelings, will and character, so these are the deepest longings of a life.

“Commit” is gâlal, to roll. The picture is of rolling a heavy load off yourself onto someone else, as a great stone is rolled away from a well or a tomb. Your “way”, derek, is literally a trodden road, and figuratively the course of a life: your plans, decisions, struggles and future. So to commit your way to the LORD is to roll the whole weight of your life onto him. He is again Yᵉhôvâh, a name derived from hâyâh, “to be”, which speaks of him as the self-existent and eternal God, who is able to carry what we hand him.

The same verb appears in Psalm 22:8, “He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him,” where “trusted” is gâlal. His mockers threw those words at Jesus as he hung on the cross (Matthew 27:43).

“Trust also in him” repeats the bâṭach of verse 3. Committing is the act of handing the load over, and trusting is the settled confidence that follows, resting in the God who has taken it. Peter joins them: “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7). David says it elsewhere too: “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved” (Psalm 55:22). Proverbs tells us to commit our works to the LORD (Proverbs 16:3), and Isaiah gives the peace that comes of it: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3).

“And he shall bring it to pass.” The verb is ʻâsâh, to do or make in the broadest sense, and the Hebrew says simply that he will do it. Verse 6 goes on to say what he will do.

“And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.” “Bring forth” is yatsa, to go or come out, and in this form to bring out, so God will bring your righteousness out where it can be seen. Righteousness is tsedeq, rightness and justice in what a person does, says and decides. “Judgment” is mishpat, a verdict or decision, and so justice or a just cause. Here it is your cause, the case that God decides in your favour.

The two pictures grow brighter as they go. Light makes things visible, and the noonday is the brightest point of the day. The Hebrew word, tsôhar, is in the dual form here, “double light”, which is how Hebrew speaks of noon. When the sun stands highest, shadows are at their shortest and everything is in plain view.

The promise speaks to anyone whose integrity has been doubted, slandered or overlooked. In Israel, as everywhere, honour and reputation mattered greatly, false accusation could ruin a life, and courts could be corrupted, so God’s justice was the hope of the innocent. David says that the LORD himself will make your rightness as plain as the noonday sun, and so you can leave your name in his keeping. Proverbs says the path of the just shines brighter and brighter (Proverbs 4:18), Micah voices the same hope of God’s vindication (Micah 7:9), and Paul says that the Lord, when he comes, will bring to light the hidden things of darkness (1 Corinthians 4:5).

This promise is what makes the commands of verses 3 to 5 worth obeying, and verse 7 carries on from it: “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:7). It also answers verse 1. The one who has stopped fretting over the wicked can wait for God to clear his name.

Jesus lived these verses perfectly. When wicked men made him suffer, he answered with trust, committing himself to him that judgeth righteously (1 Peter 2:23). In Gethsemane he prayed, “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42), and he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8). He went about doing good (Acts 10:38), and he said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34).

He was cut off out of the land of the living (Isaiah 53:8) and looked as if the wicked had beaten him, but God raised him on the third day. The resurrection was God’s noonday declaration of his righteousness, and it showed that the cross was the triumph of God’s justice and love in the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), and so his kingdom stands apart from the withering of earthly power.

In him the promises of this passage come to us, for all the promises of God in him are yea and Amen (2 Corinthians 1:20). He is the bread of life (John 6:35) and the giver of living water (John 4:10), the one in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), and the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). The Spirit intercedes for us according to the will of God (Romans 8:26–27) and shapes the desires we bring. The righteousness God brings forth in us is Christ’s own, given to us by faith (2 Corinthians 5:21), our life is hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1–4), and he will present his church to himself without blemish (Ephesians 5:27). Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43).

He has overcome the world (John 16:33). He will return as King of kings to judge all unrighteousness (Revelation 19:11–16), bringing his reward with him (Revelation 22:12), and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ (Revelation 11:15). So we look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), and the peace of God keeps our hearts and minds through him (Philippians 4:7).

When you see wrongdoing rewarded, these six verses give you somewhere to put the heat you feel. You can name the fretting and the envy for what they are, remember how short the season of the wicked is, and turn your attention to the LORD. Trust him and keep doing good where you are. Seek your joy in him more than in what he gives. Roll the weight of your plans and your reputation onto him, and leave the timing of your vindication with the God who brings the noonday every day.