Psalm 37:38

The verb qâvâh means to wait for, to look for and to hope for. Waiting on the LORD is therefore full of expectation: we look to him to act, and we hope in what he has promised. In practice it means handing our timetable and our worries over to God, praying, searching his word, seeking his will, and going on in obedience while the answer is delayed. A soul that waits like this is held fast to God’s promises, like a ship moored securely in a storm. David gives the same command in Psalm 27:14, and Isaiah speaks of those who wait on the LORD (Isaiah 40:31). Waiting also means leaving vengeance with God, to whom it belongs (Romans 12:19).

The second command gives the waiting its daily work. To keep, shâmar, is to hedge about, to guard and to attend to. “His way” is the path God has laid down in his commands, and to keep it is to guard our conduct so that it stays on that path, even while others get ahead by leaving it. Trust in God and obedience to God belong together all through this psalm.

“He shall exalt thee” promises that God himself will lift up and honour the one who waits. The land, ʼerets, was for Israel the actual territory promised in the covenants with Abraham and through Moses. To inherit it meant to live there securely under God’s blessing, with peace, plenty, and freedom from enemies and famine. The psalm has made this promise several times already, to those who wait on the LORD and to the meek (Psalm 37:9–11), and to the righteous, who shall dwell in the land for ever (Psalm 37:29).

Jesus takes up the promise when he says that the meek shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). For believers now it holds in two ways. We already possess the blessings that are ours in Christ, among them peace, joy, righteousness and eternal life. We also look ahead to the new heaven and the new earth (Revelation 21:1), where God’s people will live with him in righteousness.

The verse ends with a second promise: “when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.” The verb kârath means to cut off or cut down, and Scripture often uses it for God’s judgment, whether a person is removed from the community, loses all he had gained, or loses his life. The KJV supplies the word “it”, which refers to this cutting off. Those who waited will see with their own eyes that God was just.

The Hebrew is ʼezrâch raʻănân. The first word means native, something growing in its own soil, and the second means flourishing or luxuriant. The picture is of a tree that has stood in one place all its life, with deep roots, thick leaves and wide branches, and the Hebrew leaves its species open. To a farming people such a tree stood for prosperity, stability and long life. That is how the wicked man looked to everyone around him: rooted, healthy and permanent.

“Yet” turns the picture over. The verb ʻâbar means to cross over or pass through, and David uses it for a man who simply passed from the scene. “Lo” is the old word for “look”, and the KJV adds “was” to make English of a Hebrew phrase that says only “he is not”. David then went looking. Bâqash means to search out or seek, and mâtsâʼ means to find, so the search was a real one and it came back empty.

Other Scriptures say the same. “As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation” (Proverbs 10:25). Malachi foresees a day that will burn up the proud and the wicked like stubble and “leave them neither root nor branch” (Malachi 4:1), which answers the picture of the tree. Riches fail a man in the day of wrath (Proverbs 11:4). And the psalmist who envied the arrogant found his answer in worship: “Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.” He saw them brought to desolation “as in a moment” (Psalm 73:16–20).

It includes the man’s death and reaches further. In Israel a person’s name, his descendants and the memory of him in the community mattered greatly, and to vanish with none of these left was counted a severe judgment. David looked for the man, and perhaps for his house, his property and his influence, and all of it was gone. Proverbs gives the other outcome when it says that the memory of the just is blessed (Proverbs 10:7). The fullest sense comes at the last judgment, when whoever is “not found written in the book of life” is cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11–15).

The psalm measures by God’s time. Some wicked men and empires do last long and leave monuments behind them. Their flourishing is still that of grass, and what they leave is a record of oppression that is overthrown in the end. Before God their time is brief, and they are shut out of his kingdom.

He is a person of integrity. The adjective tām means complete, perfect, plain or upright, and it describes someone whose devotion to God is sincere and whole, free of pretence. Scripture is clear that all have sinned (Romans 3:23), so the word speaks of a wholehearted walk with God, and a sinless life belongs to Christ alone. “Upright”, yâshâr, means straight. The upright man’s conduct runs in line with God’s commands, honestly and consistently.

“The end”, ʼachărîyth, is the outcome or future of a life. It takes in the close of a man’s days and also what comes after him, his legacy and his descendants. That end is shâlôwm, a word that names completeness, soundness, welfare, peace and safety. It covers the whole of a person’s well-being under God’s blessing. Proverbs says that the path of the just shines brighter and brighter (Proverbs 4:18), and Isaiah says that God keeps his own in perfect peace (Isaiah 26:3).

It belongs to both. The upright know something of it now, in a quiet heart, in sound relationships and in the sense of God’s favour, even in the middle of trials. Its fullness lies ahead, in eternal blessedness with God.

Verse 38 gives the other end. Transgressors, from pâshaʻ, are those who break away from rightful authority, people in settled revolt against God. The verb shâmad means to destroy, and Scripture often uses it of God’s judgment. “Together”, yachad, tells us that all who persist in rebellion share one fate, or that the judgment falls at one stroke. It speaks of a common destiny, and the wicked may well die at different times.

The second line says the same thing another way. Verse 37 gave the upright man an “end” of peace, and the KJV uses that English word again for the wicked, whose end “shall be cut off”. The verb is kârath, as in verse 34. Their future, their line and their hope are severed, as the psalm has already said: the wicked shall perish (Psalm 37:20).

God’s justice is the same in both Testaments, and the grace offered in Christ is the way of escape from the very end this verse describes. Those who receive Christ’s atoning work have a different end from the transgressors. For those who go on unrepentant, the New Testament warns that they are storing up wrath (Romans 2:5) and that after death comes judgment (Hebrews 9:27). The verse is therefore a comfort to the righteous and an urgent call to repent.

The righteous, tsaddîyq, are those who stand in a right relationship with God. They trust his covenant faithfulness and seek to live by his commands, and they are sinners still. The psalm has already described them as people who trust in the LORD, delight in him and commit their way to him. This righteousness is itself God’s gift, so an upright life is the fruit of his grace, and his help remains a gift.

Verse 40 gathers the verbs for what the LORD does. He helps, ʻâzar, giving aid in need. He delivers, pâlaṭ, a verb that means to slip out or escape, and so to bring someone safely out of danger, and David repeats it in order to name the danger: “from the wicked”. He saves, yâshaʻ, the verb from which the word for salvation in verse 39 comes. All of these are things the LORD “shall” do, which makes them promises. When the righteous cry, the LORD hears them (Psalm 34:17).

The reason given is “because they trust in him.” The verb châçâh means to flee for protection, and so to trust. It is the act of taking refuge, which fits the stronghold of verse 39 exactly, since a fortress protects those who run into it. Trust of this kind leans on the LORD with the whole heart (Proverbs 3:5–6).

The promise is of help in trouble and through it. Verse 39 itself speaks of “the time of trouble”, and another psalm says plainly that the afflictions of the righteous are many (Psalm 34:19). What the LORD guarantees is that his people will be brought out of the power of the wicked and spared the end of the wicked. His rescue may be of the body, the mind or the spirit, and it comes at the time he chooses. Suffering is therefore a place where his strength is known. Jesus says the same when he tells his disciples that they will have tribulation in the world and may take heart, because he has overcome the world (John 16:33).