“Psummer Psalms” – Psalm 1
This summer we’ll be doing a series on the Psalms called “Psummer Psalms.” I’ve begun reading a 3-volume commentary and a couple great little introductory books in preparation. Here’s a nugget from James Montgomery Boice’s study of the Psalms. We’ll be starting with Psalm 1, “The Song of the Righteous” (forthcoming sermon title for July 13). It serves as an introductory “text of which the remaining Psalms are essentially exposition” (p. 14). In the Hebrew, “blessed” is plural connoting, umm, lots of blessing, as in lasting happiness. It is essentially a Psalm about lasting happiness as the fruit of the life of the man who loves God’s truths. It is not so much a reward as a practical result.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
-Psalm 1:1-2 (English Standard Version)
The parallelism in this Hebrew poetry is probably a helpful clue to the Psalmist’s meaning. Notice the three sets of parallel terms in this verse: “walk, stand, sit,” “counsel, way, seat,” and “wicked, sinners, scoffers.” There seems to be a progression (or regression?) of meaning here. Boice says, “[I]t is hard to believe that the phrases are not saying that the way of the wicked is downhill and that sinners always go from bad to worse” (p. 14). Here’s what Charles Spurgeon said:
When men are living in sin they go from bad to worse. At first they merely walk in the counsel of the careless and ungodly, who forget God-the evil is rather practical than habitual-but after that, they become habituated to evil, and they stand in the way of open sinners who willfully violate God’s commandments; and if let alone, they go one step further, and become themselves pestilent teachers and tempters of others, and thus they sit in the seat of the scornful. They have taken their degree in vice, and as true Doctors of Damnation they are installed” (Spurgeon, Treasury of David, 1a:1-2).
Good stuff. We don’t get enough good writing and thoughtful exposition like that much anymore, eh?!