Psalm 1
The entire collection of Psalms was entitled “Praises” in the Hebrew text, and later, rabbis often designated it “The Book of Praises”. The Septuagint (LXX; the Greek translation of the Old Testament), labeled it “Psalms”. Compare “the Book of Psalms” in the New Testament (Luke 20:42; Acts 1:20). The Greek verb from which the noun “psalms” comes basically denotes the “plucking or twanging of strings”, so that an association with musical accompaniment is implied. The English title derives from the Greek term and its background. The Psalms constituted Israel’s ancient, God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16), “hymn book”, which defined the proper spirit and content of worship. -Bible Study
The world rings with praise—lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars.
I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least.
The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read.
The healthy and unaffected man, even if luxuriously brought up and widely experienced in good cookery, could praise a very modest meal: the dyspeptic and the snob found fault with all. Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.
Nor does it cease to be so when, through lack of skill, the forms of its expression are very uncouth or even ridiculous. Heaven knows, many poems of praise addressed to an earthly beloved are as bad as our bad hymns, and an anthology of love poems for public and perpetual use would probably be as sore a trial to literary taste as Hymns Ancient and Modern.
I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?” The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.
My whole, more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what we indeed can’t help doing, about everything else we value.
C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (orig., 1958; 1986), 94-95.
I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least.
The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read.
The healthy and unaffected man, even if luxuriously brought up and widely experienced in good cookery, could praise a very modest meal: the dyspeptic and the snob found fault with all. Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.
Nor does it cease to be so when, through lack of skill, the forms of its expression are very uncouth or even ridiculous. Heaven knows, many poems of praise addressed to an earthly beloved are as bad as our bad hymns, and an anthology of love poems for public and perpetual use would probably be as sore a trial to literary taste as Hymns Ancient and Modern.
I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?” The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about.
My whole, more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what we indeed can’t help doing, about everything else we value.
C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (orig., 1958; 1986), 94-95.
The Book of Psalms is a part of the Bible many of us are not familiar with. It consists of a collection of verses that can be read aloud, or silently, as prayers. The Christian sage Richard Rohr points out that while there are 150 psalms in the Bible, a full third of them are “psalms of lament,” an expression of grief or sorrow.
It’s probably no surprise that you rarely hear these verses in church and Rohr believes this is because “we think they make us appear weak, helpless, and vulnerable, or show a lack of faith. So we quickly resort to praise and thanksgiving. -Tom Rapsas
It’s probably no surprise that you rarely hear these verses in church and Rohr believes this is because “we think they make us appear weak, helpless, and vulnerable, or show a lack of faith. So we quickly resort to praise and thanksgiving. -Tom Rapsas
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Psalm 1:1:
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." |
Blessed does not mean happy. Blessed is much deeper than that state of quality of deep inner happiness. It is not dependent on outward circumstances. Not dependent on how you feel. Blessedness is something God establishes within. “Walk” means direction. “Counsel” means plans or purposes. Wicked people are rebellious to God and sinners are comfortable in their rebellion. Scoffers actually mock and stand against God, or “sitteth” which means to “take the position.” The beatitudes, “blessed is the man,”…was the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The Psalm verse lists three different things progressively worse than the other.
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Psalm 1:2: But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night
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His delight is in the law of the Lord, or the “hard stuff.” When one meditates upon it, it becomes a part of them. Biblical meditation is not accomplished by eliminating thought but by redirecting thought to the Word of God. The Hebrew word for “meditate” (hagah) means “to utter sounds, to speak.” It often appears in synonymous parallelism with zakar, “To remember, call to mind,” and stah, to consider, ponder.” To meditate then, is to recall all that God has said and done. Meditate includes audible recitation, and it is to be done continually “day and night.” (see Joshua 1:8)
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Psalm 1:3:
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not whither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. |
Fruit is seasonal. God’s granted measurement of “prosper” is not to be measured in material things. “Planted” is a participle of a Hebrew verb which actually means “to transplant,” not merely “plant.” This is rich and significant. “To plant” means to cause to take root, to become firmly established for the purpose of stability, nutrition (food and water), growth, and eventually production. “To transplant” includes the above, of course, but it also includes taking a plant out of one environment and placing it into another which is more conducive to production, growth, and stability. Like taking wild trees growing in barren and desert-like conditions and carefully transplanting them in rich prepared soil by streams of water. The children of God constantly flourish, and are always watered with the influences of divine grace, so that whatever may befall them is conducive to their salvation; while, on the other hand, the ungodly are carried away by the sudden tempest, or consumed by the scorching heat. And when he says, he bringeth forth his fruit in season, he expresses the full maturity of the fruit produced, whereas, although the ungodly may present the appearance of fruitfulness, they produce nothing that comes to perfection.
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Psalm 1:4:
The ungodly are not so, But are like the chaff which the wind drives away. |
The ungodly are the opposite of the righteous. Rather than being a sturdy oak, they are "like the chaff which the wind drives away." To be severed from the word of God is to have no root, no nourishment, no fruit, no real life. Chaff has no root and is blown away easily by the wind.
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Psalm 1:5:
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. |
In the congregation of the righteous - Be reckoned or regarded as belonging to the righteous. That is, in all the places where the righteous, as such, are assembled, they will have no place: where they assemble to worship God; where they meet as his friends; where they unitedly participate in his favor; when, in the last day, they shall be gathered together to receive their reward, and when they shall be assembled together in heaven. The sinner has no place in the congregations of the people of God. --Barnes
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Psalm 1:5:6:
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the ungodly shall perish. |
The remainder of the first Psalm has three thoughts--the real nullity of such lives, their consequent disappearance in "the judgement," and the ground of both the blessedness of the one type of character and the vanishing of the other in the diverse attitude of God to each. Nothing could more vividly suggest the essential nothingness of the "wicked" than the contrast of the leafy beauty of the fruit-laden tree and the chaff, rootless, fruitless, lifeless, light, and therefore the sport of every puff of wind that blows across the elevated and open threshing floor.
Such is indeed a rue picture of every life not rooted and drawing fertility from Him. It is rootless; for what hold-fast is there but Him? Or where shall the heart twine its tendrils if not round God's stable throne? Or what elsewhere than on the enduring Rock? "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous (therefore it shall last). The Lord knoweth not the way of the wicked (therefore it shall perish)." The way which the Lord knows abides. "Know" is, of course, here used in its full sense of loving knowledge, care and approval, as in "He knoweth my path" and the like sayings. The direction off the good man's life is watched m guarded, approved, and blessed by God. Therefore it will not fail to reach its goal. They who walk patiently in the paths which He has prepared will find paths of peace, and will not tread them unaccompanied, nor ever see them diverging from the straight road to home and rest. |
God is said to "know" those of whom he approves, and. on whom he "lifts up the light of his countenance." The wicked he does not "know;" he "casts them out of the sight of his eyes" - "casts them behind his back;" refuses to acknowledge them. God "knows the way of the righteous," and therefore they live and prosper; he does not know the way of the wicked, and therefore the way of the (wicked, or) ungodly shall perish (compare the beginning and end of Psalm 112.). --Pulpit Commentary
