The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"delight thyself," Hebrew hit'annag (הִתְעַנַּג), take exquisite pleasure, luxuriate. This verse is often misread as a blank cheque -- delight in God and get whatever you want. But the word hit'annag is strong: to take deep, luxuriant pleasure, to find one's exquisite joy in a thing. The promise is precious, but it must be read in its order: the delighting comes first.

"in the LORD," al-YHWH (עַל־יְהוָה). And the delighting is in the LORD, not in the gifts. The object of the pleasure is God Himself, which is exactly what distinguishes this verse from the blank cheque it is mistaken for.

"desires," mish'alot (מִשְׁאֲלֹת), petitions, requests of the heart. To such a heart God promises to give "the desires of thine heart." The one whose supreme pleasure is God does not merely get his wishes granted; his wishes are being reshaped by the very delight that fuels the prayer.

Explanation

The gift in this verse works further upstream than we usually think. God does not simply hand the delighting heart the objects it happens to crave; He first becomes its craving. When a soul takes its deepest pleasure in the LORD, its desires are quietly bent toward what God loves, so that the "desires of thine heart" He then fulfils are no longer the old greedy wants but new ones He Himself has planted. That is why the promise is safe: God can pledge to satisfy every desire of a heart that delights in Him, because such a heart increasingly desires Him. Notice, too, where this verse sits. It is the second in a staircase of commands, "Trust... and do good" (v3), "Delight thyself" (v4), "Commit thy way" (v5), "Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently" (v7), a whole grammar of the quiet life laid out for people tempted to fret. Delight is the step that turns duty into pleasure.

Gospel Focus

"Delight thyself also in the LORD", the LORD in whom we are to delight has drawn near in Jesus Christ, who is Himself the soul's chief joy. To delight in the LORD is now to delight in Christ, "whom having not seen, ye love; in whom... ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8). And in Him God gives us not merely things but Himself, the deepest desire of the heart, "no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly" (Psalm 84:11), for "he that spared not his own Son... how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). The Spirit of Christ reshapes our wants, working in us "both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13), so that we come to desire what God delights to give. So the promise is not a licence for our old cravings but an invitation to a new joy: make Christ your exquisite pleasure, and you will find your desires changing, and the God who gave His Son withholding no good thing from you.

Word Study

"meek," Hebrew anavim (עֲנָוִים), the humble, lowly, oppressed. The anavim are the humble and lowly, those who do not push and grasp, who bear wrong without retaliating. The wicked man of this psalm holds the land now, by force and fraud; but the promise is made to the very people who will not fight him for it.

"inherit," yireshu (יִירְשׁוּ), take possession as an heir. The land is not seized by their strength but given as an inheritance, for an inheritance is received, never grabbed. That single word answers the whole question of how the meek could ever come to own anything.

"the earth," eretz (אֶרֶץ), land or earth. The psalm looks past the present to the settled future: "the meek shall inherit the earth." What the violent hold for a moment, the lowly will hold as heirs.

"abundance of peace," rov shalom (רֹב שָׁלוֹם). And with the land comes shalom -- an abundance of it, the wholeness that the strivers never find however much land they take.

Explanation

This promise is the refrain of the whole psalm; some form of "shall inherit the earth" rings out five times (verses 9, 11, 22, 29, and 34), each time set against the wicked being "cut off." The repetition is deliberate: the psalm knows how loudly present appearances argue the opposite, so it says the same steadying thing over and over until faith can hear it. And there is a quiet paradox at the centre of it. The meek inherit the earth precisely because they do not try to seize it; the grasping man loses what he clutches, the humble man receives what he never grabbed. Inheritance, by its nature, is a gift from a father, not a prize won in a fight. The whole logic of the world is reversed here: possession comes not by taking but by trusting, and the earth is the reward of the very meekness the world despises.

Gospel Focus

"The meek shall inherit the earth", the Lord Jesus lifted this verse straight into the heart of His first great sermon: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). He not only preached it; He embodied it, "I am meek and lowly in heart" (Matthew 11:29), the King who rode humbly on a colt and did not strive or cry (Matthew 21:5; 12:19). By His meekness unto death He was made "heir of all things" (Hebrews 1:2), and He shares that inheritance with His people, who are "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17). The earth the meek inherit is finally "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13), where the abundance of peace is unbroken forever. So the world's estimate is overturned in Christ: the grasping lose everything, and the meek, who followed the meek and lowly Saviour, inherit all things with Him. Take heart, then, when the ruthless seem to hold the field; the future belongs to the meek, and their inheritance is guaranteed in the risen Christ.

Word Study

"steps," Hebrew mitz'adei (מִצְעֲדֵי), the strides, the going. The good man's life is not adrift. The word takes in the whole course of his going, stride by stride, not merely the destination.

"ordered," konanu (כּוֹנָנוּ), established, made firm, fixed. "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD." Each stride is established and made firm by God, who directs the whole course of his going.

"fall," yippol (יִפֹּל). But the psalm is honest that even such a man may stumble: "Though he fall." The verb naphal is the ordinary word for going down, and the psalm does not pretend the good man never does.

"utterly cast down," yutal (יוּטָל), hurled down headlong. Note the two different words. He may fall, stumble and go down, but he will not be hurled headlong to ruin. The one word describes a stumble; the other, destruction.

"upholdeth," somekh (סוֹמֵךְ), sustains, props up. The difference between the two is a hand: "for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand." God props him up so that the fall never becomes a downfall.

Explanation

Two things in these verses deserve a closer look. First, the delight of verse 4 comes back, now flowing the other way. There the man delighted in the LORD; here the LORD "delighteth in his way." The delight is mutual: the God we take pleasure in takes pleasure in the steps of those who trust Him. Second, the honesty of "though he fall." This is not the promise of a life without stumbling; it grants the fall outright. What it denies is the ruin. The whole weight of the comfort rests on the difference between two verbs, to fall and to be hurled down headlong, and the only thing standing between them is the hand of God underneath: "the LORD upholdeth him with his hand." A saint held by that hand may trip, but he cannot be thrown away.

Gospel Focus

"Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand", this holding hand is the hand of Jesus Christ, out of which none of His own can be lost. He says of His sheep, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:28); we are "kept by the power of God through faith" (1 Peter 1:5). The falls of the saints are real, Peter denied his Lord and wept bitterly, yet Christ had prayed for him, "that thy faith fail not," and restored him (Luke 22:32); he fell, but was not utterly cast down. This is the difference grace makes: the believer's stumbles are not the end, because the hand beneath him is stronger than his fall. "The LORD upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down" (Psalm 145:14). And the steps of the good man are ordered by the same Lord who ordered every step of His own life to the cross for us; the providence that guides us is the providence of the One who loves us and gave Himself for us. So walk on, and when you stumble, do not despair: your steps are ordered, and the hand of Christ will not let you be thrown away.