The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"a good thing," Hebrew tov (טוֹב). The Sabbath psalm opens by calling praise good and fitting: "It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD." Thanksgiving is not merely required of us; it is one of the things that is right in itself.

"to give thanks," lehodot (לְהֹדוֹת). The good thing named is gratitude put into words, "and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High." Thanks kept inward is not what the psalm is after; it is to be shewn forth.

"lovingkindness," chesed (חֶסֶד), covenant love. What is declared is God's covenant love, the loyal kindness He has bound Himself to. Praise here is not vague admiration but the recital of a particular commitment God has made.

"in the morning," babboqer (בַּבֹּקֶר). "To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning." The day opens with the declaration of His love, before anything has happened to prove or disprove it.

"faithfulness," emunah (אֱמוּנָה). The evening's theme is God's reliability. Having begun the day trusting His love, His people end it testifying that He kept faith.

"every night," balleilot (בַּלֵּילוֹת). "And thy faithfulness every night." Morning and night together shut the whole day inside praise, so there is no hour that is not framed by thanksgiving.

"I will triumph," aranen (אֲרַנֵּן), sing for joy. "For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands." The triumph is a ringing song, and its subject is what God has done rather than what the singer has achieved.

Explanation

Two things about this Sabbath opening are worth pausing over. First, notice what the day of rest is for. This is the one psalm in all the Psalter headed "for the sabbath day," and it fills the day not with idleness but with praise. Rest and thanksgiving belong together: the Sabbath is not empty leisure but the good work of giving thanks. And the psalm insists that this is a genuinely good thing, "it is a good thing to give thanks", good in God's sight, for it renders Him His due, and good for us, for verse 4 says it "made me glad." Praise is not a grim duty; it is the gladdest use a soul can make of a day. Second, look at the beautiful daily rhythm it names: "to shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night." The two great words for God's covenant character are set at the two ends of the day. Chesed, His steadfast love, greets us in the morning, fresh mercy to begin every day; emunah, His faithfulness, is our theme at night, when we look back over the day and see that He kept every promise, held us through every hour. You wake to His mercy and you fall asleep on His faithfulness. Praise, then, is meant to bracket the whole day at both ends, morning and evening, so that the believer's life becomes a continual song rising to the Most High.

Gospel Focus

"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD", the Sabbath rest this psalm sanctifies with praise finds its fulfilment in Jesus Christ, who is our true rest. He calls, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28), and the writer to the Hebrews declares, "there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9), a rest we enter by faith in Him. In Christ every day becomes a Sabbath of thanksgiving. And the morning mercy and nightly faithfulness of this psalm are the very heart of the gospel, for it is "of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22-23). Those new-every-morning mercies flow to us from the cross, where the faithfulness of God to His promises was sealed for ever. So make praise the good work of your rest: wake to the mercy of Christ, sleep on His faithfulness, and let thanksgiving fill your days.

Word Study

"how great are thy works," Hebrew mah-gadlu ma'asekha (מַה־גָּדְלוּ מַעֲשֶׂיךָ). "O LORD, how great are thy works!" The psalm moves from the works that made the singer glad to the size of them, and finds it past measuring.

"thy thoughts are very deep," amequ machshevotekha (עָמְקוּ מַחְשְׁבֹתֶיךָ). Behind the great works lie deeper purposes: "and thy thoughts are very deep." What God does can be seen; why He does it lies further down than the eye reaches.

"a brutish man," ish-ba'ar (אִישׁ־בַּעַר), a stupid, animal-like man. "A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this." He lives at the level of the beast, judging only by what is in front of him, and so the depth of God's thoughts is closed to him.

"spring as the grass," parach kemo esev (פָּרְחוּ כְּמוֹ עֵשֶׂב). Faith sees what the fool cannot: "When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish." Grass comes up fast and thick, and that quick growth is exactly what deceives the brutish man.

"destroyed for ever," lehishshamdam adei-ad (לְהִשָּׁמְדָם עֲדֵי־עַד). The sudden flourishing is the very sign of the end: "it is that they shall be destroyed for ever: But thou, LORD, art most high for evermore." Their "for ever" and God's are set side by side, and only one of them stands.

Explanation

Here the psalm turns to the puzzle that has shaken the faith of God's people in every age, the prosperity of the wicked, and it names exactly who stumbles over it and who does not. "A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this." The word "brutish" means animal-like, a person who sees no further than his senses, who judges only by what is in front of him. And what such a man cannot understand is stated in the next verse: why "the wicked spring as the grass, and... the workers of iniquity do flourish." To the brutish man, the flourishing of the wicked looks like proof that there is no justice, no God who judges. But faith, which thinks God's "very deep" thoughts after Him, sees the truth hidden in the very image the psalm chooses. The wicked spring up "as the grass", and grass is the one thing in nature that is here today and mown down tomorrow. Their fast, lush flourishing is not evidence against judgment; it is the judgment in the making: "it is that they shall be destroyed for ever." They grow quickly precisely because, like grass, they are about to be cut down. What looks to the fool like the wicked winning is really the wicked being fattened for ruin. And over all their rising and falling stands the one fixed point of the psalm: "But thou, LORD, art most high for evermore." The wicked flourish for a season and perish; God abides for ever. To see that is not cleverness; it is the deep wisdom God gives to those who worship Him.

Gospel Focus

"A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this", the deep thoughts of God, hidden from the merely natural mind, are opened only by His Spirit. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him... because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14); "but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:10). The flourishing of the wicked that baffles the fool is unmasked by the gospel, for "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever" (1 John 2:17). And the deepest of God's deep thoughts is Christ crucified, which the brutish man calls foolishness but which is, to the called, "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24). So do not envy the wicked their quick, green season. Look with the eyes God gives, and you will see that their grass withers, while the LORD, and all who are His, remain for evermore.

Word Study

"flourish," Hebrew yifrach (יִפְרָח). The same word used of the wicked springing up is now used of the righteous, but with a different outcome. Against the grass that withers, the righteous are trees that endure.

"the palm tree," tamar (תָּמָר). "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree." The palm stands upright in dry places and keeps bearing where little else will grow.

"a cedar in Lebanon," erez balevanon (אֶרֶז בַּלְּבָנוֹן). "He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon." To the palm's fruitfulness is added the cedar's height and long life, the tallest and most enduring timber Israel knew.

"planted," shetulim (שְׁתוּלִים). "Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God." These trees did not seed themselves; they were set in place, and it is the soil they stand in that accounts for their growth.

"bring forth fruit in old age," yenuvun beseivah (יְנוּבוּן בְּשֵׂיבָה). "They shall still bring forth fruit in old age." The years that finish other growth do not finish this; fruitfulness runs on into grey hair.

"fat and flourishing," deshenim vera'ananim (דְּשֵׁנִים וְרַעֲנַנִּים), full of sap and green. The picture is of a tree still running with life inside and still in leaf outside, and it is set there "to shew that the LORD is upright."

Explanation

This closing is built as the deliberate answer to verse 7, and the contrast is the whole point. The wicked "spring as the grass", low, fast, soon mown. But "the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree... like a cedar in Lebanon." Set grass beside a cedar: the grass shoots up in a week and is gone in a season; the cedar grows slowly, sinks deep roots, and stands for a thousand years. That is the difference between the wicked and the righteous, not that the godly never seem to grow slower, but that what they grow into lasts. And the secret of their flourishing is named exactly: "those that be planted in the house of the LORD." Their life is rooted in God's own presence; they draw their sap from nearness to Him, and so they thrive "in the courts of our God." Then comes the most surprising promise in the psalm, one that runs clean against the grain of nature: "They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing." An ordinary tree bears less as it ages and finally stops; but the righteous bear more. Where nature declines, grace advances; the godly grow greener, not drier, with the years, full of sap and fruit when the body itself is failing. And the whole point of such a life, the psalm says, is advertisement: "to shew that the LORD is upright." A fruitful old saint is a living billboard of God's faithfulness, proof to the watching world that "he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him."

Gospel Focus

"Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish", the secret of this enduring fruitfulness is union with Jesus Christ. To be planted in God's house is, in gospel terms, to be "rooted and built up in him" (Colossians 2:7), drawing life from Christ as a branch from the vine: "he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit" (John 15:5). Rooted there, the believer is like "a tree planted by the waters" (Jeremiah 17:8), whose leaf does not wither. And the promise of fruit "in old age" is the special glory of the gospel, for even "though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16). The body may weaken, but the soul planted in Christ grows richer, greener, more fruitful to the end, so that aged saints are often the most Christlike and the most fruitful of all. Such a life proves the gospel true: "he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him." So be planted deep in Christ, draw your life from Him, and you will bear fruit not only in your strong years but in your gray ones, to the glory of God.