The Song of Alphabetical Humility

Psalm 37 is a psalm of wisdom that speaks to human beings rather than to God, and it does so with a tone and style that is similar to the book of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. It’s also an acrostic poem like Psalms 9-10, 25, and 34, and here each stanza or double verse starts with the next Hebrew letter. These two qualities make Psalm 37 feel like a series of proverbial sayings that walk us through several themes. One commentator writes, “The power of the psalm comes from a quiet meditation on each in turn, feeling the force of the repetitions and viewing the question from slightly different angles.” What is the question being asked? It picks up on the provocative final verse of the previous psalm: 36:12 reads, “There the evildoers lie fallen; they are thrust down, unable to rise.” It’s a promise of God bringing the downfall of the wicked. Then Psalm 37 wonders, “But what if the evildoers do not fall? What if the wicked prosper?” This is where David begins his meditation: “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers!” These are two natural responses when we see evil people doing well in the world: we fret (or be agitated, upset), and we become envious (wondering if we could have the same success if we just walked away from loyalty to God). But in the next ten verses, David offers three ways that we can respond when the wicked become wealthy. First, we can look ahead to the future. Verse 2: “For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.” Or the mocking picture of verse 10: “In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there.” Even though the wicked set themselves up on thrones and pedestals, in a moment they’ll be gone when God says so. When we take the long view and understand that God’s perfect justice will come in his timing, then it takes us out of our present anxiety. We gain the perspective of eternity. The second response is to commit to the LORD. Verses 3-7 describe trusting, delighting, committing, and waiting for God to keep his promises. Verse 4 is famous: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The word “desires” means “requests, petitions,” so this is a beautiful picture of the cycle of faith: we long for God to help us, and when we are satisfied in him, he is kind enough to take care of his people. Repeatedly throughout Psalm 37 there is the phrase “inherit the land,” a callback to Abraham and the hope of a home where we can dwell with God in peace. A Godward heart will never be left wandering in the wilderness; he will bring us to our promised land. Finally, when the wicked prosper, we must continue to live righteously even when it’s costly. Verse 8: “Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.” This is a theme picked up often in the New Testament: God’s way of overcoming evil is to overwhelm it with good. It’s an enduring embrace of the quiet, holy life that trusts in the LORD and loves their neighbor. We don’t fight fire with fire, evil with evil; we walk the way of patient faith. It’s with this heart that David describes the good life in verse 11: “But the meek [or the humble afflicted] shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.”

The middle section of Psalm 37 illustrates the contrasts between the righteous and the wicked. Nearly every verse to the end of the psalm names one of those groups, the faithful who trust in God or the lawbreakers who reject the ways of God. Although from the outside the wicked will often prosper, the Lord works in a few subtle ways to undermine their temporary success. David points out two. First, he observes that the persecuted are not forsaken because, as we’ve seen many times in the Psalms, evil is inherently self-defeating. Just like in Psalm 2, the wicked plot evil, but the Lord simply laughs at them, “for he sees that his day is coming.” The wicked wield weapons to oppress the poor, but with poetic justice, those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. This psalm is meant to comfort us when we feel unsafe; when the wicked come close to hurting someone, the holy avenger is about to hurt them. Second, any prosperity gained by evil is less impactful on the world than radical generosity. Verse 16 states the principle bluntly: “Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked.” Wealth is deceptive; true value is found not in receiving but in giving away. David instructs, “The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives.” Blessing is always meant to be given away, which is itself a blessing and a practice of gratitude for God’s favor in our lives. Yet there’s a strange moment in verse 25 when David steps forward and declares something provocative, even offensive: “I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.” Really, David? Because we see good people suffer all around us, innocent children starving, the poor forgotten. What is he saying here? We know he’s not saying that the righteous can never suffer, because the verse right before this one shows a righteous person falling into suffering but still being upheld by the LORD. So verse 25 is an excellent illustration of the distinction between a promise and a proverb; a promise will absolutely come true, whereas a proverb describes what is generally true. What’s more, David is simply sharing one man’s experience; in his life, he has witnessed the constant care of God for his people. So we’re meant to feel the tension of life in a fallen world: we suffer, but God helps his people. There will be ups and downs in material possessions, but the Lord’s hand is steady. Therefore, we don’t have to hoard our wealth as though we are secure because of our bank accounts. Rather, the act of giving to the poor and the needy is a way that we practice tangible trust in the Lord who provides. One scholar remarked, “A person who sings like this will learn to like generosity!” Or as the apostle Paul put it, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

In the final part of Psalm 37, David summarizes all these themes and brings them to a confident conclusion. Verse 27: “Turn away from evil and do good; so shall you dwell forever.” The word “forever” is repeated in the next two verses as we get a long view of the ultimate end for the wicked and righteous: “For the LORD loves justice; he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever.” That promise of inheriting the land (which I’ve mentioned before) lets us know that David isn’t neatly dividing “good people” and “bad people” by just national lines; it’s not like Israel is the protagonist and the Gentiles are the antagonist. Rather, the promised land was given to a mixed group of wicked and righteous, faithful and unfaithful. It has always been the case that God’s people have been exiles within their own society, and so we live with faithful holiness next to our unholy neighbors. One fascinating feature of Psalm 37 is that it uses imagery from Psalm 1 (another wisdom psalm) and expands its ideas. For example, David steps forward again in verse 35 to share, “I have seen a wicked, ruthless man, spreading himself like a green laurel tree. But he passed away, and behold, he was no more; though I sought him, he could not be found.” Here we have someone who looks like the righteous man of Psalm 1 who was described as a fruitful tree, but in reality, this wicked person is as fragile as dust in the wind. David also uses key words from Psalm 1 like the law, delight, wicked, righteous, way, and the wonderful word hagah, which you may remember means to mutter or repeat. One commentator observed that it’s almost like after all the suffering psalms of 2-36 that we needed to return to this simple wisdom: trust in the LORD, and walk in his way. The final two verses end with a calm, steady tone of confidence: “The salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The LORD helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him.” What more is there to say? Actually, there is a lot more we could say because this psalm is full of beautiful truths. One of the delights and challenges of wisdom literature is that it’s so rich with principles to meditate that there’s too much to cover in a short time. There are iconic, profound verses in this psalm that I barely have time to mention. Here’s my favorite line in verse 7: “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him.” St. Jerome said that this was the hardest commandment in the Bible. When the wicked prosper, when the righteous suffer, when life is painful, our first instinct is often to take matters into our own hands, yet David tells us that it is better to be still. Rather than lashing out, we wait for the Creator of heaven and earth to bring justice and make all things new.