The Song of the Blessed

Psalm 1 begins with a familiar yet unfamiliar word: blessed. In modern times, we think of “blessing” as warm, fuzzy feelings or everything going right in our lives, but the biblical meaning of blessing means enjoying the good life as defined by God. We could translate the first word as “happy,” although it’s a deep kind of happiness, the peak of human flourishing. This psalm is going to tell us how to live the good life, and it first tells us about the life we should avoid. “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.” Notice the progression of walking, standing, and sitting; the person who goes this way gets more and more stuck. They first listen to the counsel of the wicked, accepting the world’s advice and gaining wisdom from unwise people. They then stand in the way (or path) of sinners, hanging around those who fail to love God and others, tolerating things that are morally backward. And then the most fatal attitude comes with the scoffer or mocker, someone who can’t even appreciate good things because they’re filled with cynicism and sarcasm. These are three degrees of departure from God, and they are not where we are meant to find guidance. Rather, the good life is found in verse 2: “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” “Law” is the word “torah,” which means instruction, teaching, the words of God in the book that he has written. The basis of the Christian religion, the source of our piety and study, is the Bible, and we’re to be immersed in it continually. “Meditate” is a unique word. The Hebrew is hagah. Elsewhere in the Bible, it’s used of a lion or a bear growling or a person muttering under their breath. To meditate on the law of the LORD is to repeat it, ponder it, reflect on it, take delight in speaking it aloud, and hearing it again and again. It’s allowing ourselves to be influenced by God’s wisdom rather than by destructive voices, because the company we keep has immense power to form us. So right from the beginning, this psalm is inviting us to itself: “Do you long for the good life? You’re welcome here. Sit down for a while, take it slowly, and learn what it means to be blessed.”

The two ways of life that were just described are now illustrated by a metaphor. The blessed person is like a tree. Verse 3: “He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” Whenever we encounter a metaphor in the Bible, it’s helpful to ask, “How is this like that?” How is a blessed person like a tree? Well, this tree is planted by streams of water, an image of being rooted not by the wicked or sinners or scoffers but by a source of life and refreshment. This tree yields its fruit in its season, so it grows and matures. But this tree’s leaves do not wither, so it is also eternal, an ever-growing yet ever-protected tree. In everything, the person who is like this tree prospers. So when we meditate on the teachings of God, we are planting ourselves in fertile ground for us to grow, to avoid withering, and to experience the good life. This is what it means to be blessed: to be a living organism absorbing all our life from God, delighting in him, in the ways he works in us, and in the ways he brings blessing through us in the lives of others. But we’re given a contrasting picture in verse 4: “The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.” In winnowing grain, as those in an agricultural society know well, you crush the grain and throw it in the air, allowing the heavier grain to fall to the ground and the lighter husk to blow away in the wind. So the person who rejects God and his law is the opposite of the tree: that person isn’t planted at all, isn’t flourishing, and isn’t a benefit to anyone. Just disconnected, dislocated, dried up and dying in the breeze. It’s a vivid warning that if we choose to live life our own way, God may give us what we want — but it won’t be good for us. We’d return to the dust from which we were made, but we were made to be more than that. We were made to live and to live abundantly by digging our roots into a life with God.

The last part of the psalm concludes with the outcome of this choice: will we seek the good life with God, or will we go our own way? Verse 5: “Therefore the wicked will 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 wicked will perish.” The consequences of our choice is either judgment, expulsion, perishing or the LORD knowing you. Let’s talk about the first part. The psalmist is saying that there will come a day when God will not tolerate those who reject him any longer, when he will give them what they want, which is to be far from him. But that way leads to perishing — the end of the road. It’s not a road at all; it’s a cliff, and the psalm warns us that if we try to define the good life for ourselves, if we pursue what we think is right, if we make a mockery of what is good and pure so that we can’t tell right from wrong anymore, we are headed for isolation and death. But if we listen to the words of the psalm and all of the law of the LORD, if we let him define what is good and evil, if we delight in the life he gives rather than the life we grab for ourselves, “the LORD knows the way of the righteous.” This doesn’t mean he just acknowledges us or remembers us; knowing in the Bible means both intimacy and action. He cares for us, and he identifies with us. Blessing isn’t about the gifts that God gives us; it’s about knowing God and him knowing us. For those who worship God, we don’t define ourselves by what we do, because we’re not the source of life. Rather, we define ourselves by this: “God knows me. He loves me. He gives me life, and in response, I live for him.”