Making wise choices in life is certainly a concern for every person in every walk of life. Practical advice for life abounds in our world. An interesting exercise might be to survey people for their best pieces of advice. Nearly everyone has advice to offer and nearly everyone is interested in timely advice for the situations they face.
Psalm 1 discusses one important choice that must be and will be made by every person. This is the choice to follow God or not. In fact, the core feature of the psalm is to discuss the contrasting effects of the choice to follow God or not. The lives of those who choose God are distinguished from the lives of those who opt against God. A short psalm, it delivers its observations with memorable impact: only the righteous endure in life and the wicked perish.
With its pithy observations of the effects of one momentous choice in life, Psalm 1 introduces the Psalter to the worshipper. Only those who choose the Lord and have come to enjoy the life benefits of doing so are in the position to praise the Lord as the entire book of Psalms intends.
Psalm 1 also is a piece of wisdom literature, related especially to the book of Proverbs which is interested in leading people to make the right choices in life. The word translated as “happy” or “blessed” appears as the opening word in this psalm and refers to the pleasant condition of life that results from making the momentous decision of choosing God’s way in life. This word connects the psalm further to the wisdom literature of the Bible and especially to the Beatitudes which open Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
God’s way (Psalm 1:1-3)
The psalm opens with the strong acclamation of the pleasing life that results from making the crucial decision to serve God with one’s life. In proverbial fashion, the call to make this vital decision is delivered by revealing the satisfying results of life that flow from that decision. Thus the Hebrew word translated “blessed” or “happy” refers to these pleasing results.
Blessed therefore is the person who makes a choice that is described three times in counterpoint in verse 1. Normally Hebrew parallelism has two complementary parts per poetic unit, but where emphasis is desired, three parts per unit are provided. Therefore, verse 1 opens the psalm and the Psalter with a strong emphasis on the blessed condition that results from avoiding the undesirable choice.
Notice the progression of action among the parallel parts in verse 1: walking, then standing, then sitting. To walk in wickedness is bad enough, to stand firm in it is worse, and to take a seat and abide in its midst is worst of all and indicative of complete abandonment to the way of wickedness. This is the devastating progression of this choice. The objects of all this activity further describe the progression of the wicked choice. First, the counsel of the wicked is followed. Then, the way of sinners becomes distinctive of one’s stance in life. Finally, the conduct of the mockers is adopted. Thus in three steps we see the thinking, behavior and belonging to wickedness one’s choice has caused.
For some, mockery hardly seems to be a capital sin. It is prevalent in our world and does not necessarily connect to the most violent and vile of behaviors. Nevertheless, mockery is surprisingly the farthest from repentance. Verse 1 states, therefore, that the blessed one is the one who does not do these things. Or stating the message of the verse in a positive (and prosaic) form, the blessed one is the one who leads a life of repentance.
The contrast to the life of wickedness is given in verse 2. The Hebrew poetry falls back to two-line parallelism. The blessed one has his delight in the law of the Lord, upon which he meditates at all hours. The Hebrew word for “law” has a core meaning of “teaching” or “instruction” and is not legalistic in its primary meaning. God’s teaching has the force of law in that it expresses God’s will and command for the lives of his people, but the Hebrews always saw God’s law as more than mere statutes. The Hebrews saw the law as God’s personal communication intended to lead them in God’s ways and not merely rules to be heartlessly fulfilled to satisfy a capricious God.
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Verse 3 provides a picture of this blessed life from realm of agriculture. Here is a tree that has been planted and cultivated just as the life of the blessed one is planted and cultivated because of their momentous choice to follow God. God blesses such a life just as a stream of water blesses the life of a tree so that it is healthy and gives forth fruit. Just as such a tree prospers, so also the person whose life is connected to God prospers.
Thus God’s way of life is the way of prosperity. The specifics of this prosperity are not discussed in the psalm. Nor does the passage promise material or financial prosperity. The prosperous lives of God’s people are only contrasted with the destruction in the lives of wicked.
The other way (Psalm 1:4-5)
The psalm now declares the result of the wicked way of life. In contrast to the prosperity of the faithful, the wicked perish. Their lives are described first in agricultural terms. They will be blown away as chaff is blown away. Such is the worthless end to such worthless living.
The agricultural image does not give the full picture, however. Verse 5 describes what the agricultural image of blowing away chaff means. Yet the wicked do not just go away. Unlike the trees planted by the streams of water, the wicked cannot stand in the face of judgment. Thus the word “stand” is brought forward from verse 1 for a contrasting twist in its use. In verse 1, the sinners were “standing” in the wicked way, that is, they had become wicked. But verse 5 reveals the wicked do not stand permanently. Their involvement in sin leads them to destruction. Thus the wicked cannot stand in the judgment, and sinners cannot stand in the assembly of the righteous.
The two choices (Psalm 1:6)
Verse 6 concludes the first psalm by contrasting the two outcomes corresponding to the two choices made regarding following God. Those who choose God actually enjoy God’s oversight in their lives. God invests himself in their lives in response to their decision to follow him. Though God’s committed people may not flourish in ways recognized as prosperous to the world, they still enjoy robust lives filled with God’s presence and blessing. The psalm’s statement of this happy development comes as a promise to God’s people. God will attend to the lives of those who follow him.
Cut off from God’s power for living and enjoying life, the wicked cannot prevail and eventually perish. This great warning closes out the short psalm.
The choice that underlies the movement of the psalm is an essential personal choice. Since an intimate relationship with God is the desired outcome, this personal choice cannot be shortchanged. Intimate relationships are personal relationships. Therefore a deliberate, personal choice to follow the Lord God is necessary. Assumptions cannot be allowed to prevail in light of the focus on knowing and following the law of the Lord. Thus this lesson is a good reminder of the need to make a personal decision for Christ and a personal decision to follow his will.
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