Psalm 36
Psalm 36 begins
with a discussion of “fearing the Lord.”
However, a short trip into Biblical Hebrew will serve us well as we look
at this passage. When I hear about the
fear of the Lord, I immediately think of Psalm 111:10 or Proverbs 1:7 or
Proverb 9:10. In those passages we hear
that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It seems to fit really well with Psalm 36 and
the idea that there is no fear of the Lord within the wicked.
However,
in reality the word fear in this psalm is not the same as the word fear in the
other passages that I quoted. The word
fear in this passage is a word that is best translated as “dread,” “panic,” or
“terror.” In the other passages that I
quoted the word is best translated as “fear” or “awe” or “reverence.” When we look at this, we can see David’s
point. It’s bad that the wicked are
evil. But the wicked can be evil because
they have no genuine dread for the Lord.
They don’t worry about the judgment to come. They don’t worry about what God can do to them. I am reminded of Jesus’ words In Matthew
10:28.
After
talking a little about the wicked who have no dread of God, David then turns to
proclaim God’s greatness once more.
David talks about how great God’s steadfast love is. He saves man and beast. Everyone can take refuge in Him. He abundantly provides for those who are with
Him. He is the fountain of all
life. In Him do we see truth.
The
contrast should be noted between how this psalm began and how the psalm
ends. David begins talking about the
wicked and their inability to have any meaningful or even non-meaningful
relationship with God. Then David turns
to speaking to those who do have a meaningful relationship with God. What is the difference? Humbleness.
The wicked are too self-interested to have any relationship at all. The godly understand their relationship with
God as the master. They follow Him and
take pleasure in doing things His way and being under His shelter.
Psalm 37
Psalm 37 talks
much about the difference between the wicked perishing and the righteous
enduring. On one level, this could be
taken to speak about each of us in life.
However, this is not a very satisfying understanding of this psalm because
we all know that we will all die. Even
more, we know that sometimes it is the righteous that die prematurely and it
often seems like the wicked live longer than their behavior would
indicate. I don’t find much satisfaction
thinking that this is the rationale for the psalmist words.
It could
be that the psalmist is speaking eternally.
The righteous will live forever with God, while the unrighteous will be
judged into destruction. While certainly
we believe this to be true, I don’t think this is actually the only way to take
this psalm, either. The tone of the
psalm seems to be speaking about this life and this world rather than the life
to come.
I think
there is another way to interpret this psalm.
Notice that in the psalm the psalmist encourages the listener to hold
onto the ways of the Lord. We are told
to commit ourselves to the Lord and delight in His ways. When we commit ourselves to His ways, then we
can see an understanding of this psalm. It
is the way of the Lord that continues on forever. We as human beings come and go, but we are
merely pieces in the Lord’s overarching plan.
Think
about it this way. The plans of the
wicked usually run for the length of a single person’s life. The wicked are concerned about themselves. They are self-mongers. Sure, occasionally a wicked person passes off
the baton to another wicked person and you might end up with a few wicked
regimes in a row. Some of the Roman Emperors
fit well as examples here.
However,
while wickedness has always dwelled on the earth, there has never been one
consistent plan for wickedness. Wicked plans
come and wicked plans go. On the other
hand, we can say for certain that since Abraham was called into righteousness
by God that there have always been righteous people pursuing God’s plan. We have been pursuing one overarching path of
righteousness. While we may come and we
may go into death, the reality is that the path of righteousness remains true.
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