Bible Commentaries

Acts 13:33, the second psalm is quoted as the first. Some peculiarities of language, as well as the general tone of thought, are considered to point to Solomon as the author, whilst some words seem to bring it to a later period than David"s. Probably it was written before the disruption of Israel, or at least before the decadence of the kingdom of Judah.]

1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

2. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

4. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

5. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

The Trees of God

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful" ( Psalm 1:1).

We might suppose that this statement, both on the one side and on the other, amounted to nothing more than a mere assertion of individual opinion. It might be imagined, on a superficial examination of the circumstances, that some man had ventured to give it as his opinion that the godly man would be blessed, and that the ungodly man would fail of blessing. This is not matter of opinion; this is matter of law, matter of historical necessity. Moreover, the statement—if it be only a statement—is open to immediate contradiction if it be not confirmed and illustrated by the history of mankind. This gives us a very solid standing-ground in our study. Opinion is free, and opinion cannot raise itself above the line of discussion; it must always be subject to criticism and to controversy. But this is not matter of mere opinion; this is the result of the inductive process, this is the outcome of law, this is the upgathering of vast and minute experience. If it is not that, how easy the contradiction! how tempting the field of action, in which an infant may become a soldier, and the man of feeble speech may overwhelm with the evidence of fact all the sophisms of the most eloquent orator! Thus we are upon very solid ground. If the first psalm is not true, every one amongst us can disprove it. The appeal is to life, to fact, to actual circumstance and condition. The ungodly Psalm 1:1-2).

What say you? Do you write a negative verdict over the face of that decision? Is there a man who loves the darkness, serves the devil, pants for hell, who could deny that,—a man so lost that he could deny the opening verses of the first psalm? We cannot tell what they feel who have gone over the brink and fallen into the fire and the brimstone, by which future punishment is at all events symbolised to our dull imagination; but one instance is given in parable from which large inferences may be drawn. The man who was tormented in the flames said: I have five brethren—send to them; keep them out of this place, save them if it be possible! That was a parable, but it finds an answer in every human consciousness. The father says when he is most lost,—Spare my child the sight of this shame! do not let my son follow my example! I have wasted my substance with riotous living—may no child of mine follow his father's evil example! That we have heard from human lips; that we have not read in some Jewish book five thousand years old: it is written in the journals of the day; it is to be met in the groans that rise from unhappy civilization at this moment; it is the testimony of humanity. What can the ungodly, the sinner, or the scornful have by way of blessing? Their position is a negative one, or a position of resistance; and their spirit is a spirit of blasphemousness and flippancy. There is no rest in blasphemy; there is no contentment in flippancy. The scorner is no friend of good men. Any man who could indulge a sneer at the Bible is a bad man. We can imagine men who have great intellectual difficulties and literary difficulties of many kinds reverently closing the old book and saying nothing more about it—being dumb evermore; but the man who can turn the Bible into a subject for jesting and foolish speaking and sneering is in his heart bad. He may pay twenty shillings in the pound, he may have amongst citizens a good and honest name; but if he can sneer at the book which is the corner-stone of our best life, that sneer makes him a base Psalm 1:3).

A man's life should be rooted in God—in God's law, in God's service. It should not be as a flower plucked, but as a flower unplucked, growing in the eternal stream. Where God is there is no famine. A life severed from God's law cannot grow, cannot be at rest; it will be the victim of circumstances, affrighted by surprises, and disquieted by many fears. The good man—the student and servant of God's law—is not only like a tree, he is like a tree planted by rivers of water. So long as the rivers run his roots are nourished; he lives in the great scheme and system of things; no vagrant is Psalm 1:4).

Who can gather again the chaff which has been driven away? Where is it? whose is it? who will claim it? who will buy it? who will care for it? But there are appearances to the contrary. Some ungodly men seem to be well-established: they have property, they have influence, their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than heart can wish. What are we to make of such circumstances and realities, for realities they certainly appear to be to the casual observer? We are to remember that appearance is one thing, and reality is another. At a little distance the chaff might be mistaken for wheat We are to remember also that the Bible itself recognises what we mistake for realities: comments upon them, explains them, and makes them of no account in the measurement and valuation of God's providence. The prosperity of the wicked has never escaped the attention of good men; it has made some of them stumble; it has been turned into an argument against a discriminating providence; nay, more, it has been used as an illustration to prove that if God is more than usually mindful of any of his creatures, he seems to have set the seal of his special approbation upon men of worldly mind. Here we are thrown back upon the quality of character. We must make the well-known distinction between character and reputation. Character is what a man really is in his very heart and thought; reputation is what the man is thought to be by those who are associated with him, or who observe his method of life, or estimate the success which may have attended his labours. The distinction between the godly and the ungodly must be vital. Such is the distinction between wheat and chaff; in wheat there are harvests for generations through all time, in chaff there is nothing but emptiness and rottenness. We do not always discover quality by a superficial inspection. Character must be put to the severest tests before its real value can be ascertained. We cannot regard painted ships as of any value for purposes of navigation. Not what a horse is upon the artist's canvas, but what he is on the battlefield, must be the standard of value. Not in form but in power must be the continual rule of criticism and judgment. There may be a beauty of form without any beauty of inspiration; all merely formal beauty becomes monotonous and oppressive; it is the light within that makes day; it is the inspiration of the understanding that gives men clear discernment of the times and distinct mastery of events. The wheat and the chaff come very near to one another; they may at a little distance be mistaken one for the other. But every man's character should be tried; every man's work shall have the test of fire applied to it; and not until such final tests have been applied can we really tell, in some instances, which is good and which is bad. Driven by the wind, carried here and there, without soul or force of their own;—to know whose they are we must know where the wind is—the wind of popularity, the wind of success, the wind of divine visitation. What mocking words are applied to the ungodly man! The Bible everywhere treats him with contempt. It sees him in great power, spreading himself like a green bay tree, and then it declares that he cannot be found, yea though he be searched for in the soil where he grew, not a fibre of his roots can be discovered. The life of the hypocrite is described as a candle which has to be blown out, and which shall leave only an intolerable odour behind. The bad man's house is represented as founded upon the sand, and its doom is foretold. Never do we find anything of solidity, real value, or true praise connected with the bad man's name in all the Biblical record. Nor is this a merely metaphysical criticism on the part of the Bible; we know it of our own observation and experience to be a true judgment of fact. Who would employ a man who was known to be really bad at heart? Who would rely upon him? Who would trust him with property? Who would consult him in perplexity? The bad man may be used for temporary purposes: he may be turned into a mere convenience, but even the men who use him despise him, and as soon as the purposes of convenience have been completed the instrument is thrown away. The ungodly man can have no true friends. Though he form truces with his associates and enter into covenants signed and sealed and marked by all the appearance of solidity they will be as nothing in the day of temptation and trial. Ungodliness cannot stand; it has no virtue, strength, or pith; it is the creature of circumstances; it is an accident of the weather; it is driven about by the wind.

"Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous" ( Psalm 1:5).

These are the true and final tests of character. Put into the hands of a sower a handful of chaff and a handful of wheat, and can the former "stand" in his judgment? Psalm 1:6).

The question is not whether the righteous is apparently stronger than the ungodly, but what is the relation of the Lord to them both? The final award is not with man but with God. The destiny of the righteous and the ungodly is as distinct as their characters. There is no blending of one into the other,—the one lives, the other perishes. Consistently throughout the Bible life is always associated with obedience or righteousness, and death with disobedience or unrighteousness. Upon this point the Bible bears no equivocal or doubtful testimony. The voice of the Lord is one from the beginning to the end of his testimony. Great value attaches to a consistency of this kind. Consider that the records of the Bible extend over thousands of years and relate to every variety of human disposition and social circumstance; consider further that the Bible is the joint production of numerous writers who in many cases knew nothing of what the others had written, and then remember that from beginning to end the face of the Lord is represented as set against evil, and shining like a benediction upon good; and say if there be not in this very consistency itself, at least the beginning or suggestion of a noble argument. The consistency has a bearing upon the character of God himself. It is because he never changes in his own moral quality that he never changes in relation to the actions of men. In his first interview with man he spoke of life and death; in the final judgment of the world life and death will be the two categories under which the human race will be classified. That "the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous" is the good man's supreme comfort. "He knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." At first it might appear as if the knowledge of the Lord were a terror to the good man, whereas, on the contrary, it is the noblest comfort which sustains him. Not that the good man challenges the divine scrutiny in the matter of his actions, but that he is able to invite the Lord to look into the secret purpose of his heart and understand what is the supreme wish of his life. The Apostle Peter represents this truth in a manner most pathetic: "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." Peter was not here calling attention to his personal life, which was full of blunder and of shame, but was calling attention to the one purpose and uppermost desire of his life. That is a consolation always open to the good man. To know that the motive is right is to know that the end must be good. "When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path." "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine." The Apostle Paul has a noble figure upon this matter:—"The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his." The prophet Nahum bears testimony to this great truth, saying, "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him." What we have to be supremely anxious about is the main purpose or desire of life; that being right, actions will adjust themselves accordingly, and, notwithstanding innumerable mistakes, the substance of the character shall be good, and a crown of glory shall be granted to the faithful servant.

The whole of this psalm suggests many inquiries of a practical kind. First of all, are we blessed? The psalm relates to the blessedness of a peculiar character, and we are entitled to ask how far we correspond to its lineaments. We may be blessed in many ways, and must be blessed in all if we follow the way that is divine. We know what it is to be blessed in human relations by associating ourselves with those who are of the right spirit and purpose. "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." This is the law of blessing and destruction. To walk with God is to move constantly in an upward and heavenly direction. Another question which we may put is, Do we distinguish between blessedness and transient happiness? There is a great difficulty in this direction. We are so much the creatures of circumstances that we may interpret momentary emotions as indicative of solidity of character. Blessedness is a question of moral rectitude and not: a question of transient emotions. Being right we shall of necessity be blessed. Instead, therefore, of looking for the effect, let us steadfastly fix our minds upon the cause, knowing that it is impossible to have happiness from the outside, and that all blessedness expresses an inward and spiritual condition. We may well interrogate ourselves further in the matter of our own fruitfulness. What is the kind of fruit which we bring forth? What are our actions? How are our words regarded by those who are walking in darkness or are inquiring for the solution of great problems? "Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings." The root being right, the fruit shall be good. "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." Are we to be compared to the worthless chaff? We need not shrink from the question as if it could not be answered, for we well know that the reply is in our own hearts. Pitiable is the life of the ungodly. They are as stubble before the wind and as chaff that the storm carrieth away. Christ, the Saviour of the world, will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. However much appearances may be on the side of those who are ungodly, we read concerning them that "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof;" it is a momentary satisfaction, which perishes in the using. Whom God calls blessed can never be desolate; whom God calls cursed can never know true joy. Let us set it down as a fact in life, as a standard of judgment, that it is impossible for us to alter moral qualities and moral issues; we are called upon to accept the moral constitution of the universe as God has appointed it, to work out its laws, and either by obedience to enter into its heaven, or by disobedience to be flung away as sons of perdition.