The Flourishing That Does Not Last

The psalm is an alphabetic acrostic in which each letter usually governs two verses. “Fret” is from charah, to burn: do not get heated. Proverbs 24:19 carries the same line almost word for word, “Fret not thyself because of evil men, neither be thou envious at the wicked.”

Grass in the Judean hills greens quickly after the winter rains and browns within weeks once the hot east wind blows, the picture Isaiah 40:7 uses: “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it.”

“Verily thou shalt be fed” is an attempt at a compressed Hebrew phrase, literally “and feed on faithfulness”, or “shepherd faithfulness”. The King James margin offers “in truth”. The land here is the land of promise, and dwelling in it is the covenant hope.

“Delight thyself” is hitanneg, to take exquisite pleasure, a verb of luxury. Isaiah 58:13–14 uses it of the sabbath, “call the sabbath a delight... Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD”, the same phrase as here.

“Commit” is literally “roll”: roll thy way upon the LORD, as a load too heavy to carry is rolled onto another’s back. Proverbs 16:3 uses the same verb, “Commit thy works unto the LORD.” “Bring it to pass” is simply “he will act”.

“Noonday” is a dual form in Hebrew, tsohorayim, as if the light were doubled: the full blaze of midday, when nothing casts a shadow. “Bring forth” is the verb for the sun coming out.

“Rest” is dom, be still or silent. “Wait patiently” is a form of chul, a verb that elsewhere means to writhe in labour; the waiting has tension in it. The man who “bringeth wicked devices to pass” is literally a man who carries out his schemes.

“Cease” is raphah, to let go, relax the grip, the verb of Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.” The last clause is literally “only to do evil”: fretting has one destination.

“Wait upon” is qavah, and its related noun tiqvah means both hope and a cord, as in Rahab’s scarlet line (Joshua 2:18). This is the first of five times the psalm promises the land, and the King James renders the one word erets as “earth” here and in 11 and 22, “land” in 29 and 34.

“Diligently consider his place” is the image of looking hard at the spot where a man stood and finding it empty. Job 7:10 has the same thought, “neither shall his place know him any more”, and Psalm 103:16 repeats it of the flower of the field.

The meek are anavim, the humble poor, and Numbers 12:3 uses the word of Moses, “very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” “Delight themselves” is the verb of verse 4 again, so the delight first commanded is here received.

“Plotteth” is zamam, to devise a scheme, a word the prophets use of a purpose firmly settled. The gnashing teeth are the snarl of the mockers in 35:16, the face of hatred rather than of hunger.

Psalm 2:4 gives the same response to the kings who plot against the LORD: “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.” “His day” is the fixed day of reckoning, as David said of Saul in 1 Samuel 26:10, “or his day shall come to die.”

“Conversation” in 1611 meant conduct, a whole way of living, from the Latin conversatio; the Hebrew is “upright of way”. The sword and bow cover close fighting and distance: there is nowhere the poor man stands out of range.

The psalms return several times to the weapon that turns on its owner: in Psalm 7:15–16 and 57:6 the digger falls into his own pit. Here it is the sword, and it finds the heart, the organ where the plot of verse 12 was hatched.

This is the wisdom form “better is... than”, and Proverbs 15:16 and 16:8 make the same comparison. “Riches” is hamon, which also means noise or a crowd: the bustle and clamour of great wealth.

The arm is the Hebrew figure for strength in action, as in the “stretched out arm” of Exodus 6:6. Ezekiel 30:21 announces the end of Pharaoh’s power in exactly this form: “I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

The wicked man had one day coming to him (verse 13). The upright have “days”, plural, and they are known to the LORD, a verb of close attention and care. “Inheritance” is nachalah, the family plot of land that was meant never to leave the family.

Famine was the recurring disaster of Canaan; it drove Abraham into Egypt (Genesis 12:10), Isaac to Gerar (26:1) and Elimelech to Moab (Ruth 1:1). “Ashamed” here means disappointed, left with nothing when the crisis comes.

“The fat of lambs” reads karim as lambs, whose fat was burned whole on the altar and went up in smoke. The same word can mean pastures, and many translate “like the glory of the pastures”, the wild flowers that vanish in a season.

Deuteronomy 15:6 and 28:12 promise Israel that obedience will make it a lender to nations and a borrower from none. “Sheweth mercy” is chonen, to be gracious, the word used of a free and undeserved kindness.

Blessing and cursing are the two outcomes of the covenant set before Israel in Deuteronomy 28. “Of him” means by the LORD: it is his blessing that brings the inheritance, and his curse that cuts off.

The Hebrew has only geber, “a man”; the King James supplies “good” and prints it in italic. “Ordered” is konanu, made firm. “He delighteth in his way” can be read either way round: the LORD delights in the man’s way, or the man in the LORD’s.

“Utterly cast down” is tul, to hurl, the verb for Saul casting his javelin at David (1 Samuel 18:11) and the sailors throwing Jonah into the sea (Jonah 1:15). “Upholdeth” is samakh, the supporting verb of verse 17, now with a hand attached.

The only point in the psalm where the teacher speaks of his own age. The verse is recited near the end of the Jewish grace after meals. “Begging” is literally “seeking”: the child going from door to door looking for bread.

“Ever” is literally “all the day”. “His seed is blessed” is more exactly “his seed is for a blessing”, the phrase of the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:2, “thou shalt be a blessing”: the children become a source of good to others.

Three imperatives, depart, do, dwell, and the last is a command that is also a promise, as “so shalt thou dwell” was in verse 3. The first half repeats Psalm 34:14 word for word.

“Saints” here is chasidim, the loyal ones, people marked by chesed, a different word from the holy ones of 34:9. The acrostic seems to lose its ayin line here, and the ancient Greek, reading “the lawless shall be driven out for ever”, suggests a Hebrew original that restores it.

The last of the promises about the land that do not require waiting. “Dwell” is shakan, the settling verb from which mishkan, the tabernacle, is formed: a settled presence, not a temporary camp.

“Speaketh” is hagah, to murmur, the verb of 35:28, the low sound of someone going over words. Proverbs 10:31 makes the same observation: “The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom.”

Deuteronomy 6:6 commands, “these words... shall be in thine heart”, and Psalm 40:8 claims it in the first person. “Slide” is maad, to totter or slip, the word of Psalm 18:36, “my feet did not slip”.

“Watcheth” is tsaphah, the verb of the sentinel on the wall, from which Ezekiel is called a watchman (Ezekiel 3:17). Here the watching is hostile, a lookout posted for an ambush.

“Condemn” is the causative of the word for wicked, to declare someone in the wrong. Deuteronomy 25:1 gives judges the task in the same words: “justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.” The scene is a courtroom where the verdict could go astray.

Watching the end of the wicked is promised to the one who waits. The next verse begins “I have seen”: the teacher has already stood where the listener is told he will stand.

“Green bay tree” is a guess of the translators. The Hebrew ezrach means native, a tree growing in its own soil; the word is used of the native-born Israelite in Exodus 12:19. The ancient Greek read “like the cedars of Lebanon”.

The Hebrew reads “he passed away”, but the Greek, the Syriac and Jerome read “I passed by”: the teacher walked past the spot again and the tree was gone. “He was not” is the phrase used of Enoch in Genesis 5:24, though the vanishing here is of a very different kind.

“Perfect” is tam, whole or blameless, the word used of Job in Job 1:1. “End” is acharit, what comes after, and it can mean posterity; many read “there is a future for the man of peace”, a line of descendants.

“Transgressors” is poshim, rebels, from the pesha of Psalm 32:1. “Together” means all at once, the whole company. The psalm has gathered its verbs of disappearance: wither, be cut off, consume, perish, and now be destroyed.

The final letter of the alphabet, tav, begins teshuat, salvation: the acrostic ends on the word it has been working towards. “Strength” is maoz, a stronghold, a place to run into.

“Trust” is chasah, to take shelter, the verb of Psalm 2:12, “Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.” Deliverance is named twice, with two different verbs, as though one were not enough for the case.