Psalms

Happy is the person who does not follow the advice of wicked people, or take the path that sinners walk, or sit down among those who mock.

1Blessed 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.

Note"Blessed" here translates a Hebrew word (*ashrei*) that is not a blessing pronounced on someone but an exclamation about them (closer to "how fortunate is" or "happy the person who." It describes a condition, not a gift being handed over. The three verbs) walk, stand, sit, move from passing by, to stopping, to settling in permanently. Hebrew poetry often builds a picture this way, and the sequence suggests a gradual sinking in rather than three separate acts. "Scornful" means mockers: people who treat what others hold sacred as a joke.

2Instead, he loves the teaching of the LORD, and he thinks about that teaching all day and all night.

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

Note"LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters usually written YHWH. Jewish readers avoided saying it aloud and substituted the word for "Lord," and most English Bibles follow that practice with the small-capital spelling. "Law" translates *torah*, which is wider than legal rules: it means instruction or teaching, and in this period referred to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, narrative and all. "Meditate" translates a word for muttering or murmuring under one's breath; ancient reading was normally done aloud, so the picture is of someone reciting the text quietly to himself, not sitting in silent thought.

3He is like a tree planted beside streams of water. It gives its fruit at the right time of year, and its leaves do not dry up. Everything he does goes well.

3And 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.

NoteIn the dry climate of the region, a tree away from water dies; one planted next to an irrigation channel keeps its leaves through the summer drought. "Rivers of water" refers to those channels dug to carry water to crops, not to natural rivers. "Planted" is a word for transplanting, the tree was deliberately put there by someone.

4Wicked people are not like that. They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

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

NoteChaff is the light, papery husk around a grain of wheat. After harvest the grain was beaten loose and then thrown into the air on a windy hillside: the heavy kernels fell back to the ground and the worthless chaff blew off. It was the standard image for something with no substance to it.

5So wicked people will not survive when they are judged, and sinners will have no place among the gathering of those who do right.

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

Note"Stand in the judgment" uses courtroom language, in an ancient legal hearing the parties stood before the elders to state their case, and to be unable to stand was to lose. "Congregation" means the assembled community of Israel, gathered as a body for worship or for decisions; to have no place in it was to be cut off from the people.

6The LORD watches over the way that righteous people go, but the way that wicked people go will come to nothing.

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

Note"Knoweth" translates a Hebrew verb that covers far more than being aware of a fact (it can mean to acknowledge, to be intimately familiar with, or to look after. That is why modern translations render it "guards" or "watches over," though the plainer sense of "knows" is also present. "Way" throughout this psalm means a road or path used as an image for a whole manner of life) the same double sense English has in "he went his own way."