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Psalms 37: What the Passage Says

100 claims across 40 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Psalms 37 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm is a set of instructions about how to respond when people who do evil seem to be doing well. It repeatedly tells the reader not to fret, but to trust the LORD, wait for him, and keep doing good, and it contrasts what finally comes to the wicked with what comes to those who live rightly. Partway through, the speaker adds his own testimony as an old man about what he has and has not seen.

Claim by Claim

  1. 37:1
    • The psalm is ascribed to David.
    • Do not fret yourself because of evildoers.
    • Do not be envious of those who do wrong.
  2. 37:2
    • Evildoers will quickly be cut down like grass.
    • They will wither like green plants.
  3. 37:3
    • Trust in the LORD.
    • Do good.
    • Dwell in the land.
    • Feed on faithfulness, or cultivate faithfulness, the command is ambiguous.
  4. 37:4
    • Delight yourself in the LORD.
    • He will give you the desires of your heart.
  5. 37:5
    • Commit your way to the LORD.
    • Trust in him.
    • He will act.
  6. 37:6
    • He will bring out your righteousness like the light.
    • He will bring out your justice like the noonday.
  7. 37:7
    • Be silent before the LORD.
    • Wait patiently for him.
    • Do not fret because of the one who prospers in his way.
    • Do not fret because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
  8. 37:8
    • Cease from anger.
    • Forsake wrath.
    • Do not fret; it leads only to doing evil.
  9. 37:9
    • Evildoers will be cut off.
    • Those who wait on the LORD will inherit the land.
  10. 37:10
    • In a little while the wicked will not exist.
    • You will look carefully at his place and he will not be there.
  11. 37:11
    • The meek will inherit the land.
    • The meek will delight themselves in abundant peace.
  12. 37:12
    • The wicked plots against the righteous.
    • The wicked gnashes his teeth at the righteous.
  13. 37:13
    • The Lord laughs at the wicked.
    • The Lord sees that the wicked man's day is coming.
  14. 37:14
    • The wicked have drawn the sword.
    • The wicked have bent their bow.
    • Their purpose is to bring down the poor and needy.
    • Their purpose is to slay those whose way is upright.
  15. 37:15
    • Their sword will enter their own heart.
    • Their bows will be broken.
  16. 37:16
    • The little that the righteous man has is better than the abundance of many wicked.
  17. 37:17
    • The arms of the wicked will be broken.
    • The LORD upholds the righteous.
  18. 37:18
    • The LORD knows the days of the blameless.
    • Their inheritance will last forever.
  19. 37:19
    • They will not be ashamed in the time of evil.
    • In days of famine they will be satisfied.
  20. 37:20
    • The wicked will perish.
    • The enemies of the LORD will be like the precious growth of the pastures, or like the fat of lambs, the comparison is ambiguous.
    • They will vanish.
    • They will vanish away in smoke.
  21. 37:21
    • The wicked borrows and does not repay.
    • The righteous is gracious and gives.
  22. 37:22
    • Those blessed by the LORD will inherit the land.
    • Those cursed by the LORD will be cut off.
  23. 37:23
    • A man's steps are established by the LORD.
    • He delights in his way: it is unclear whether the LORD delights in the man's way or the man delights in the LORD's way.
  24. 37:24
    • Though he falls, he will not be hurled down.
    • The LORD upholds him with his hand.
  25. 37:25
    • The speaker says he has been young and is now old.
    • The speaker says he has not seen the righteous forsaken.
    • The speaker says he has not seen the righteous man's offspring begging bread.
  26. 37:26
    • The righteous is gracious all day long and lends.
    • His offspring are a blessing.
  27. 37:27
    • Turn away from evil.
    • Do good.
    • Dwell forever.
  28. 37:28
    • The LORD loves justice.
    • The LORD does not forsake his faithful ones.
    • They are preserved forever.
    • The offspring of the wicked will be cut off.
  29. 37:29
    • The righteous will inherit the land.
    • They will dwell on it forever.
  30. 37:30
    • The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom.
    • His tongue speaks justice.
  31. 37:31
    • The law of his God is in his heart.
    • His steps will not slip.
  32. 37:32
    • The wicked watches for the righteous.
    • The wicked seeks to kill him.
  33. 37:33
    • The LORD will not abandon the righteous into the hand of the wicked.
    • The LORD will not condemn him when he is judged.
  34. 37:34
    • Wait for the LORD.
    • Keep his way.
    • He will exalt you to inherit the land.
    • You will see it when the wicked are cut off.
  35. 37:35
    • The speaker says he has seen a wicked man in ruthless power.
    • The speaker says he saw him spreading himself like a flourishing native tree.
  36. 37:36
    • He passed away and was no more.
    • The speaker sought him and he could not be found.
  37. 37:37
    • Observe the blameless man.
    • Look at the upright man.
    • The end of that man is peace, or the man of peace has a future, the statement is ambiguous.
  38. 37:38
    • Transgressors will be destroyed together.
    • The end of the wicked will be cut off.
  39. 37:39
    • The salvation of the righteous is from the LORD.
    • He is their stronghold in the time of trouble.
  40. 37:40
    • The LORD helps them.
    • The LORD delivers them.
    • He rescues them from the wicked.
    • He saves them.
    • He does this because they take refuge in him.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

37:1
"Fret not thyself" renders a Hebrew verb meaning to get heated or inflamed, the picture is of burning up inside, not of mild worry. The psalm is also an acrostic: in Hebrew its sections begin with the letters of the alphabet in order, roughly one letter every two verses. That structure makes it a collected string of sayings on one theme rather than an argument that builds.
37:2
In a climate with a long dry season, grass springs up fast after the rains and is dead within weeks. It was a stock image for something that looks vigorous and is in fact short-lived.
37:3
The Hebrew of the last clause is genuinely uncertain. The words can mean "feed on faithfulness," "graze securely," or "cultivate faithfulness": that is, either a promise of being fed safely in the land, or a command to keep practicing loyalty. Translations split between them.
37:4
"Heart" in Hebrew usage covers the mind and the will as much as the feelings; "the desires of thine heart" means what a person is set on, not merely what he feels.
37:5
"Commit thy way" is literally "roll your way onto the LORD", the image is of rolling a load off your own back onto someone else's.
37:6
"Judgment" in 1611 English usually means justice, or the just verdict in a lawsuit. Here it is the vindication of the reader's own case, a right ruling in his favor, not his act of judging others.
37:7
"Rest in the LORD" is literally "be silent before the LORD." The picture is of holding your peace and waiting, rather than of relaxation.
37:8
The last clause is compressed in Hebrew and can be read two ways: that fretting brings only harm on the one who frets, or that it drives him into doing wrong himself. Both readings are current.
37:9
"Cut off" is a recurring idiom in this psalm: to be removed, destroyed, or severed from one's family line and landholding. "Inherit the earth" translates a Hebrew word meaning land or ground; in context it is the land of Israel and, concretely, the family plot handed down through generations. To inherit the land is to hold secure title to property that stays in the family.
37:10
Wicked means very bad on purpose. A wicked person knows better and hurts people anyway.
37:11
"Meek" translates a Hebrew word for the poor, the powerless, the pushed-around, people with no leverage. It describes a social position, not a mild temperament.
37:12
Grinding or baring the teeth at someone was a recognized gesture of open hostility, drawn from the way an animal shows its teeth before attacking.
37:13
"His day" is a standard idiom for the day fixed for a person's downfall or reckoning.
37:14
"Conversation" in 1611 English means conduct or manner of life generally, not talk. "Such as be of upright conversation" means people who live straight lives.
37:17
The arm stands for strength and the ability to act; breaking someone's arm is a stock way of saying his power has been taken away.
37:18
"Knoweth" here carries the sense of watching over and caring for, not merely being informed. "Their inheritance" is again landholding passed down in the family.
37:19
A famine is a long stretch when the crops fail and there is not enough food for anyone. In Israel it came whenever the winter rains did not fall.
37:20
The Hebrew phrase behind "the fat of lambs" is uncertain. The same consonants can be read as "the glory of the pastures", the flowers of the field that blaze up and fade, which is how many translations take it. The KJV reading points instead to the fat of a sacrificial animal, the part burned up entirely on the altar. Either way the image is of something bright that is consumed fast.
37:21
Lending among Israelites was not a commercial matter: charging a fellow Israelite interest was forbidden, and debts were to be released at set intervals, so a loan was closer to relief than to business. Failing to repay therefore cheated a benefactor rather than a creditor.
37:22
"Blessed" and "cursed" are formal terms here, drawn from the language attached to grants of land: those under blessing keep their holding, those under curse lose it and their line with it.
37:23
The Hebrew simply says "a man," without "good." The second clause is ambiguous: it can mean the LORD delights in that man's way of life, or that the man delights in the LORD's way. Translators divide.
37:25
"Seed" throughout this psalm means offspring or descendants.
37:26
To lend is to give something and let the person pay you back later.
37:28
"Saints" translates a Hebrew word for those bound to God by loyal, committed love, his loyal ones. It has nothing to do with the later use of "saint" for a formally recognized holy person.
37:31
"The law" is the Hebrew word torah, meaning teaching or instruction, the body of instruction given through Moses, not a legal code in the modern sense.
37:33
Courtroom language: the second clause can mean either that the LORD will not himself declare the man guilty, or that he will not let the man be declared guilty when the case comes to trial.
37:35
The Hebrew describing the tree is obscure. It appears to mean a flourishing tree growing where it sprang up, in its own soil, rather than one transplanted; the ancient Greek translation read it instead as "the cedars of Lebanon." The KJV translators guessed at the bay, or laurel, an evergreen.
37:37
"Perfect" in 1611 English means whole, sound, of undivided integrity, not faultless. "The end" translates a Hebrew word meaning what comes afterwards, which can point either to a person's later outcome or to his posterity, the descendants who survive him. Both senses are live here and in the next verse.
37:38
This is the same word translated "end" in the previous verse. Their future is cut off: no descendants, no name carried on. In a society where a person continued through their children and their land, that was the most complete loss imaginable.
37:39
"Salvation" here means rescue from concrete danger, enemies, violence, ruin. "Strength" translates a word for a stronghold or fortified place people ran to for safety.
37:40
"Trust in him" is literally "take refuge in him," the image of running into a shelter.

Read Psalms 37