([A Psalm] of David.) Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, and be not envious of them that work unrighteousness;
Psalm 37 opens with a problem every honest believer meets: wicked people often do well, and it stings. Its first words give no explanation — they give a command about the heart, and the reasons follow in the rest of the psalm.
The success of the wicked is real, but the psalm treats it as short-lived.
The first two verses present the theme of the psalm — a warning to the godly not to fret in spirit because of the present prosperity of the wicked. Like the grass they will soon be cut down.
The psalm sets two groups side by side, and gives each a different future.
Psalm 36 shows us the wicked set against God's character. Psalm 37 sets evildoers against the godly. The contrast has two parts. The first concerns the present life, when evildoers are the great majority and hold the upper hand. The second concerns the coming age, when God will remove evildoers in judgment and the godly will enter the liberty of glory.
The two forbidden attitudes are not the same, and neither is innocent.
Self-will and the desire for present satisfaction get mixed in with the love of righteousness. A person wants righteousness, sometimes partly out of fear of the power of evil, and at the same time is selfish because he wants a quiet life. Such a person easily frets because evil has its way. All of this is the same spirit of unbelief, joined with other desires. But it is unbelief and self-will. The wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. We are not to fret, which is distrust. We are not to envy either, which is even worse, because it is self-interest.
Being sensitive to wrong does not protect you from this. It can make you more vulnerable.
This "fretting" is a very common complaint, and Christians are not free from it. In fact, they have a sharper sense of what is evil and a deeper appreciation of righteousness, so they may be more prone to it than anyone... We seem to be in so many awkward situations, and the evildoers seem to have such an easy time! Nothing is easier than to envy them — and fret.
Under the complaint about injustice sits something much smaller and more personal.
Alas, it is this envy that lies at the bottom of the fretting... We are like a child who sulks and frets because another child was given a bigger apple — and the child with the big apple was the naughty one! Oh, what mischief can envy work in the heart of a saint!
Anger at the evildoer ends up shaping the angry person.
So stop being angry and let go of wrath. Their only result is to make you copy the evil you resent.
That does not mean pretending the wrongs are not there.
We cannot stop seeing the sad deeds of those who do evil. To stop would only mean shutting our eyes to the facts and living in a fool's paradise. We should not stop feeling the wrongs, the oppression and the strife. That would crush the God-given feelings and sympathies inside us, which are ours because we are born of God. But we should stop fretting.
Verse 2 gives the reason, and it also shows who has the right to act.
Those who do evil are not going to last for ever, as verse 2 shows... but the judgment that ends their career is God's act, not ours. It is a good thing that it is God's act. We are far too small, too one-sided in our thinking and too self-centred for such a trust.
The psalm does not stop at what to avoid. It gives five positive commands.
Faith in the Lord is the way of escape from this snare. So the word to the godly soul is, "Trust in the Lord"; "delight yourself also in the Lord"; "Commit your way to the Lord"; "Rest in the Lord"; and "wait upon the Lord."
The alternative to fretting has a name, and a perfect example.
Meekness, which ends in the inheritance (see Matt. 5:5), seems to be the attitude of soul that makes us willing to be nothing until the promised inheritance comes. The Lord Jesus, in whom everything was perfect, expressed it fully. Though Lord of all, He was content to have nothing... This Psalm may therefore be read by us all.
- Fret — the command targets the heart, not the circumstances; the evil is real, but the psalm forbids the agitation about it.
- Distrust — fretting is unbelief and self-will in disguise; envy is worse still, because it is plain self-interest.
- Envy — it hides under the complaint; we say wickedness grieves us, when what stings is that the wicked have the bigger apple.
- Copy — left alone, fretting makes us imitate the evil we resent, so anger at sin ends in sin of our own.
- Wait — the wicked are grass; God removes them, not us, so trust, delight, commit, rest and wait take the place of fretting.
for they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and fade as the green herb.
The psalm opens by forbidding two reactions: fretting and envy. This second verse gives the reason. What looks like the success of wrongdoers lasts only a short season. So the question is this: do we judge people by what we can see now, or by the end God has fixed for them?
The verse is not a bare statement about grass. It gives a reason to a heart that is troubled by what it sees.
The first section insists that the blessing of the righteous lasts for ever. It sets this against the quick and complete end of the wicked. It makes this an argument for full rest of heart in committing yourself to God. Wickedness seems to succeed now, and that naturally stirs up fretting and envy of the man who appears to have so much the best of it in things here. But this forgets that faith's part must be in the unseen.
The trouble is rarely a pure concern for what is right. It is the sting of comparison.
It is this envy that lies at the bottom of the fretting. We are under trial, and the worker of wrong seems to be having such an easy time. We cannot bear it! We are like a child in a nursery who pouts and frets because the other child has a bigger apple than the one he was given. And the owner of the big apple was the naughty child of the nursery! Oh, what mischief envy can work in the heart of a believer! And what misery too it can produce, and what sin!
Another writer gives each of these feelings its plain name:
The first exhortation is to peacefulness of spirit, and it is general and applies to the state of the mind... We are neither to fret, which is distrust, nor to be envious, which is even worse and is self-interest.
The verse promises an ending. But that ending is God's work, not ours.
And moreover, it is all so futile! The workers of wrong are not going to continue for ever, as verse 2 shows... but the judgment that ends the evildoer's career is the act of God, not an act of ours. It is a good thing that it is God's act, because we are far too small, too one-sided in our thoughts, and too self-centred to be trusted with it. Our anger and our wrath against sin can never have the height and holiness that belong to God.
Withering grass can sound like being wiped out of existence, and some read the verse that way.
People bring in a host of passages here that say nothing at all about eternal judgment. They speak only of what the Old Testament is full of — the removal of sinners from the earth, so that the righteous may inherit it. The thirty-seventh psalm is an example of this... This is the language people constantly quote to prove annihilation! It is quite true that the Old Testament is full of it, for it is full of the time we usually call "millennial." In that time all this will be fulfilled, and the earth will be cleansed of the long reign of evil on it. But this language says nothing of hell or of eternal judgment.
The psalm does not say this once and drop it. One writer finds God's care behind the repetition.
God knows where the believer is in danger of breaking down, before the day of deliverance dawns. So He encourages him to be quiet and to wait... And as if to stress the command to be patient under evil, we meet the words "Fret not yourself" three times in the first eight verses. They are: "Fret not yourself because of evildoers" (verse 1); "fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way" (7); "Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil" (8). In judging people and things, how likely we are to make mistakes!
- Sight — the eye says wrongdoers have the easier life, and that is what starts the fretting.
- Envy — under the fretting sits the nursery quarrel over whose apple is bigger. It breeds mischief, misery and sin.
- Reason — the verse answers with a fact the eye cannot see. That success fades fast, and faith's part is in the unseen.
- Restraint — the ending belongs to God, not to us. Our anger never has the height and holiness that belong to Him.
- Rest — so the command comes three times in eight verses. God knows where we are likely to break down before deliverance dawns.
Confide in Jehovah, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on faithfulness;
Psalm 37 speaks to a moment when the wicked seem to be winning and God's people feel the pull to fret or run. Verse 3 answers with four short commands. The last one is the hardest to translate: the ESV has "befriend faithfulness," while others read "feed on faithfulness" or "you shall be fed."
Verses 1 and 2 warn against fretting over evildoers. Verse 3 gives the positive answer.
The first exhortation is to peacefulness of spirit, and it is general and applies to the state of the mind. "Fret not yourself." When self-will and the desire of present satisfaction mixes itself with the love of righteousness... one is apt to fret oneself because evil has its way. All this is unbelief and self-will... Then comes the positive direction in what spirit we are to walk. What is the resource against the power of evil? "Trust in the Lord, and do good."
Each attitude works like a root, and each grows its own crop.
The fretful spirit is like a root out of which springs a good deal of evil. Confidence in God is a root out of which nothing but good springs. It sets the heart at rest. It calms the spirit. It frees us from fretting. Evildoers may be very irritating and annoying, even provoking in the extreme. But the Lord is on high, and He has not loosened His grip on things.
The order in the verse matters. Trust that leaves conduct untouched is not the trust this verse means.
"Trust in the Lord, and do good." This is the divine order. But to talk of trusting in the Lord while doing evil turns the grace of our God into an excuse for sin. It puts us completely into the hands of the devil, who only seeks our moral ruin... When we have a good conscience, we can lift up the head and move on through all sorts of difficulties. But trying to walk the path of faith with a bad conscience is the most dangerous thing in the world.
When evil looks unstoppable, the instinct is to get out. One writer shows what God says instead:
To the outward eye the wicked and the persecutors prosper, and get their own way without any hindrance. So the temptation would be to run, to look for refuge outside the borders of the land, where evil seemed to be winning. No, says the Spirit of God: "Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on faithfulness." Feed on God's faithfulness, sure that He will not forget His tested and oppressed people, and that in His own time He will deal with their oppressors.
As a fugitive, David moved his parents to Moab for safety. Should he stay outside the land himself?
No; the word is David's own, once he had learned the lesson: "Dwell in the land, and truly you shall be fed." The land was Israel's inheritance, God's gift. Nothing, then, could take it from the faith that laid hold of it.
One writer weighs the renderings:
The simplest meaning seems to be "and nourish faithfulness," or "feed in security."
One writer applies it to Christians now:
We do not expect to "dwell in the land," for heaven is our home, but the words that follow apply to us, "truly you shall be fed"... If we do sincerely trust in the Lord then truly we shall feed on faithfulness — God's faithfulness. We shall so experience His faithfulness that it becomes our very food and drink.
Trust is the first of four steps in this psalm, and each prepares the next.
In Psalm 37 there are four conditions of soul in connection with this, and each is dependent on the other, or each is fitness for the next. "Trust in the Lord;" "Delight yourself in the Lord;" "Commit your way to the Lord;" "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him;" that is, wait till He acts for you.
And the promise does not rest on the strength of our grip:
Still we must never forget one thing. His trustworthiness does not depend in the least on how strong or weak our trust is. "If we are faithless, He remains faithful — for He cannot deny Himself" (2 Timothy 2:13). So here is a happy fact: those who are weak in faith, and so do not trust Him fully, still find Him wholly true.
- Fret → Trust. Fretting over evildoers mixes self-will into the love of righteousness. It is unbelief. Trust is the resource against the power of evil.
- Trust → Good. The order is fixed: trust first, then do good. Claiming to trust God while doing evil hands you over to ruin.
- Trust → Stay. "Dwell in the land" is a command not to flee. The inheritance is God's gift, and nothing can take it from the faith that holds it.
- Trust → Feed. The closing phrase reads better as feeding on faithfulness. God's own faithfulness becomes our food and drink.
- Trust → Rest. Verse 3 opens a ladder: trust, delight, commit, rest and wait. And weak trust still finds Him wholly true, because His faithfulness does not depend on ours.
and delight thyself in Jehovah, and he will give thee the desires of thy heart.
Psalm 37 speaks into a setting where dishonest people do well and the faithful get pushed around, and there it gives a command with a promise attached. So the question is practical: does God hand us whatever we want, or does something happen to our wanting first?
This psalm speaks to a small group under pressure, not to people whose lives are easy.
The Psalm applies to the faithful few who are left in the last days... verses 1, 7 and 8 are meant to encourage the weak few. In that coming time of trouble for Israel, evil of every kind will surround them. From the outside it looks like the wicked and the persecutors are doing well. They get their own way, and nothing stops them.
Nothing around the psalm writer could produce this delight. It had to come from somewhere else.
The Psalmist saw nothing in his surroundings that awakened delight — quite the opposite. The evildoers pressed in on every side with their persecuting and irritating ways. When all this is going on it is good to trust instead of fretting. It is also good to find a spring of gladness that never fails, outside the world the evildoers control. That spring of joy is in the Lord Himself.
Verse 3 tells the reader to trust and do good. Verse 4 is the next step, and it shapes what a person wants.
But trust in the Lord will lead further, to "Delight yourself in the LORD" (v. 4). When we find our whole pleasure in Him, we will always be in step with His pleasure. If our delight is in ourselves, our desires will be selfish. If our delight is in the Lord, we will want what pleases Him.
The promise holds because delight changes the person praying. It also explains why some prayers go unanswered, and others only half answered.
Why is this? The answer is simple. When we delight in the Lord, we delight in His holy will. His thoughts become our thoughts, His desires become our desires. When our thoughts and desires are far from His, our desires are not fulfilled. When our desires are partly in keeping with His, then our desires are only partly fulfilled. When our desires wholly agree with His, then, and only then, are all our desires fulfilled. It is good to enjoy God's people, and to find joy in the work of the Lord. But if we delight in these instead of in the Lord, we are in for big disappointments.
These desires have the Lord Himself as their object. The next verse tells the same person to hand over their situation and wait.
Next, delight yourself in the LORD: He will give the desires of the heart. Holy desires, which have Himself for their object, will be satisfied. But opposition, shame, perhaps false accusation, is there. "Commit your way to the LORD." How true this is! He always, as people say, has the last word, if we only have the faith to wait for it.
Read on its own, the verse can sound like a formula for getting what you want. One commentator warns against pulling such promises out of the rest of Scripture.
We cannot take isolated portions but the whole word of God. "Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Delighting in the Lord forms desires that agree with the mind of God. "He gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them" — older translations read "sent leanness into their souls" — so we need to be on our guard about what we ask... about many other things we can only say, "If it is the Lord's will." Then we trust His wisdom as well as His power. Some seem to think power is the only thing. But we want to trust His love and wisdom.
The exchange runs both ways. The return is larger than the asking, but a divided heart never knows it.
Christ cannot live in a divided heart. If He enters it, He claims to be the undisputed Lord of its affections... If we delight in Him, He will delight in us, and in giving us the conscious enjoyment of Himself He gives far more than the desires of our hearts (Ps. 37:4). It takes an undivided eye to see Him, and an undivided heart to hold Him fast.
- Trust — the command lands on people who are surrounded by evil and tempted to fret. Trusting the Lord and doing good comes first.
- Delight — you have to draw the gladness from the Lord Himself, because the surroundings offer nothing to be glad about.
- Desire — delighting in Him reshapes what you want. His thoughts become your thoughts, and He answers the desires that agree with His.
- Discern — read the promise with the rest of Scripture. God once gave a people what they asked and sent a wasting disease with it, so we trust His wisdom and love, not only His power.
- Receive — He answers our delight in Him with His delight in us, and gives back more than we asked: the enjoyment of Himself.
Commit thy way unto Jehovah, and rely upon him he will bring [it] to pass;
Psalm 37 speaks to people surrounded by wrongdoers who get away with it, and verse 5 answers that pressure. What does it mean to hand your way over to God, and what does He then "bring to pass"?
The psalm looks ahead to a day when God sets everything right in public. But it speaks to the long wait before that day.
Psalm 37 is closely tied to the way God rules this world directly. That rule will be proved true when the meek inherit the land and the wicked are cut off. The time for God to display that rule in public has not come. Evil will no doubt press harder just before He puts it down. Until then it is still the time of patience, and the evil is there.
Some Bibles print another wording in the margin: "roll." That picture turns the command into relief, not one more duty.
"Commit your way to the Lord," or, as the margin has it, "Roll your way upon the Lord." How often our circumstances are so puzzling and hard that our way seems blocked and impossible. Sometimes people misjudge us, crush us, even persecute us. What can we do? We can roll the responsibility of our way upon the Lord, and rely on Him. There is immense relief in this. He takes the load off our weak shoulders and puts it on His strong ones.
One writer saw the same picture in a weight too heavy to lift.
Sometimes the load of care seems too heavy to cast it anywhere. Then the Lord invites us to "roll your way upon the Lord" (Ps. 37:5, margin). As children in Canada, we made great snowballs in the winter. When they got too heavy to lift, we could still roll them. So roll that great load of care on Him, "because it is a matter of care to Him, concerning you," as the original Greek puts it.
The verse does not stand alone. It comes after two earlier commands, and that order is deliberate.
Committing our way to the Lord assumes, of course, that we are in the middle of trouble and testing from our enemies. Let us remember that it is not the first instruction, nor the second, but the third. It takes for granted that we are trusting in the Lord and finding our delight in Him. Then, and only then, will we be ready to roll our way upon Him and know that, as a happy result, "He will bring it to pass."
Read across the whole paragraph, these commands form one continuous answer to the temptation the psalm describes.
(vv. 3-11) Faith in the Lord is the way of escape from this snare. So the word to the godly soul is: "Trust in the Lord"; "Delight yourself in the Lord"; "Commit your way to the Lord"; "Be still before the Lord"; and "wait patiently for Him."
Committing is a single act. The trusting that follows is daily, and the verse joins the two.
In daily life we need this, because each day brings its own needs. Only the Lord can guide us well, so that we do not take a wrong step. Once we commit our way to Him, He expects full confidence in His leading. We are not to be afraid. We trust Him for every step, with the sure assurance of faith.
The outcome is that God makes your righteousness plain for all to see. That is His to give, and He is never rushed.
"Commit your way to the Lord." How true this is! He always has, as people say, the last word, if only we have the faith to wait for it. He will bring about the result the righteous heart desires, and make its righteousness clear.
Job shows what this looks like — and warns about the delay we create ourselves. (Job was the man who lost everything and was then accused by his own friends of deserving it.)
When his friends slandered Job, he felt it deeply. For a long time he fought for his own reputation instead of committing his way to the Lord. When he finally did this, God soon brought forth his righteousness as the light and his justice as the noonday.
The same command feels different to different people. The difference is not in their circumstances.
The instruction "Roll your way upon the Lord" is a hard saying where godliness is at a low ebb. Where it is a full-flowing tide it is easy, and a delightful relief.
- Setting — The psalm speaks to the time before God puts evil down. Until then it is "the time of patience, and the evil is there."
- Sequence — Committing is the third instruction, not the first. It assumes you are already trusting and already delighting in Him.
- Roll — The word pictures a load too heavy to lift. You roll it off your shoulders onto His.
- Then keep trusting — The handover is one act; the confidence for every following step is daily.
- He acts — In His own time He clears your name. He always has the last word, if you have the faith to wait for it.
and he will bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.
Psalm 37 speaks to people who do right while wrongdoers prosper. Verse 6 is God's promise to the one who hands his case over to Him. Two questions follow: what does that vindication look like, and how long must it wait?
Verse 6 follows a condition. It belongs to the one who rolls his way onto the Lord, and it gives more than he asked for:
Commit your way to Him as well, and difficulties will disappear before Jehovah's sufficiency. Not only will your purposes come about; He will also make your righteousness plain as the light, and your right as the noonday.
Commentators note that the psalm builds in steps, and this one comes late. You cannot roll your way onto God without first trusting Him and delighting in Him:
Committing our way to the Lord assumes, of course, that we are in the middle of trouble and testing from our enemies. Let us remember that it is not the first item of instruction, nor the second, but the third. It takes for granted that we are trusting in the Lord, and finding our delight in Him. Then, and only then, will we be ready to roll our way upon Him, and know that as a happy result, "He will bring it to pass."
The same writer adds that the state of your soul decides how this command feels:
The instruction, "Roll your way upon the Lord," is a hard saying where piety is at a low ebb. Where it is a full-flowing tide it is easy and a delightful relief.
Job is the worked example. His own friends slandered him, and for a long time he fought back:
It is His holy pleasure to bring forth a full vindication of His saints, when His work of discipline in us is complete. Oppression and slander are very hard to bear, and twice as hard when they come from friends. When his friends slandered Job he felt it deeply, but for a long time he fought for his own character instead of committing his way to the Lord. When at last he did this, God soon brought forth his righteousness as the light and his judgment as the noonday. As soon as he condemned himself and justified God, his righteousness became clear. God Himself bore witness that at last he had spoken the thing that was right. Then his judgment was as the noonday, for he was vindicated before men and blessed by God.
Since the verse says He will bring it forth, fighting your own corner works against the promise:
However right you may be, fighting for yourself will hinder the vindication the Lord can give in His own time. From the very fact of your fighting, people will never give you credit for singleness of eye. It always stirs up opposition in others. Leave it in the hands of the Lord, and He appears. He will make it clear who is on His side and who is against Him.
One writer applies this to a Christian wronged by a church decision:
The church can make mistakes, and a decision, even one taken by the majority, may be wrong (2 Cor. 2:6). He who believes he is wrongly treated should commit his way in confidence to the Lord (Ps. 37:5-6). Humility, patience and a spirit of meekness are necessary in all.
The promise runs on God's timetable, not ours:
The time for the direct display of God's government has not come. No doubt the power of evil will press down harder just before God puts it down. Even now, though, it is the time of patience, and the evil is there. Until Christ comes, it is in principle the evil day.
That is why the full brightness of verse 6 is not always seen in this life:
God's righteousness is not fully seen in this life, either in rewarding those who do good or in judging those who do evil. Job's friends were wrong to argue otherwise. Now the people of God often have to endure suffering while the wicked prosper. But in the world to come everything will be brought to a conclusion. In the light of that day God's suffering people need not be angry with their enemies. They need not take revenge, or even defend themselves. They only have to wait God's time, when all will be dealt with in perfect righteousness.
- Commit — roll your way onto God, and He settles both the matter and your good name.
- Order — trust Him, delight in Him, then commit your way. Without the first two, the third feels impossible.
- Job — he stopped defending his character and justified God. Only then did his righteousness shine out, and God vindicated him before others.
- Silence — fight your own battles and you hinder God's vindication. You also make onlookers doubt your motives.
- Daybreak — this is still the time of patience. The light and the noonday are certain, but they come in God's time.
Rest in Jehovah, and wait patiently for him fret not thyself because of him that prospereth in his way, because of the man that bringeth mischievous devices to pass.
Psalm 37 speaks to a situation every believer meets: evil succeeds, and the person who ignores God gets ahead. Verse 7 answers with three commands — be still, wait, stop fretting — and commentators read it as one step in a sequence, not stand-alone advice.
The psalm looks to a day when God will openly set the world right, and that day has not come. Verse 7 speaks into the gap.
The time when God openly displays His government has not come. No doubt evil will press harder just before God puts it down. Even now, though, it is the time of patience, and the evil is here. Until Christ comes, it is in principle the evil day... These exhortations all rest on one certainty. Jehovah is above all the evil. He loves justice. He does not forget the righteous and those who trust in Him. In the end His way will have the upper hand.
Verse 7 comes after three earlier calls in the psalm, and each one prepares for the next. The writers quote an older translation, "Rest in the Lord," where the ESV reads "Be still before the LORD."
Psalm 37 gives four conditions of soul here. Each one depends on the other; each one fits you for the next. "Trust in the Lord." "Delight yourself in the Lord." "Commit your way to the Lord." "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him" — that is, wait until He acts for you.
Once you hand the way over, rest follows. The matter is no longer yours to carry.
We have rolled our way onto the Lord, so the responsibility and weight of it are now His. Now we rest in Him and wait for Him to act. The wicked may still appear to flourish and bring his wicked schemes to pass, but that no longer frets us. God is completely able to deal with all that, in His own time and way. We wait patiently for Him and rest in the meanwhile. The whole business is off our hands — it is His, not ours.
The margin of some Bibles renders the phrase differently, and that wording explains what the rest actually looks like in practice.
The Hebrew idiom, "Be silent to the Lord," is very expressive. It suggests that we have truly committed our way to Him, and are ready to wait patiently for Him to act. So we have nothing more to say. When faith is low we become like complaining children. We fret because others seem better off than we are, and we keep interrupting our parents with questions and complaints. We are truly happy when faith is strong. Then, as far as questions and complaints go, we are silent to the Lord.
The psalm repeats this command, and one writer sees God's care in it for a person close to giving up.
God knows where the believer is in danger of breaking down before the day of deliverance dawns. So He encourages him to be quiet and to wait... The psalm stresses the call to be patient under evil. Three times in the first eight verses we meet the words "Fret not yourself": "Fret not yourself because of evildoers" (verse 1); "fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way" (7); "Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil" (8). We are so quick to make mistakes when we judge men and things!
Their success also exposes what is in us.
It may raise our anger to see wickedness prosper. We should treat this as a test of ourselves: do we have the self-control to refrain from anger and forsake wrath (v. 8)? Fretting will not profit us; it only harms us.
Rest is not giving up. It guards the heart from a reaction that would drag it into the very evil it hates.
Resting in the Lord keeps the soul from anger and wrath when it sees the wicked succeed in getting what they want. To fret would only lead the soul into evil. In the Lord's own time the evildoers will be cut off, and those who wait upon the Lord will inherit the land.
Later in the psalm a second kind of waiting appears, and the two are not the same thing.
We are not only to wait patiently for the Lord, but also to "wait on the Lord, and keep His way." Waiting for Him means exercising trustful patience until He intervenes. Waiting on Him means maintaining that holy fellowship and communion with Him that ensures obedience to His will, while we wait for His intervention.
- Trust — stillness is step four. Trusting, delighting and committing come first, and each one fits you for the next.
- Hand over — roll your way onto Him. The weight and the responsibility become His, and the business stops being yours.
- Be silent — the Hebrew idiom means having nothing more to say, instead of interrupting God like a fretful child.
- Refuse to fret — the command comes three times in eight verses. Fretting gains nothing, and it can pull the soul into evil.
- Wait for Him — wait until He acts. In His own time He will cut off the evildoers, and those who wait will inherit the land.
Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself it [would be] only to do evil.
This psalm keeps returning to one warning: do not fret. Verse 8 goes further, and tells the reader what to do with anger itself. So what is wrong with being angry at evil, and what does God want us to do with the feeling instead?
One writer counts the repeats and links them to how easily we misjudge.
It is as if the psalm wants to stress the command to be patient under evil. Three times in the first eight verses we meet the words "Fret not yourself": "Fret not yourself because of evildoers" (verse 1). "Fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way" (7). "Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil" (8). How quick we are to make mistakes in judging men and things!
One writer names what usually sits under the fretting.
It is this envy that lies at the bottom of the fretting. We are under trial, and the worker of iniquity seems to be having such an easy time. We cannot bear it! We are like a child in a nursery who pouts and frets because the other child has a bigger apple than the one he was given. And the owner of that big apple was the naughty child of the nursery! Oh, what mischief envy can work in the heart of a saint! And what misery too it can produce, and what sin!
Fretting does not stay a feeling. One writer shows where it leads, and names a case from Scripture.
Discontent is a sin that pushes us into sin. "Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil" (Ps. 37:8). The one who frets will be ready to do evil: Jonah fretting was Jonah sinning (Jonah 4:9). The devil blows the coals of passion and discontent, and then warms himself at the fire.
Refraining from anger is not pretending that wrong is not wrong. The line runs between what we see and feel, and what we nurse.
Our anger and wrath would be useless even in the day of judgment. So let us stop the one and forsake the other today. We cannot stop seeing the sorrowful doings of the workers of iniquity; to do so would only be shutting one's eyes to facts and walking in a fool's paradise. We should not stop feeling the wrongs, the oppression and the strife. That would crush all the God-given feelings and sympathies inside us, which are ours because we are born of God. But we should stop fretting, stop cultivating anger or wrath about them; for that will only land us in what is wrong ourselves.
The same writer shows how this goes wrong among God's people. The man in his example is the best taught in the room.
Things are weak, mistakes are made; errors in thought or practice creep in. Then a brother rises up; he is better taught and further-seeing than most, possibly more spiritual than anyone there. He will stand for the truth and put things right. But he does not stop being angry and does not forsake wrath, and so he cannot be patient and wait for the Lord with full confidence in Him. As a result he does not succeed in putting others right. He only puts himself wrong.
One writer gives two reasons to let the anger go. God still governs events, and wrath only makes us copy what we resent.
God's government is still at work, and the end it works toward is certain. So stop being angry and forsake wrath, whose only result is to make a person copy the evil he resents. Evildoers will be cut off at last, and the quiet waiters on Jehovah will inherit the earth (or land).
Someone will deal with the wicked. One writer says it is a mercy that it is not us.
"Evildoers shall be cut off" (v. 8). Again, "Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be" (v. 10); but the judgment that will end his career is God's act and not ours. It is a good thing indeed that it is God's act. We are far too small, too one-sided in our thinking, and too self-centred to be trusted with it. Our anger and our wrath against sin cannot carry the elevation and holiness that mark God.
- Repeated — "Fret not yourself" comes three times in the first eight verses. The call to be patient under evil is the psalm's drumbeat, not a passing remark.
- Rooted — Envy lies under the fretting. The wrongdoer looks like he is having the easier time, and we cannot bear it.
- Reproducing — Fretting is a sin that pushes us into more sin. Nursed wrath makes a person copy the very evil he resents.
- Refrained, not numbed — The verse does not tell us to stop seeing or feeling wrong. It tells us to stop nursing anger about it, which only lands us in the wrong ourselves.
- Reserved — Cutting off evildoers is God's act, not ours. That is a mercy: we are too small and too partial to be trusted with judgment.
For evil-doers shall be cut off; but those that wait on Jehovah, they shall possess the land.
This verse gives the reason behind the commands before it. Two groups are heading to opposite ends, and only one will still be standing. So how do you live now, while the wrong people seem to be winning?
Verse 9 is an argument, not a slogan. It backs up the warnings against fretting that open the psalm. One writer counts how often they repeat.
God knows where the saint is in danger of breaking down, before the day of deliverance dawns, so He encourages him to be quiet and to wait... It is as if the psalm stresses the command to be patient under evil. Three times in the first eight verses we meet the words "Fret not yourself." First comes "Fret not yourself because of evildoers" (verse 1). "Fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way" (7). "Fret not yourself in any way to do evil" (8).
Anger at wickedness feels right. One writer warns that it turns you into the thing you resent.
The government of God is active still, and sure in the end toward which it works. So cease from anger and forsake wrath; the only result of anger is to make a man copy the evil he resents. Evildoers shall be cut off at last, and the quiet waiters upon Jehovah, these shall inherit the earth (or land).
There is a second warning for the person who is sure he is on the right side. Fretting can pull a believer into the very evil the verse condemns.
The wicked may prosper; Jehovah has His own time, a time which is always right and sets all right. He may chasten for good, or bring plans to maturity, or be patient Himself with the wicked. He may be bringing out His own glory, which is our everlasting joy. So there is no anger, no wrath, no fretting, no uneasiness. Fretting leads to doing evil, to indulging our own will in evil to meet evil. This is not the patience and faith of the saints. Evildoers shall be cut off; the saint must not be among their number.
Waiting sounds passive. One writer defines it as two things held together.
Waiting on God implies dependence and confidence — and both in such a way that we abide God's time. Dependence, because we cannot do anything without Him. We ought not to act without Him either, since what He does is the only thing the soul desires. Action without Him, even in self-defence, is only the action of our own will... But it implies confidence too, for why should we wait if God would not come in?
This is where most people in Scripture failed.
Faith can wait, and wait until God moves. It is distrust that is impatient and restless, that would take things out of God's hands and seize the desired object too soon. Look at Abraham and Sarah, distrustful and impatient, making a sad mess of things over Hagar; they could not wait for God. Look at Jacob and Rebecca, scheming, pretending, lying, deceiving; they could not wait for God. Look at Moses striking the rock and speaking rashly; he could not wait for God. Look at every man, good and bad, whose history God has given us. Most, if not all of them, broke down just here.
The word means either "land" or "earth." So who is this promise for?
We need only the eye of faith that looks beyond the present, and is content to "wait on the Lord." For in His own time He will cause those who wait on Him to "inherit the earth." Of course it is godly Israelites who are specially in mind here. Believers of the present age look forward to an inheritance in heaven instead.
Commentators differ on how far this reaches today. Some limit the promise itself to Israel, while still drawing the psalm's lessons for everyone. Others hold that God's rule over this world goes on now, though out of public view. So the waiting soul is blessed here too: "when the soul has waited on Him in patience, it has its blessing even here" (Darby).
One writer names the temper that ends in this inheritance, and points to the one who showed it in full.
Meekness ends in the inheritance (see Matt. 5:5). It appears to be that temper of soul that makes us willing to be nothing until the promised inheritance comes. The Lord Jesus fully expressed it. Though Lord of all, He was content to have nothing; and the kingdom is a reward of His meekness.
- Cause — The verse gives the reason behind "fret not." You stop fretting because God will settle the account, not because the wrong is small.
- Cost — Fretting is not harmless. Anger at evil ends up copying the evil it resents, and the psalm warns the saint not to end up among those cut off.
- Content — Waiting means dependence and confidence. I can do nothing without Him, and He will come in. Drop either half and you act for yourself.
- Company — Abraham, Sarah, Jacob and Moses all broke down at this very point. Impatience is the usual failure, not a rare one.
- Crown — The heirs are the meek, willing to be nothing until the inheritance comes. Christ was content to have nothing, and the kingdom is a reward of that meekness.
For yet a little while, and the wicked is not; and thou considerest his place, but he is not.
The psalm keeps telling the reader not to envy people who do wrong and still come out on top. Here it gives the reason: their time is short. Two questions follow. How short is "a little while"? And what happens to a man when his place is gone?
The verse gives no date. Commentators tie it to a settled confidence: God keeps the clock, and His moment is never late.
Circumstances may be in turmoil around you — violence and struggle. The soul waits for Jehovah to step in when He will. The wicked may prosper; Jehovah has His own time, a time which is always right and sets everything right. He may chasten for good. He may have plans He is bringing to maturity. He may be patient Himself with the wicked. He may have His own glory to bring out, and that glory is our everlasting joy. So there is no anger, no wrath, no fretting, no uneasiness.
The wording sounds absolute, and some press it to mean that the wicked simply stop existing. Writers who tested that argument put the verse elsewhere: God clears the earth so the righteous can hold it.
People bring in a host of passages here that have nothing to do with eternal judgment. They speak only of what the Old Testament is full of — the removal of sinners from the earth, so that the righteous may inherit it. The thirty-seventh psalm is an example of this… People quote this language again and again to prove annihilation! It is quite true that the Old Testament is full of it. It is full of the time we usually call "millennial." Then all this will come true, and the earth will be clear of the long reign of evil on it. But this language does not speak of hell or of eternal judgment.
The verse invites you to search the spot where the wicked man stood.
For it is only "a little while" until "the wicked will be no more" (v. 10). How fast and how complete that turn will be! Look then for those who once prospered so greatly, and their place will be gone. They will never get it back.
Since the wicked will not last, fretting over them is wasted effort. There is a further reason not to take the matter into our own hands.
And moreover, it is all so futile! Those who do evil are not going to last for ever, as verse 2 shows… Again, "In just a little while, the wicked will be no more" (v. 10). But the judgment that ends his career is the act of God, not an act of ours. It is a good thing that it is God's act. We are far too small, too one-sided in our thinking, and too self-centred to be trusted with it. Our anger and our wrath against sin can never have the height and holiness that mark God.
The inheritance goes to the meek. One writer defines that temper by what it is willing to go without, and points to the One who showed it perfectly.
Meekness ends in the inheritance (see Matt. 5:5). It seems to be the state of soul that makes us willing to be nothing until the promised inheritance comes. The Lord Jesus (in whom was every perfection) fully expressed it. Though Lord of all, He was content to have nothing; and the kingdom is a reward of His meekness.
Commentators are careful about who this promise is for. The strict sense belongs to a faithful group in Israel who will hold land. The comfort still reaches further.
The strict interpretation belongs to the godly remnant of Israel in the coming age. Then they will be delivered, and they will "inherit the earth" and "inherit the land and dwell in it for ever." We can gladly apply it to people like ourselves too, with the changes needed because God now deals with people in a different way. We do not look to inherit the earth or the land, but to be taken to our heavenly portion by the coming of the Lord. They will be delivered and so will we; only in different ways and with a different portion in view.
- A little while. The wicked man's success has a time limit set by God, whose moment is never late and always sets things right.
- Not annihilation. The verse pictures sinners cleared off the earth so the righteous can hold it. Writers read it of the coming age, not of eternal judgment.
- No place left. Go looking for where he stood, and the ground is empty; the reversal is swift and total.
- Not your task. The judgment that ends his career belongs to God. That is a mercy: our anger is too small and too self-centred to be trusted with it.
- The meek receive. The heir is the one willing to be nothing until the inheritance is given, as the Lord Jesus was, though He was Lord of all.
But the meek shall possess the land, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of prosperity.
Psalm 37 speaks to people who watch the wrong side win while the meek lose out. Verse 11 answers that scene with a promise that sounds impossible: who are the meek, what do they inherit, and when?
Meekness and gentleness are not the same thing. One writer separates them, and points to the person who showed meekness perfectly:
"Blessed are the meek." The meek in the Old Testament had a very prominent place. He will guide the meek in judgment, and He will teach the meek His way… There is the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Meekness of spirit produces gentleness of action and words. Gentleness shows itself in dealing tenderly and not using wrong force. The meek go further: they will not use force at all. No one was ever so unresisting as the blessed Saviour Himself… The people who own the earth now are usually great conquerors, but here it is the very opposite. Those whom men tread underfoot are the ones God says will inherit the earth, and at the right time. The great and blessed pattern is the One who, when He was insulted, did not insult in return. You cannot ignore the unrighteousness that is going on, but you can commit yourself to Him who judges righteously.
Meekness turns on one question: whose hand do you take a hard word from?
Suppose I give you a harsh word. If you take it from me, Satan instantly gets an advantage, and you are angry. If you take it directly from God, you say, "That was not very nice. It was not very Christ-like. But the Lord must have had some good reason for letting that harsh word come." What meekness that produces in the soul, when I take everything directly from the hand of God. What is it to be meek? It is a person who is willing to be trampled on, a person who takes everything so from God that the bitter thing is sweet.
The psalm tells the godly what to do while they wait:
God knows where the believer is in danger of breaking down before the day of deliverance dawns. So He encourages him to be quiet and to wait… Meanwhile the godly one is to trust in the Lord and do good. He is to delight in Him, commit his way to Him, rest in Him, and wait patiently for Him. The psalm presses the call to be patient under evil: three times in the first eight verses we meet the words "Fret not yourself" (verses 1, 7 and 8). When we judge people and things, how easily we go wrong!
The promise turns today's order upside down.
"But the meek shall inherit the land" (v. 11). Those who forced their way to the top will be brought down to the bottom. The meek never forced themselves at all, and they will receive a blessed inheritance where they "delight themselves in abundant peace." May we learn well to be "meek and lowly in heart."
Why does the world not work this way now?
At present the world is not governed by righteousness but by what is convenient. So compromise is a large part of the awards of so-called justice… At present the aggressive person or nation takes the major awards, and the meek get pushed to the wall. Yet the day is coming when "the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace."
The wait has a limit:
Patience will not be needed for long. In just a little while the wicked will pass away and the meek will be established in blessing.
Some writers quote the verse in an older wording, "inherit the earth." They also differ on how far the promise reaches. Some keep it for Israel alone:
This is promised to the godly Jews who will inherit the earth. The Church does not inherit the earth, but hers is a heavenly possession. In the Sermon on the Mount, His proclamation as King, our Lord said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." He was quoting Psalm 37.
Others keep the promise for an earthly people and still find a share in it for believers:
This world's history has been one long struggle of ambition. What a wonderful thing it will be to have the inheritance belong at last to the meek! The promise is for an earthly people, yet we shall still enjoy it, and in a better way. "Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ," we shall reign with Him over the earth. We have no need, therefore, to covet Israel's promises.
- Meek — unresisting: the person who will not use force at all, and takes every hard thing straight from God's hand.
- Wait — the psalm repeats one order three times in eight verses: fret not. Impatience is the temptation it sets out to defeat.
- Little while — the wait is short. The wicked pass away; the meek are established.
- Reversal — those who forced their way to the top come down. Those who never pushed receive the inheritance and abundant peace.
- Reach — commentators differ. Some keep the promise for godly Israel in the coming kingdom. Others say believers share it in a better way, reigning with Christ over the earth.