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.