Behold, these are the wicked, and they prosper in the world they heap up riches.
Asaph has been watching people who ignore God. They sail through life untouched. Verse 12 is his verdict on the whole scene. Underneath lies a hard question: does God still run the world, and is a clean heart worth anything?
The verse is a summary line. It gathers up everything Asaph has described since verse 4.
(vv. 4-12) The psalmist goes on to describe the prosperity of the wicked. Apparently they are better off than the people of God. Death causes them "no pangs," and life has no plagues for them. They count pride as an ornament, and their violence, like a garment, is on show to all. Their eyes show their self-satisfaction and the gratification of every wish. In heart they are corrupt. In words they speak with lofty contempt of others. In their arrogance they pass judgment on things "in the heavens" as well as things on earth. The mass of the people follow them and give themselves over to license. They scorn God, and say He has no knowledge of the ways of men. Such are the ungodly, "who prosper in the world" and "increase in riches."
(Where this older translation says "prosper in the world," the ESV reads "always at ease.")
The danger is not only in the wicked themselves. Their success makes an argument, and others believe it — even people counted among God's own.
It was not only them whom their prosperity intoxicated. Its effect was that people from among the professing people of God fell away to them. Encouraged by it, they gave themselves up to license. For, they argued, how can God know? Are not these admittedly the "wicked," whom He denounces? and yet, see how they live at ease, and their wealth increases? So what use is it to have cleansed my heart and washed my hands in innocence? It only brings a life under God's constant stroke, chastised every morning.
Everything Asaph reports is real. But notice where he stands as he reports it.
In verses 4 to 12 he draws a solemn picture of the wicked. But remember who is describing them. It is a saint who is, for the moment, out of communion with God. So all he says is true, yet it is not the full truth. Still, "pride" and "violence," "corruption" and "oppression" really do mark the wicked. They persecute the godly, and they blaspheme: they "set their mouth against the heavens."
Asaph's difficulty is not an ancient one. It presses on anyone who wants God's honour and sees evil rewarded.
We see the ungodly having their way. God seems to have forgotten, and the heart is envious. But too often this shows that our own heart would still like its portion here — at least a portion here as well as one to come… What a riddle! Where is God's government? What is the use of good?
Asaph also lived before the fuller light we have now. That changes what a believer should expect.
It is no surprise that in an ungodly world the ungodly prosper. The surprise is that the godly are so often upset as they watch it. Asaph had some excuse. He lived in a day when heavenly things were not yet made clear… We live in a day when God has made heavenly things clear, and has told us plainly as Christians that "through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God."
The "increase" in this verse is real by one measure and empty by another.
Every step forward a man makes in worldly progress and prosperity always hardens his heart against God. No one can be rich in his own eyes and rich toward God at the same time. In the eyes of Christ, what nature counts as wealth and increase is poverty, nakedness, blindness and wretchedness… Wealth makes a man all-powerful — but only inside the circle that death draws around this present life.
The psalm turns at verse 17. It is a change of place before it is a change of mind.
Outside the sanctuary he looks at evil without God; inside he views everything, and everyone, with God. What a difference this makes! Outside, he had judged everything by time. Inside, he judges everything by eternity… The momentary prosperity and passing triumphs of the wicked fade from his view, and he sees instead the fearful end they are hurrying towards.
That place is now open to anyone.
There is no earthly sanctuary today. There is no place of special holiness we must travel to… The Son has revealed the Father to us. We have received the indwelling Spirit and the full Word of God. So each of us may withdraw from the world. We can shut our door, know that God is present, and receive the blessing and lift His presence brings.
- Look. Verse 12 closes an eight-verse portrait: ease, arrogance, contempt for God, and money that keeps growing.
- Angle. Nothing in the picture is false. But a believer out of communion drew it, so it is true as far as it goes and no further.
- Drift. Prosperity preaches. Others fall in behind the wicked, concluding that God does not know and that a clean heart pays nothing.
- Weigh. No one can be rich in his own eyes and rich toward God at once; wealth is only power inside a circle that death draws.
- Enter. Outside the sanctuary, time measures everything; inside, eternity does. You need no journey today — only a shut door and the presence of God.
Truly have I purified my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency
Asaph has just described the easy life of people who ignore God. Now he turns the comparison on himself: keeping his heart clean looks like wasted effort. Commentators treat this honest complaint as both a real temptation and a verdict the Psalm will later overturn.
The two images — a cleansed heart and washed hands — cover the inward and the outward side of a godly life. One writer puts the complaint into everyday speech:
In verses 13 and 14 he describes the solemn effect on a godly soul of dwelling on evil while out of communion with God. He is tempted to think it is all in vain to have a clean heart and innocent hands. What profit is there in restraining my thoughts and keeping away from wickedness? After all, the wicked prosper, while I am plagued and chastened every morning.
The complaint is not a neutral report on the world. It is how things look from one particular position. The same writer sums that position up in three strokes:
This then is the picture presented by a soul out of communion. The wicked prospering, the godly suffering, and God indifferent. The government of God apparently completely gone from the earth.
Feeling this way is natural. Saying it out loud is another matter, and Asaph himself decides against it:
How natural this seems to anyone who knows anything of his own heart! But is it right to give way like this by contrasting one's own lot with the flourishing wicked? No, says the Psalmist, it is not. He would not speak like that, however great the temptation. If he really did, he would offend against the generation of God's children.
The complaint starts with what the eye takes in, and the mind then reasons from it. That process cannot give the sufferer what he needs:
The eye affects the heart, naturally, for joy or grief. But the result of the heart's reasoning about what the eyes see is always profitless and empty. There is nothing there capable of giving relief and compensation to a troubled spirit under the pressure of an evil day. Light is to be found in God alone.
Distress at evil is right in itself. But something else can travel alongside it — a wish for our portion now:
We see the ungodly having their way, so that God seems to have forgotten, and the heart is envious. But too often in our case it shows that the heart would still like its portion here — at least a portion here as well as one to come. The sorrow at the power of evil in the world is right. But in our minds it mixes with a liking for our own way and our own judgment in setting the evil aside… The ungodly prosper in the world. What a riddle! Where is God's government? What is the use of good?
Asaph reads his daily chastening as evidence that his clean heart bought him nothing. Others read the same daily dealing as the mark of a son:
There is also the solemn reminder that if we are without chastisement, which all share in, then we are illegitimate children and not sons… God chastises His children. Asaph did not understand this truth… His difficulty ended when he went into the sanctuary of God, and the Holy Spirit also answers and explains it in Hebrews 12:8.
One writer adds a purpose for the trial. God sent it as "a necessary 'trial of faith' — a faith that will triumph no matter how severe the trial" (L M Grant).
God had promised Israel prosperity in this life. So the contradiction hit Asaph hard. Our case is different:
It is not very surprising that in an ungodly world the ungodly prosper. What is surprising is that the godly should so often be upset as they watch it. There was some excuse for Asaph. He lived in a day when heavenly things were not clearly revealed. Back then God spoke of blessing His people Israel in their basket and in their store. We live in a day when heavenly things are clearly revealed. As Christians we have been plainly told that "through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God."
- The look — the complaint starts at the eye. He watches the wicked prosper, then reasons from what he sees.
- The loss — out of touch with God, he loses his confidence. The wicked prosper, the godly suffer, and God looks indifferent.
- The lie — that a clean heart and clean hands bring no profit. Natural to feel, but wrong to say aloud, since it would offend God's children.
- The light — relief is not found in the scene at all but in God alone, and Asaph's difficulty ended in the sanctuary.
- The lesson — the daily chastening he counted against himself is the mark of a son. The trial is meant to produce a faith that triumphs.
For all the day have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.
Psalm 73 records a man who kept his heart clean and found that it bought him nothing but pain. Meanwhile, people who ignored God lived at ease. Verse 14 adds up his side of that account. It raises the question the whole psalm exists to answer: is God good to His own?
The verse measures suffering by the clock. One writer notes that the trouble filled the day, then began again at daybreak:
"All the day long" he had been plagued, not only during the day, but again when a new morning broke (v. 14). It seemed never-ending, but God sent it to be a necessary "trial of faith" — a faith that will triumph no matter how severe the trial.
Verse 14 is not a bare report. It is evidence in an argument against the worth of his own godliness:
The outward prosperity of the wicked stands beside the suffering of the godly. So the soul is tempted to think that it is useless to have cleansed his heart and washed his hands. What benefit is there in having a pure heart and clean hands, if one is plagued all the day and chastened every morning, while those who are wicked prosper?
Everything the psalmist describes is accurate as far as it goes. What warped it was where he stood when he looked:
He lets us know how it came about that his confidence in God was so badly shaken. The secret comes out. He was occupied with evil while out of touch with God. So he had a limited and twisted view of the evil. He saw the prosperity of the wicked, and he saw the adversity of the godly. As a result he envied the portion of the wicked, he thought little of the portion of the godly, and he almost lost confidence in God… All that he says of the wicked is true, but it is not the full truth. It is the wicked as seen by a saint who is, for the moment, out of communion with God.
Commentators differ over who is talking in verses 13 and 14. Most read it as the psalmist's own private thought. Others read it as the words of a whole people who counted themselves God's and drew the obvious conclusion from their circumstances:
The enemies of God boast on unhumbled. The foolish and wicked are full of prosperity, untouched so far. So God's people (Israel is here viewed as a whole) join the ungodly, their heart not being for God, and say, "How does God know?" They compare what came of their being, as they supposed, God's people — that is, chastisement — with the untouched prosperity of those who did not care for God. "They say" reaches, I judge, to the end of verse 14.
The daily correction the psalmist resented was the very thing that proved he belonged. One writer states the rule behind it:
God never disciplines or strikes us unless there is something in us that requires it… So it is; God disciplines His children. "If you are left without discipline," says the Spirit, "then you are illegitimate children and not sons." Asaph did not understand this truth. So he says, "I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked… They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind." But of himself he says, "All the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning." (Psalm 73:3-14.) Going into the sanctuary of God removed his difficulty.
Have these words ever been your own complaint? One writer says the complaint itself shows where you stand:
"Nature shrinks," as we often say… "All the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning," may be its sore complaint. But what does that prove, except that we are outside the "sanctuary"? That is the one place where we can grasp what all this means. There we learn to see our nearness to God as the very thing that makes all this painstaking care and love necessary. That nearness also secures it to us.
- Sight. The believer measures his life against the comfort of the ungodly. He sees unbroken trouble, morning after morning, and no return at all for a clean heart.
- Slip. The fault lies in the viewpoint, not the facts. A soul taken up with evil while out of touch with God sees a limited and twisted picture, and almost loses confidence in Him.
- Speaker. Commentators differ on whose words these are — the psalmist's own, or those of a whole people who compared their chastening with the untouched ease of the wicked and asked, "How does God know?"
- Sonship. The daily correction he resented was the proof he wanted. God disciplines His children. A life without that discipline marks someone out as no son at all.
- Sanctuary. The complaint of verse 14 shows a man standing outside God's presence. Inside it, the same dealings read as nearness, care, and a trial of faith that will triumph.
If I said, I will speak thus, behold, I should be faithless to the generation of thy children.
Asaph has just said that keeping his heart clean was pointless. Verse 15 is the moment he catches himself. He stops, not because anyone had answered his argument, but because of who would hear him. One writer sees this as the first sign that faith was still alive in him:
However, in this the darkest moment of his experiences, divine affections assert themselves (verse 15). This proves that, though his steps had nearly slipped, divine life was working in his soul. Hot and angry thoughts were rushing through his mind. But love for the people of God held his lips, and that love is the proof of faith in God.
The doubt itself did not go away. Love for God's people is what kept it unspoken.
The ESV calls the danger betraying "the generation of your children." Older translations read "offend against." Either way, Asaph measures his words by the harm they would do to others, not by how honest they would feel to say.
But if I joined them in this speech, says the psalmist, what injustice would I not be doing to the generation of Your children! He speaks of Israel according to their birthright, for God had said, "Israel is my son, even my firstborn."
The word "generation" here does not mean everyone alive at one moment. Across the Psalms it marks out a kind of person — a family defined by character, not by date. One writer traces this through several psalms, quoting them in an older wording:
Parkhurst, in his Lexicon, gives one meaning of genea as "Men of like quality and disposition, though of neither one place nor age". The Psalms bear this out: "You will keep them, O LORD, you will preserve them from this generation forever" (Ps. 12:7)... "God is in the generation of the righteous" (Ps. 14:5). "The generation of them that seek you" (Ps. 24:6)... These verses imply a certain moral character or kind of person.
So the people Asaph would have hurt are not just those alive with him. They are God's people in every age — which is why his private complaint was never private.
Silence solved nothing for him. He would not talk like the wicked, and that choice left him with his problem and without their success:
Could Asaph possibly join, as others did, with the wicked in their endeavours? — that is, if he spoke as the ungodly spoke, he realised he would be untrue to the generation of God's children. How painful was his predicament! His conscience and his faith in God would not let him take the attitude of the ungodly. Yet by standing apart from them, he could not expect to prosper as they did.
Verse 15 restrains him, but it settles nothing. The turmoil goes on into verse 16, and only the sanctuary ends it.
What set the crisis going was the way he measured life — by what his own eyes could see:
When Asaph went into the sanctuary of God it was as though he got a pair of new eyes... Before he went in he was a miserable and restless man, and as ignorant as a beast, as he afterwards confessed. He understood nothing, and everything appeared wrong... And this is the subtle and serious thing about judging things by the natural powers. The man who does so, whether Christian or infidel, becomes a discontented man and a murmurer.
The verse also works as a rule for anyone who teaches or writes. One writer applies it to himself:
To offend in any way against the generation of God's children will always be distressing to a true witness of God (Ps. 73:15). But all who seek His glory in their work must surely care first about this: to put His words out boldly, and, as far as it is known, to set the way of pleasing God openly before the feet of those "who will walk godly in Christ Jesus."
Another draws the practical caution about circulating a half-formed doubt:
Let me add this. On so serious a subject as God's Word, it would be well to hold back the publication of a doubt until we have examined the matter on all sides. The natural mind is sceptical enough without help or encouragement. A mere question might raise doubts, and those doubts could trouble many a soul despite the clearest light given in answer, for the heart loves darkness.
- Envy — the crisis starts when a believer judges God's dealings by natural eyes. That turns him into a discontented murmurer.
- Love — what stops the complaint is not a better argument. It is love for God's people, and that love is itself proof of divine life in the soul.
- Family — "the generation of your children" means a people of one character in every age, not just those alive at the time.
- Silence — holding your tongue spares others, but the pain stays. Verse 15 restrains; only the sanctuary explains.
- Caution — speak God's words boldly. But weigh a doubt on all sides before you publish it, because the natural mind needs no help to doubt.
When I thought to be able to know this, it was a grievous task in mine eyes;
Asaph has just admitted he almost slipped. He envied the easy lives of people who ignore God, and here his own reasoning about it hits a wall.
Asaph had already refused to speak his doubts out loud, for the sake of others. The silence, though, solved nothing inside him.
Hot and angry thoughts were rushing through his mind. But love for the people of God, the proof of faith in God, held his lips... But though he puts a seal on his lips, a turmoil of painful thoughts still disturbs his inner peace. He does not know how to reconcile God's goodness to His people with the suffering they live in. And all the while the wicked prosper.
"When I thought how to understand this" describes a conversation with himself. One writer explains what that kind of thinking is, and why it left him stuck.
The meaning of the word "meditation" is "to talk to oneself" about the subject filling the mind... In Psalm 73 we find that Asaph was troubled in his meditations on the prosperity of the wicked. He talked it over with himself, and could not see any way out of his difficulty. It was a stain, he was tempted to think, on the government of God, and he was filled with perplexity... The lesson is this. If meditation is to be of value and for blessing, we must carry it on in the presence of God, depending on Him and on the ministry of His Spirit. Otherwise we would be lost in the maze of human thoughts and speculations.
The trouble was not only in his head. Judging life by our own powers works on the heart as well.
Before he went into the sanctuary of God, he was a miserable and restless man, and as ignorant as a beast, as he afterwards confessed. He understood nothing, and everything seemed wrong. His whole soul was in rebellion against the state of things, and so against God, who is behind everything. And this is the subtle and serious thing about judging things by our natural powers. The person who does so, whether Christian or unbeliever, becomes discontented and a grumbler. Nothing offends God like those two things, for they show a soul at war with the will of God.
The next verse gives the answer. It is not new facts, but a new place to stand.
Outside the sanctuary he looks at evil without God; inside he views everything, and everyone, with God. What a difference this makes! Outside, all had been viewed in relation to time; inside, all is viewed in relation to eternity. The wickedness of men, the goodness of God, the prosperity of sinners, the sorrows of the saints — he no longer sees these in connection with the passing moment. He sees them in relation to the great end towards which everything is moving.
Another writer says what the one who enters finds there.
That is, in the sanctuary of God everything is understood, no matter how difficult, trying and painful it may be, whether about ourselves or others. Once we enter there, we are in the place of God's light and God's love; and then, whatever the difficulty may be, we understand it.
One writer asks what answers to that sanctuary now.
Is there anything in the New Testament that answers to the sanctuary where Asaph found the key to all his difficulties? Yes, there is. We have a sanctuary in the New Testament, and the Minister of it. Hebrews 10 tells us that we have boldness to enter the Holiest — that is, the very presence of God. It also tells us of Jesus who is there. He is our great High Priest, and He delights to lead us in and keep us in that place of light and blessing.
A Christian, another writer adds, has less excuse than Asaph for being shaken by the sight.
It is no surprise that an ungodly world brings worldly prosperity to the ungodly. The surprise is that the godly are so often upset when they see it. There was some excuse for Asaph, for he lived in a day when heavenly things were not clearly revealed... We live in a day when heavenly things are clearly revealed. As Christians we have been plainly told that "through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God."
- Outside — reasoning on his own, Asaph cannot square God's goodness to His people with the prospering of the wicked.
- Alone — his thinking was talking it over with himself. Away from God's presence, that ends in a maze of guesses.
- Souring — judging by our own powers leaves a person discontented and grumbling, at war with God's will.
- Inside — in the sanctuary the same facts belong to eternity, not to the passing moment. There everything is understood.
- Open — that sanctuary is now God's own presence. We enter with boldness, and Jesus our High Priest leads us in.
Until I went into the sanctuaries of God; [then] understood I their end.
Asaph did not doubt that God exists. He doubted that God is fair. The wicked prospered, while he kept his heart clean and suffered every day. Verse 17 is the hinge of the whole psalm — one word, "until," marks where the reasoning stopped and the seeing began.
Before this verse, Asaph does his sums outside God's presence. He keeps getting the wrong total. One writer traces what changed the moment he stepped inside.
There is a limit to the conflict of his soul. It goes on "until" he returns to the secret place he had wandered from in spirit — "Until," as he says, "I went into the sanctuary of God" (verse 17). The sanctuary speaks of the presence of God. Outside the sanctuary he looks at evil without God. Inside, he views everything, and everyone, with God. What a difference this makes! Outside, he had viewed everything in relation to time. Inside, he views everything in relation to eternity.
What he saw inside reversed what he had assumed outside.
It looked, indeed, as if the Psalmist had been in the slippery places, for had not his steps almost slipped? The wicked, on the other hand, seemed to stand on solid rock. Did they not prosper in the world and grow rich? In reality the godly soul was on the rock though shaking; and the wicked were in slippery places, though prospering. Away from the sanctuary, the godly man looked at the prosperity of the wicked and was cast down. From inside the sanctuary, he sees that in the end they will be cast down.
The same measure applies to the desires that pull at our own hearts.
The tendency of the human heart and affections is always downward — always toward earth and the things of earth... But let us think of the end! The end alone is the true test by which to judge in such matters.
The sanctuary did not only expose the wicked. It exposed Asaph himself.
If the sanctuary exposes the character of the sinner, it will also uncover the hidden springs of evil in the heart of a saint. The light of the sanctuary lays everything bare. "When my heart was in a ferment," he says, "then I was brutish and ignorant, I was as a beast before You" (verses 21, 22). A beast acts without the slightest reference to God. The saint comes to admit this: if he leaves God out of his thoughts, he will not only sink below what is proper to a natural man; he will fall to the level of a beast.
That self-discovery is not the end of the visit but the doorway to the best part of it.
The discovery of what is in us opens the way for the revelation of what is in Him... He can say, "I was as a beast before You, nevertheless I am continually with You." When hot and bitter thoughts were raging in his heart, even then God's tireless care never left him.
By the end of the psalm, the sanctuary has produced not one conclusion but a contrast.
He saw that you can only judge the course of the godless rich, or of the plagued and downtrodden saints, when the end of each comes into view... Asaph himself was one of the godly, plagued all the day long and "chastened every morning." Yet in the sanctuary he lifts his eyes to God with joy and confesses, "You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." The end of the one: brought into desolation. The end of the other: received to glory. The contrast is complete!
For Israel the sanctuary was a place set apart. Commentators point out that for Christians the way in has changed.
To us the sanctuary does not speak so much of God's hidden ways as it did to Israel. This is what marks Christianity: the veil of the sanctuary is torn from top to bottom, and we have "confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus" (Heb. 10:19). It is a blessing to know this! But it is a far greater blessing to truly draw near because we know it!
- Until — The whole psalm turns on one word. Asaph's questions were not answered by better reasoning but by entering God's presence.
- Inside — Outside the sanctuary he judged by time; inside he judged by eternity. Same facts, opposite conclusion.
- End — There the wicked's firm ground proved slippery and the shaking believer proved to be on the rock. The end is the only fair test of any life.
- Exposed — The same light that showed their end showed him his own heart as brutish. Only then could he learn that he had never left God's care.
- Open — For the Christian the veil is torn and the way in stands open. Knowing this is a blessing; drawing near is a far greater one.