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.
Truly thou settest them in slippery places, thou castest them down in ruins.
The turn in this psalm comes when a man who almost lost his footing sees where the solid ground is. Asaph had envied the prospering wicked; now, from inside the sanctuary, he says God Himself put them where they stand — and that ground is slippery.
Asaph learned nothing new about the wicked. He changed where he stood to look at them.
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 seen everything in relation to time. Inside, he sees everything in relation to eternity... Man is always short-sighted and can take only a short view. God sees far, and He sees the end from the beginning.
The psalm does not say the wicked stumbled into danger. It says God set them in it.
"Truly You set them in slippery places." Prosperity is not as secure as men think. It is only a slippery slope that leads to destruction (v. 18). It is God who has set them on this slope. They think it is safe, but in the end they find it leads only to destruction.
Asaph did not solve the puzzle by thinking harder about it. He drew near to God, and there an easy life stopped proving anything.
If a man does not understand, he draws nearer to God so that he may. In the sanctuary of His presence God tells him the secret: he sees the end that is coming for the wicked. The "smooth places" in which God sets them are not a sign of His favor or of His indifference. They come just before a terrible fall, which strikes in a moment. Then they are finished, and terrors consume them.
Earlier Asaph admitted that his own steps had nearly slipped. The wicked looked solid. Verse 18 turns the picture around.
It looked as if the Psalmist himself was in the slippery places, for had his steps not almost slipped? The wicked, on the other hand, looked settled on a rock, for did they not prosper in the world and grow richer? In truth the godly soul was on the rock, though shaking; and the wicked were in slippery places, though prospering... Away from God, the prosperity of the wicked looked very real and lasting. In the sanctuary it was only an evil, passing dream.
"You make them fall to ruin" is not a slow decline. It lands at the moment of greatest confidence, and it lands all at once.
Verses 18-20 set out the solemn record of God's righteous judgment on the day He comes to judge. When the Lord rises to judge, the foot of human pride will find that the ground it boasted in is slippery. When they say, "peace and safety," then sudden and complete destruction comes.
Appearances mislead. Do not weigh a life — your own or anyone else's — by its present comfort.
The Holy Spirit puts the child of God on his guard. He tells him not to judge by the look of prosperity, which the wicked seem to enjoy for a time. Death is the appointed portion of all who are not Christ's. "Truly You set them in slippery places; You make them fall to ruin." (Psalm 73)
One road ends in ruin. Asaph found that his own hard road ends somewhere else.
He saw that he could judge both courses rightly only when the end of each came into view — the course of the godless rich, and the course of the plagued and downtrodden saints. A few moments before, envy at the prosperity of the wicked had almost made him fall. Now he cries out, "How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment!"... Yet in the sanctuary he lifts his eyes to God with joy. He confesses, "You shall guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." The end of the one was, brought into desolation. The end of the other, received to glory. The contrast is complete!
- Place — The verse is what a man sees inside the sanctuary. Outside, time measures everything; inside, eternity does.
- Hand — "You set them" — the ease of the wicked is not luck, favour, or God looking away. God Himself placed them there.
- Ground — Prosperity is the slippery slope, not the rock. The shaking believer stands on rock; the settled sinner slides.
- Fall — Judgment falls suddenly and completely. It strikes pride at the very point of its confidence.
- End — Judge by where a road ends, not by how it looks. One ends in desolation. The other ends with God receiving His own to glory.
How are they suddenly made desolate! they pass away, consumed with terrors.
Asaph envied people who did evil and still prospered, and it nearly broke him. Here he finally sees how their story ends — not how their life looks, but how it finishes.
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Asaph could not make sense of the wicked until he went into the sanctuary — the place of God's presence. One writer marks the point where the struggle stopped:
There is a limit to the conflict of his soul. It goes on "until" he returns to that 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 measured everything by time; inside, he measures everything by eternity.
The previous verse says God set them in slippery places. So their comfortable ground is God's doing, not a sign of what He thinks of them:
The "smooth places" where God sets them are not signs of His favour or of His indifference. They come just before a terrible fall. That fall comes in a moment, and it ends them, consumed with terrors. Their prosperity deceives them. It is only the image of a dream, which vanishes when men wake up.
Asaph opened the psalm saying his own feet had nearly gone. The sanctuary showed him he had it backwards:
It looked as if the psalmist had been in the slippery places, for had not his steps almost slipped? And on the other hand the wicked seemed to stand on a rock, for did they not prosper in the world and grow rich? In fact 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 the sanctuary, he sees that in the end they will be cast down.
The verse joins speed, ruin and terror in one line, and the next verse compares the whole thing to waking from sleep. One reading of the wording runs:
They appeared to be prospering, but, says the psalmist, "you set them in slippery places: you cast them down into destruction." Their desolation comes in a moment, and "they pass away, consumed with terrors." When the Lord awakes to judgment, He will despise their image even as a man in his waking moments thinks lightly of some horrible dream.
The psalm sets two endings side by side. Asaph was one of the troubled and disciplined, and his end was the better one:
A few moments earlier he had nearly fallen himself, consumed with envy at the prosperity of the wicked. Now he exclaims, "How they are destroyed in a moment!" Asaph himself was one of the godly, stricken all day long and "rebuked every morning." Yet in the sanctuary he lifts his eyes to God with joy and confesses, "You guide me with Your counsel, and afterward You will receive me to glory." The end of the one was destruction. The end of the other, received to glory. The contrast is complete!
The moment in this verse arrives at death, and God's long patience before it settles nothing:
Their prosperity was only temporary and brief. They may think that death is the end, but the New Testament tells us, "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Heb. 9:27). God may be patient about settling His accounts, yet He will settle them with unerring accuracy. Prosperity is not as secure as men think. It is only a slippery slope leading to destruction (v. 18). God is the one who has set them on that slope. They think it is safe, but in the end it leads only to destruction. When death comes, they are brought to desolation in a moment, utterly consumed with terrors.
- Place: Read this verse from one place only — the sanctuary. Outside it, time measures everything; inside, eternity does.
- Prosperity: The smooth ground under the wicked is not God's approval, and not His indifference. It is the slope before the fall.
- Moment: What looked permanent ends in a moment, in terror — like a dream that fades the instant a man wakes.
- Reversal: The one who thought he was slipping stood on the rock. The ones who looked secure stood on slippery ground.
- End: Two roads, two endings — brought to desolation, or received to glory. The end, not the appearance, tells the true story.
As a dream, when one awaketh, wilt thou, Lord, on arising despise their image.
The psalmist had watched the godless prosper until his own footing almost went. Then he entered God's sanctuary. From there he says what such a life will look like when God acts. Two pictures carry the verse: a sleeper waking from a dream, and God Himself waking up. Both ask the same question: what is really solid?
In the sanctuary the psalmist sees that both positions were the opposite of what they looked like.
It looked as if the psalmist had been in the slippery places, for had his steps not almost slipped? And on the other hand the wicked appeared to be firmly established on a rock, for did they not prosper in the world and increase in riches? In fact the godly soul was on the rock, though shaking, and the wicked were in slippery places, though prospering. Away from the sanctuary, looking at the prosperity of the wicked, the godly man was cast down. Looking at the wicked from the sanctuary, he sees that in the end they will be cast down. Away from God the prosperity of the wicked appeared very real and lasting; in the sanctuary it was only an evil and passing dream.
Why compare a whole life to a dream? Because of how a dream behaves once the sleeper wakes.
"Like a dream when one awakes." Inside he had seen all that lasts and is eternal. Outside, everything was a dream, a horrible nightmare. A dream seems very real while it lasts, but once you wake, not one in a hundred stays in the mind for a moment. The Psalms look at God as asleep, and the cry is, "Awake, why do you sleep, O Jehovah?" That is, He is not publicly stepping into the earth.
God's sleep is His public silence. His waking is the moment He steps in, and the present order of things goes with it.
The earth seems to run its course without Him, and the dream goes on. But one of these days He will awake. When He awakes it will be to the judgment which He has commanded. Then the dream will pass away, and what has substance and is eternal will take its place... Self-will, corruption, and violence hold sway; kingdoms rise and fall, good is trampled down and evil is triumphant; but this will not go on forever. This is only the dream, and men are completely under its power.
The ESV has God despising these lives "as phantoms"; older translations read "despise their image." One writer explains that contempt from ordinary experience.
When the Lord awakes to judgment, He will despise their image, just as a man in his waking moments thinks lightly of some horrible dream.
Commentators differ on when this waking happens. Boyd ties it to God's judgment of the world. Grant ties it to the moment a person dies.
"Their prosperity deceives them, but it is only the image of a dream, and it vanishes when men wake. That is all it proves to be, when the Lord arises and shows it to be their folly and shame." That is, the ungodly wake suddenly when death comes. They find that the Lord has in effect awoken after long patience, to show Himself as despising the image of their dreams.
The verse is one half of a comparison. The psalmist could only finish it once he saw where each road ends.
A few moments before, he had been close to falling himself because he was consumed with envy at the prosperity of the wicked; now he exclaims, "How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment!"... Yet in the sanctuary he lifts his eyes to God with joy and confesses, "You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory." The end of the one was to be brought into desolation. The end of the other, to be received to glory. The contrast is complete!
Boyd draws the practical lesson: nearness to God breaks the dream's hold.
If we draw near to God, we come under the influence of eternal things, and are set free from the influence of this horrible nightmare... If we see what is set up in Christ — and we will learn it if we draw near — we will not be deceived by the apparent prosperity of a world in rebellion against the authority of God.
- Sleep. The Psalms picture God as asleep — not absent, but not stepping in publicly. So evil seems to run its own course.
- Dream. While that silence lasts, the success of the wicked feels solid and permanent, as a dream feels real to the sleeper.
- Waking. When God awakes He acts in judgment, and the dream passes; what has substance and is eternal takes its place.
- Contempt. God treats that whole life the way a waking man treats a nightmare — as nothing worth a thought.
- Sanctuary. The reversal only shows up in God's presence. The shaking believer stood on rock, the settled wicked on a slope. One end is desolation, the other glory. Draw near, and the dream loses its grip.
When my heart was in a ferment, and I was pricked in my reins,
In Psalm 73 a believer almost loses his faith. Asaph watched the wicked prosper while he suffered. Then he went into the sanctuary, God's dwelling place. There the light turned from the wicked back onto him. By verse 21 the question is what his own bitter feelings had made of him.
The verse names two inner places: the soul, and the heart. Older translations read the second word as the "reins," or kidneys. Writers treat that word as the seat of a person's deepest feelings:
The kidneys are the seat of the feelings (Ps. 73:21; Prov. 23:16; Lam. 3:13).
So the trouble was not on the surface. It sat where a person feels most deeply.
In the sanctuary Asaph had already seen how the wicked end. Verse 21 shows him something he did not go looking for: what was in his own heart.
He has seen the true character and end of the wicked. He has found the government of God at work beneath the things he can see. Now he must look beneath his outward walk and ways and learn the secrets of his own heart (verses 21, 22). The searching comes closer to home. 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.
Asaph went in for an answer about the wicked. He came out with a verdict on himself.
He got an overwhelming sense of his own foolishness. He went in as a chief singer and an intelligent man. Once inside, he very soon found himself to be like a beast without understanding in the presence of God.
This is not one bad man's private experience. The closer a person lives to God, the more he sees it:
The people who have most clearly shown the character of God's saints have felt their own nothingness and foolishness most deeply. The more we live in front of other people, or even among our fellow believers, the less we feel it. The more we live in the presence of God, the more we feel it.
The comparison to an animal is not an insult about intelligence. It describes a mind that works only from what the eyes can see:
The animal acts without the slightest reference to God. The saint has to admit something. If he leaves God out of his thoughts, he will not only sink below what is proper to a natural man, but he will fall to the level of a beast.
That way of thinking then shows itself in how a person lives:
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. His whole soul was in rebellion against the way things were, and so against God, who is behind everything. This is the subtle and serious thing about judging life by our natural powers. The man who does so, whether he is a Christian or an unbeliever, becomes a discontented man and a grumbler. Nothing offends God like those two things, for they show a soul at war with the will of God.
Asaph writes verse 21 in the past tense. He is looking back at the bitterness, and he finds that God never let go of him:
We are never more ready to learn the goodness of God's heart than when we have discovered the badness of our own. Finding out what is in us opens the way for God to reveal what is in Him. So he can say, "I was like a beast toward You. Nevertheless, I am continually with You." Hot and bitter thoughts were raging in his heart. Even then, God's care for him never tired. He says, in effect, "God was out of my thoughts, but I was never out of His thoughts."
- Soured. The bitterness sat in the deepest part of Asaph. The older word "reins," the kidneys, means the seat of the feelings. The damage was inside him, not in his circumstances.
- Exposed. The sanctuary first showed him the end of the wicked. Then it showed him the hidden springs of evil in his own heart. One light does both.
- Brutish. To judge life only by what the eye sees is to act "without the slightest reference to God." A chief singer of Israel found himself at that level.
- Restless. That way of judging life makes a person discontented and full of complaints — a soul at war with the will of God.
- Held. The confession is in the past tense for a reason. While hot thoughts raged, he was never out of God's thoughts. Learning the badness of our own heart is how we come to learn the goodness of His.
Then I was brutish and knew nothing; I was [as] a beast with thee.
Asaph went into God's presence with a question about why the wicked prosper, and came out with a verdict about himself. This verse is his confession: a gifted man admits that his thinking had sunk to the level of an animal's.
Asaph says this in the sanctuary — God's dwelling place, where he had gone for answers. What he found there was not what he came for.
But Asaph got more than the answer to his problem when he went into the sanctuary. It was something quite different, we suspect, from anything he expected. He got an overwhelming sense of his own foolishness. He went in as a chief singer and an intelligent man. But once inside, he very soon found himself to be like a beast without understanding in the presence of God.
The light of the sanctuary does not stop with the sinner. It reaches into a believer's own heart.
If the sanctuary exposes the character of the sinner, it will also discover the hidden springs of evil in the heart of a saint. All is laid bare in the light of the sanctuary. "When my soul was embittered," he says, "I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward You." The brute beast acts with no reference to God at all. The saint is brought to admit that 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.
"Beast" is not a throwaway insult. The word has a settled sense, and the same Hebrew word is translated "brutish" in other places.
The beast stands for the ignorance of man in Ps. 73:22. It also stands for his acting like a creature without reason — that is, without conscience before God. The word is beir, translated 'brutish' in Ps. 94:8 and Jer. 10:8.
Asaph then turns that word on himself.
He realizes that his attitude had been like that of a beast, moved only by instinct and not by the reasoning power that ought to characterize a man.
You might expect the holiest people to think best of themselves. The opposite is true, and the reason is where they spend their time.
We dare to say that no one can ever know what God's presence is really like without making the same painful discovery. The people who have most clearly borne the character of God's saints have felt their own nothingness and foolishness most deeply. The more we live before other people, or even among fellow believers, the less we realize it. The more we live as in the presence of God the more we realize it.
This condition is common; noticing it is not. And noticing it is God's own work in a person.
Sadly, this is the real condition of people in general, but few see it. The man who does see it feels it so deeply and so personally that he appears in his own eyes more ignorant than anyone else. It is a similar principle when Paul speaks of himself as the chief of sinners. And this is the real evidence that the Spirit of God is at work in a man's soul, showing him the darkness he has been living in.
Something held Asaph back from saying his doubts out loud. That restraint shows what was really in him.
He had been foolish, ignorant — "as a beast," so he says, "before God"; yet there had been integrity and conscience. He was half ready to say that godliness was no use. If he had let his thoughts run loose, he would have wronged the family of God's children. This checked him. How beautiful to see these holy affections at work in the middle of man's wayward will. This conscience — the fear of putting a stumbling block in the path of the weakest of God's children — checks the heart and shows where the affections really are.
The verse does not end the psalm. Once Asaph has hit bottom about himself, God can start teaching him something better.
Never are we more ready to learn the goodness of His heart than when we have discovered the badness of our own hearts. The discovery of what is in us opens the way for the revelation of what is in Him... He can say, "I was like a beast toward You. Nevertheless, I am continually with You." When hot and bitter thoughts were raging in his heart, he was still the object of God's tireless care. He says, as it were, "God was out of my thoughts, but I was never out of His thoughts."
- Sanctuary — Asaph went in asking about the wicked. He came out judging himself. God's presence exposes the saint's heart, not only the sinner's.
- Beast — the word means ignorance, and acting like a creature with no conscience before God. Instinct takes over where reason should rule.
- Nearness — the closer you live to God, the smaller you look to yourself. Living before people hides the discovery.
- Integrity — even while his thoughts ran wild, conscience stopped him from tripping up God's weaker children. That showed where his heart really was.
- Nevertheless — finding out what is in us opens the way to see what is in Him. God was out of Asaph's thoughts, but Asaph was never out of God's.
Nevertheless I am continually with thee thou hast holden my right hand;
Asaph, who wrote this psalm, has just admitted that his bitter thoughts about the wicked left him ignorant and brutish before God. Then one word turns everything: nevertheless. The man who almost slipped finds that God held him the whole time.
The word joins what Asaph found in himself to what he found in God.
But God did not leave Asaph to grovel before Him as a beast. Along with this crushing sense of his own folly and ignorance, he got a sight of the grace and glory of God. "Nevertheless," he says, "I am continually with You: You have held me by my right hand." Despite all that he was, and all he had learned about himself, God took him by his right hand. He lifted him up and set him always in His own high company. This was astonishing grace.
Asaph did not reason this out in his distress. He learned it in one place, and learned there how to take his troubles.
But all must learn this where the Psalmist did, in the sanctuary. And there we learn to welcome God's correction, not only to recognise it.
"Continually" covers the bad stretch too — the bitter thoughts, the comparisons with the wicked, the near-slip.
Never are we more ready to learn the goodness of His heart than when we have discovered the badness of our own hearts. So the Psalmist's thoughts move away from all that he had been before God, to delight in all that God was for 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 he was the object of God's unwearied care. He says, as it were, "God was out of my thoughts, but I was never out of His thoughts" — "I am continually with You."
Two hands appear in the psalm: the one that almost gave way, and the one that never did. These writers quote an older translation throughout: here it reads "You have held me by my right hand," where the ESV has "you hold my right hand."
He not only had a place in the heart of God. God's hand also held him, for he can say, "You have held me by my right hand." I wandered, I behaved like a brute, I let go of His hand, but never did He let go of mine. I nearly slipped — yes, truly, I should have slipped altogether — but He held me by my right hand. His heart of love set me as an object before Him, and His hand of power held me fast.
That grip held while Asaph was moving toward the edge, and it did more than stop a fall.
He was drawing nearer and nearer to the edge of that terrible cliff. Many a mighty man has fallen over it never to rise again. Yet his hand was in the grasp of the almighty God, who had determined that not a hair of his head would perish… Then the blessed God, who held him in the grasp of love, drew him near to Himself in the sanctuary. There, in a moment, he learned the awful distance to which unbelief had carried him.
Earlier in the psalm Asaph complained that he was struck all day long while the wicked went untouched. Verse 23 gives him the reason.
Suppose the wicked are "not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued as other men." Suppose that I, on the other hand, can say, "all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning." Here is the meaning of it: "I am continually with You; You have held me with Your right hand." What a blessed reason! What a glorious compensation!… The presence of the Holy One with us must mean discipline; but it is a Father's discipline of the "son in whom He delights."
God did the holding, not Asaph. So the rest of the road rests on the same hand.
He learned with great delight all that God had been for him in the past, in the day when his feet had almost slipped. So he can look forward with complete confidence to all that God will be for him in the future. He can say at every step of the pilgrim journey, "You shall guide me with Your counsel." I need not weary my heart trying to unravel all the puzzling questions of my path through this evil world. God Himself will guide me. And at last, when the journey ends, when man's small day is done and the day of glory dawns, "You will receive me."
- Nevertheless — one word sets what Asaph was against what God is. Finding the badness of his own heart opened the way to learn the goodness of God's.
- Continually — the nearness had no gaps. God was out of Asaph's thoughts, but Asaph was never out of God's.
- Held — he let go; God did not. Love set him before Him, and power kept him from the fall he would otherwise have taken.
- Chastened — the blows he resented were proof of the same nearness. Being with the Holy One means discipline, and it is a Father's discipline.
- Guided — the hand that held him through his worst thinking will guide him now and receive him at the end.
Thou wilt guide me by thy counsel, and after the glory, thou wilt receive me.
Asaph almost lost his footing over the prosperity of the wicked. This verse is where his recovery lands: guidance now, and a welcome at the end. Two questions follow: what guidance does God give, and where does it end?
The verse belongs to a man who has just been in God's presence and seen how both stories end:
In the light of the sanctuary everything became clear to him. He saw that the course of the godless rich, and the course of the plagued and downtrodden saints, could only be measured rightly once the end of each came into view. A few moments before, he had been near to falling himself, eaten up with envy at the prosperity of the wicked. Now he exclaims, "How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment!" Asaph himself was one of the godly, plagued all day long and "chastened every morning." Yet in the sanctuary he lifts his eyes to God with joy and confesses, "You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory." The end of the one: brought into desolation. The end of the other: received to glory. The contrast is complete!
Guidance by counsel goes beyond being held up. God steers people who are out of touch with Him too, but they do not know it at the time. The quote below follows an older rendering: "You will guide me by your counsel."
Up to this point, through all his shortcomings in faith, he could say, "You have held me." Now, in communion, he says, "You will guide me by your counsel." That is more than being held up without knowing it. It is the mind and will of God guiding us in communion. So it appears once he has judged himself and is in communion. God still guides us when we are out of communion. He makes us go according to His own counsels, holding our mouths with bit and bridle. But then the soul does not understand it. It cannot speak, as here, in the knowledge that He is guiding by His counsel.
The practical result is that the believer is released from the strain of solving life's puzzles by himself.
He can say at every step of the pilgrim journey, "You will guide me with your counsel." There is no need for me to wear out my heart trying to unravel all the puzzling questions of my path through this evil world, for God Himself will guide me. And at last, when the end of the journey is reached, when man's small day is done and the day of glory dawns, "You will receive me."
Just before this verse Asaph confessed he was like a beast before God. What follows is all grace, and the guidance is part of that grace.
But Asaph was not left grovelling before God as a beast. Along with this overwhelming sense of his own folly and ignorance, he got a sight of the grace and glory of God. "Nevertheless," he says, "I am continually with you: you have held me by my right hand." Despite all that he was, and all he had learned about himself, God took him by his right hand. He lifted him up and set him always in His majestic company. This was astonishing grace. But grace also set glory before him, and undertook to give him guidance on his way to the glory.
The same three-fold pattern reappears, enlarged, in the New Testament:
These things were true for Asaph; they are far more true for us. Grace, guidance and glory for a man who discovered himself to be like a beast before God! That is the Old Testament story. The New Testament story is like it, only it goes further. Titus 2:11-13 gives an even more wonderful account of grace going on to glory. In between, God grants guidance, so that we live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present world.
Commentators differ over the second half of the verse. Many read it as the believer's reception into glory at the end of the journey. One writer asks whether the psalm sets out to teach that at all:
Here we read these words, a favourite text with many: "You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory." It may be good Christian doctrine. But is it the aim of the psalm to teach anything of the sort? Let us be subject to Scripture. You see that the word "to" is added. Why? Adding "to" or "with" would need authority. It cannot be put in or left out like this. The truth is that our translators did not understand the words as they stand. They also took it for granted that the psalm speaks directly of our Christian comfort.
On that reading the difference is one of timing, and it marks off two distinct groups of God's people:
Psalm 73:24 needs another correction: "You guide me with your counsel, and after the glory you will receive me." Zechariah 2:8 translates the same phrase rightly. This is a very important difference. It shows that the saints who use this psalm will understand their position as sharers in the blessings on earth when the Lord reigns. Their calling is earthly, ours is heavenly. The Lord will receive us before the glory (1 Thessalonians 4); they after it has appeared.
- Sanctuary — The puzzle only clears in God's presence, where the end of both the wicked and the godly comes into view.
- Grace — The man who has just called himself a beast is the man God holds by the right hand. Everything in this verse follows from that.
- Guidance — Counsel is guidance the soul understands, in communion. Out of communion, God still steers, but with bit and bridle.
- Glory — Grace begins the road and glory ends it, and God gives guidance in between. Titus 2:11-13 shows the same pattern.
- Timing — Commentators differ on the last words. Some read "receive me to glory." Others read "after the glory you will receive me" — an earthly hope, not the heavenly one.
Whom have I in the heavens? and there is none upon earth I desire beside thee.
Psalm 73 opens with a believer almost losing his footing over the prosperity of the wicked. Verse 25 is where he turns: a man who once envied other people's lives now wants nothing but God.
This is not the psalm's opening mood. Trouble produced it, and it came clear only in the sanctuary — God's dwelling place.
In the sanctuary of God, where His mind was revealed, all became plain. The godly man complains that he lacked divine sense in these thoughts and feelings. Still, after all, he was always before God, and God's right hand upheld him. God's counsel guided him through that time of darkness, and God will receive him when the glory appears. The result is blessed. He has none in heaven but the Lord, none on earth whom he desires beside Him: such is the effect of trial.
The recovery ends in worship.
And it was even so, for he breaks out into worship, the worship of a mind at rest and a heart satisfied. "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you." God became his present and everlasting portion.
The verse names no gift. It names a Person.
We had precious promises in the previous section. Here we have a precious portion. Word for word, the Hebrew says: "My portion is Jahweh…" We are not talking about blessings, or promises, but about a Person! Many Christians are so occupied with the blessings that they forget the Blesser. In the same way, many are so enthralled with their spiritual gifts that they ignore the Giver! Psalm 73:25 expresses it beautifully: "Whom have I in heaven…?" ("but you" is added in the King James Translation, but does not appear in the original).
The first half of the verse searches heaven itself — and finds nothing there apart from God.
Heaven itself is not a saint's reward. "Whom have I in heaven but you?"
Take that further: heaven's own joys would fall flat without God Himself.
If all the affections and joys of heaven were the portion of the soul, it would still be unhappy without God. There would be misery in heaven unless God were the portion of each one there. If the soul is taken up with coming glory, it needs to join to that glory the thought of God being its portion and its joy. Otherwise the glory itself would be too heavy a burden, for glory is a strange thing to us.
The second half of the verse answers the envy that opened the psalm. Wanting nothing else on earth is the opposite of coveting what the wicked hold.
The one who knows God in this way has found in God the satisfying portion of his soul. Not only is he an object to God, but now God becomes the one Object to him. He can say, "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you." But what about the prosperity of the wicked, their riches and their ease which he once envied? "Oh," the Psalmist would say, "speak no more of those things. I have been into the sanctuary. I have learned the heart of God, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Him."
The verse is about desire, so it measures us. And this desire can never ask for too much.
As another has said, "We all have as much of Christ as we desire — no more and no less." Think of what the psalmist says: "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you." How searching this is. We cannot desire too much, and our greatest demands will never be disappointed. However much our capacity grows, it can never outgrow the greatness of the supply.
One writer points the verse straight to Christ. He meets both the conscience and the heart.
Such a soul will find everything in Christ, whom the world rejected and who is now risen and ascended. In Him is all that his conscience needs as a sinner, and all that his heart can desire as a believer. "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you."
- Trial — sorrow produced this confession, not comfort: "such is the effect of trial."
- Sanctuary — in God's presence the man saw how things end, and worship replaced envy.
- Person — what he found was not promises or gifts but a portion: the Blesser rather than the blessings.
- Heaven — searched and found empty apart from God; even glory would be a burden if God Himself were not the joy of it.
- Desire — the verse then measures us, because we hold as much of Christ as we want, and no demand we make is ever too large.
My flesh and my heart faileth God is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever.
The man who wrote this psalm had envied the success of the wicked and almost slipped, until he went into the sanctuary of God. This line is not a boast about his own strength — it admits that he fails, and names what holds him when he does.
The psalm does not argue that a believer's strength holds out. It admits that strength gives way, and puts the weight somewhere else.
Heart and flesh fail; surely they do. God is the strength of my heart. He supports us with divine strength and goodness, and He sustains the heart. He is not only a present support but an everlasting portion — our portion for ever. This leads to a sweet and earnest conclusion. It is good for me to draw near to God. There we learn truth; there we find comfort.
Some translations read "rock" here instead of "strength." The picture is of a man who had nearly slipped, finding solid ground under his feet.
"I know it," the Psalmist seems to reply, "for I have learnt by bitter experience that my flesh and my heart fail. There was a time when my feet had nearly slipped. But I have been into the sanctuary and I have found a resting-place for my poor trembling heart. God is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever." The heart that once envied the wicked has found its satisfying portion in the heart of God. The feet that had almost gone now stand firm on the rock.
That same reading carries a warmth that a word like "strength" alone might not suggest.
"The rock of my heart" — this points to something different from other pictures of a rock. It means our affections are involved: we love Him because He first loved us. The "rock of my heart" is the One who loves us with an unshakeable love, and whom we love — poorly, yes, but we do love, in response.
He had envied what the wicked owned. Set that beside what he owns, and the timescale settles the argument.
His flesh and his heart fail — experience had taught him that. Even so, he could say, "But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." What comparison is there between the few short years of his life and "forever"? It is the eternal issue that counts!
Knowing God this way does not solve the puzzle of why evil men prosper. It takes the sting out of watching them.
Gaining this heart-knowledge of Him, we find Him to be the strength of our hearts and our portion for ever. With God as our strength and portion we are no longer "envious of the arrogant," nor troubled because we see "the prosperity of the wicked." We can rejoice in God as our portion so fully that the apparent success of evil men no longer troubles us. That holds even though we do not know the solution to the problem their success creates.
There is a smaller way of holding God: treating Him as help for the trouble at hand, not as the One we want.
If my mind is fixed on present circumstances and difficulties, and on God helping me in them, the spring of joy is gone. I have made God the servant of my needs. The heart rests and settles there, and God sinks down into a mere help in time of trouble. It is true that "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1). But to bring Him down to only that changes the whole picture. He Himself is ours as our portion, and that cannot fail.
The confession sits in a chain of statements about what God does. It does not end with a comforted man sitting silent.
He knows me, He holds me, He guides me, and afterwards will receive me to glory. How much God is to him! There is none like Him in heaven or on earth. Flesh and heart may fail, but God will be the strength of his heart and his portion for ever. Nor is this all. While all who are far from God shall perish, the faithful one draws near to Him. He makes God his refuge, and has the privilege and joy of telling of all His works.
- Fail — the verse admits what we try to hide. Heart and flesh do give out, and commentators take that admission at face value.
- Rock — read as "rock of my heart," the line sets a man who nearly slipped on firm ground. The rock is a love that cannot be shaken, and that draws love back.
- Portion — God is not help for a hard patch. He is the possession itself, and shrinking Him to a help in trouble drains the joy away.
- Forever — the prosperity he envied lasts a few short years. His own portion lasts "forever," and that settles the comparison.
- Near — the result is not private relief only. Envy loses its grip, the soul draws near, and the mouth tells what God has done.
For behold, they that are far from thee shall perish; thou destroyest every one that goeth a whoring from thee.
Asaph's psalm opens with envy at how well the wicked live. It ends with a verdict on where each road leads, and it names the real danger: distance from God.
The psalm's argument lands in its final two lines. They give the outcome for both groups at once.
The last two verses declare the result — those far from Jehovah, and those who turn away from Him, perish; but it is good for the godly to draw near to God. The godly man trusted Him while He kept Himself hidden, so that he might declare all His works when deliverance came.
The word behind "far from you" carries more than geography.
Rechokim means being pushed away into the distance, and it has a moral bearing as well as a spatial one. The same root word occurs in Psalm 73:27, where it is translated "far from you."
That moral distance is not neutral ground.
The presence of God must have a sanctifying and satisfying effect on all who seek it. But every evil thing is possible to those who love to stay at a distance from God.
The second half of the verse speaks of being unfaithful to God. One writer applies this to Christians drawn toward a path that promises a higher spiritual life.
Satan's servants had persuaded them. They wanted a path that promised to lead them to a "higher Christianity," as they wrongly thought. But it leads those who follow it into the darkness that God never lights. Like Israel of old, they were being unfaithful to the living Truth by following a lying shadow. Destruction is the end of all who do not repent at the voice of His rebuke (Deuteronomy 31:16; Psalm 73:27; Revelation 2:23).
The verse does not describe an accident. Someone does the destroying.
As for those who prospered in the world but with hearts far removed from God, they will perish. For God Himself will destroy all who choose falsehood instead of His favour.
Nothing he could see supported such a verdict. The turning point came when he entered God's sanctuary, the place of His presence. There he looked past the present scene to the outcome.
Even if he resists these painful doubts, they stay unanswered until the psalmist enters the sanctuary. There, in the presence of God, everything becomes plain. At once his whole outlook changes. He had looked at the outward prosperity of the wicked; now he sees their end. He had been thinking of what men say and do; now he sees what God is doing in relation to the wicked.
This verse sets up the next one. That closing line brings the psalm back to where it started.
(verses 27-28) Those who live far from God will come under judgment. Those who draw near to God will surely find that God is good to Israel (verse 1).
Commentators also read the closing verses as a promise of Israel's future restoration.
The last verse applies to the believer now. It will also have a striking fulfilment in the day when Israel has returned to the God they turned away from so deeply (Hosea 14). Then they will find that nearness to God is good. The Christian knows this already. Israel will know the same truth when the veil is taken from their heart. Then they will know Him whose precious blood alone brings the rebellious outcasts near to the God of peace, with perfect and eternal acceptance.
- Distance. "Far from you" is a matter of the heart, not location — and at that distance every evil becomes possible.
- Choice. Distance hardens into unfaithfulness — following a lying shadow instead of the living Truth. Destruction is the end for all who do not repent.
- Verdict. The ruin is not bad luck. God Himself destroys those who choose falsehood over His favour.
- Sight. Asaph could say this only after entering the sanctuary. There he stopped watching the wicked and saw what God is doing.
- Nearness. The verse points to its opposite: drawing near is good. The psalm's last word matches its first — God is good to His people.
But as for me, it is good for me to draw near to God I have put my trust in the Lord Jehovah, that I may declare all thy works.
Psalm 73 wrestles with the apparent success of evil men. Its last verse is the writer's settled conclusion — what he found, in the end, to be good.
The psalm's final line is not a new thought but the personal answer to its first line. One writer traces the shape of the whole song from its bookends:
The writer opens this beautiful Psalm with a simple but blessed statement concerning God, and closes with a happy conclusion concerning himself. "Truly God is good" is the statement of the first verse; "it is good for me to draw near to God" is the conclusion of the last verse. Accept the statement and we must agree with the conclusion.
Earlier in the psalm the writer complains that God plagues him all day and disciplines him every morning. One writer asks what that complaint proves about where the man stands.
"Nature shrinks," as we often say — meaning the nature of the "old man," not the nature of the "new." Its bitter complaint may be: "All day long I have been plagued, and disciplined every morning." But what does that prove, except that we are outside the "sanctuary"? Only there can we understand 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, and that secures it to us.
He came in with a question. He left with something better than an answer.
The Psalm ends on this note, that it is good to draw near to God. Asaph started to draw near because he wanted an explanation of his difficulties. He ended by drawing near because of the excellence of the knowledge of God Himself.
That shift shows itself in what no longer disturbs him:
With God for our strength and portion we are no longer "envious at the foolish," nor troubled because we see "the prosperity of the wicked." It is possible, we believe, to be so rejoicing in God as our portion that we are no longer troubled at the apparent success of evil men, even though we do not know the solution of the problem created by their success.
The verse names God twice over — "the Lord GOD." Where ESV says "I have made the Lord GOD my refuge," older translations read "I have put my trust." One writer weighs what that name adds:
It is good for me to draw near to God. There we learn truth; there we find comfort. He has put his trust in the Lord Jehovah — One sovereign in power, lasting and faithful in promise. Anyone who does that will certainly go on to declare all His wonderful works. He will be in the place to see them and experience them. He will have the heart to notice them and understand them, and the joy of testifying to the faithfulness of the One his heart has trusted. In verse 20 we have only sovereign power; in the last verse, covenant faithfulness also.
The psalm's two statements about what is good lead to something the man now does:
Truly God is good to His people (verse 1); and it is good to draw near to God (verse 28); and the one who draws near to God becomes a witness to others. "I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all your works."
The same point is put in terms of what he no longer needs to do — measure himself against other people:
In contrast, Asaph finds it good to draw near to God. In God's presence he does not need to compare his circumstances with those of others. Rather, putting his trust in the Lord, he finds true pleasure in declaring all God's works to others (v. 28).
Commentators read this last verse on two levels at once: as a present word for any believer, and as something Israel as a nation will one day say.
The last verse applies to the believer now, but it will also have a striking fulfilment in the day when Israel has returned to the One they so deeply rebelled against. Then they will find that nearness to God is good. The Christian already knows this, since his heart responds to the Spirit's witness: it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods (Heb. 13:9). Israel will know the same truth when the veil is taken off their heart. Then they will know the One whose precious blood alone brings the rebellious outcasts near to the God of peace, with perfect and eternal acceptance.
- Good. The psalm's first word about God is that He is good. Its last word is about the writer himself: it is good to draw near. Accept the first and the second follows.
- Outside. Outside the sanctuary, daily trouble sounds like a complaint. Inside, the same discipline reads as painstaking care and love.
- Inside. He went in wanting an explanation. He came out wanting God. A heart that has God as its portion stops envying the prosperity of the wicked, even when the puzzle stays unsolved.
- Trusted. The name he trusts adds covenant faithfulness to sovereign power. God is not only strong; He keeps His promises.
- Declared. The man who draws near sees God's works and understands them. Then he tells others what God has done.