Ps. 1:3

Ps. 1:3

This verse represents the middle of the Psalm and it strikes me like the pinnacle, with verses 1-2 representing the ‘left side’/ascent of the mountain and verses 4-6 representing the ‘right side’’descent. Or, to use another analogy, this is the heart of the poem, from which the other verses flow into and out of. Here we have a positive description (in metaphor) of what the “blessed man” is like. No more is there “what he does not do” or “what he does do”. We now see “him”.

Here is my diagram:

So shall he be:
                        Like a tree    :                   transplanted   :  by running waters
                        Which shall  :                   yield its fruit    :  in its season

                       And its foliage shall not  :  wither
                       So in all that he shall do  :  he shall prosper


The presence of “shall”: here at the center of Psalm we see five uses of the word “shall” describing the blessed man:

            He shall be like a tree
            Which shall yield fruit
           
            Its foliage shall not wither

            So in all he shall do
            He shall prosper

There is a sense here of guarantee, of inevitably, or of absolute stability. This will mark a sharp contrast with the wicked in the next few verses. But it seems here to work like something of a promise.

Further reflections:
1) The tree is transplanted. The Psalm could have easily said the blessed man is “like a tree by running waters.” But he adds the term “transplanted”. Throughout the prophets and in some Psalms Israel is compared to a transplanted vine, one that God moves (usually from Egypt) into the promised land. He “prepares” the land for its arrival. In this way Yhwh acts like a gardener. Literally speaking, this tree works like one taken from a dry place and removed to one near something like an irrigation channel where it will receive a continuous (and guaranteed) source of water.
a.       If we are to hear in this a reference to the exodus, then we see that the blessed man’s avoidance of evil men and his delight in the Torah operates in a way analogous to the exodus itself: he is avoiding (or delivered) from the Egyptians (the wicked) and taken (transplanted) to running waters (the Torah). This is rather shocking. The Torah has here been made into something like the promised land itself. As we will see, there may be even something more shocking than this.
2)       “Running water”: Jeremiah in particular often refers to the Israelites abandoning running water for stagnant water, by which he means they have abandoned Yhwh for other gods whose water is lifeless, murky and unsatisfying. Jesus will later pick up on this image with the woman at the well and say that he is the running water and that those are believe in/on him will have running water welling up in them (to eternal life…”blessed life”?).
3)       Transplanted tree to running water: combining both of the previous ideas we see that not only is this tree (this blessed man) ‘transplanted’ (delivered in a new exodus) to a promised land of flowing water, but he is in fact taken to the very presence of God. One thing that I think is important to note here is that the Jews were taken out of Egypt not for their own freedom but “so they could worship God”. They were taken out so that they could participate in liturgy. And the ‘liturgy’ they participated in was the establishment of the covenant, the giving of the Torah and the moving of God’s presence into their midst. Perhaps something like that is being claimed for the blessed man who meditates on the Torah—he is ‘taken out’ to ‘worship’ God and God comes to him (as running water) to dwell with him in covenant.
4)       “In season”: Like any plant, the vine is supposed to, by nature and in its proper season, produce ‘fruit’ (or grapes).
a.       Jeremiah, in particular, returns to this metaphor over and over again, often with his shocking questions revolving around either the vine isn’t producing fruit at all when the ‘season’ arrives or it produces ‘wild grapes’. This image, incidentally, applies to fig trees (hence Jesus’ cursing of the ‘fig tree’). The natural effect of a vine (or fig tree) is fruit. And that is what the gardener is looking for. Likewise, in Jeremiah at least, Israel’s infidelity is contrasted with the regular patterns of creation (the fact that the oceans don’t engulf the sands, or that winter doesn’t overtake summer). The seasonal structure of nature is nature’s following of the “law” (torah) laid down by God. One need only look to Genesis to see that “division” and “separation” is what enables the beauty of creation to emerge (and this division cuts right through “time” and “matter”: time in the separating of the morning from the night and the days; matter: in the separation of waters from the land. The Torah also has strict guidelines about what food to eat and the food that is usually not permitted is because it suffers from some type of “category confusion” (for example, a lobster: it moves under water but it doesn’t look like a fish—why you can’t eat shellfish; or an ostrich: a bird that can’t fly; along the moral lines: this is why homosexuality is deemed wicked—it is a ‘category mistake’ in that a man is supposed to lie down with a woman).
b.       “Fruit”: God gives himself so the receiver might give back to Him more than what was originally provided. Just like Christ’s talents parable, the giving of the talents is so that they might come back to the giver with more. The blessed man doesn’t “bury the Torah” in the ground in order to preserve it, inviolate. He “delights” in it, is “planted” in it and the Torah’s purpose is soil. In a way we might say, to perceive the Torah as fruit rather than soil is miss the point. It is food; it is water; it is the source of a living relationship with God. The Torah, in man, bears fruit, but man must be the womb within which the Torah is planted/impregnated. Otherwise it is just “seed” that falls to the ground.
5)       Foliage shall not wither: this is the only reference to “shall not” (and, oddly, I can’t help but hear the words of the serpent, “you shall not die…”). While his fruit is regulated by seasons (as all fruit should be), his foliage is one that is eternal. This is a striking claim. Some commentators will say that this Psalm is not about “eternal life” but the blessed man’s present life and God’s preservation of that life. I think that this is missing the point and seems to assume that there is just “life” and “eternal life” in two separate categories and never the two shall meet.
a.       I think there is something going on here with the contrast of seasonal fruit and a perpetually green foliage that allows one to understand by this that in God’s presence, in God’s Torah, one is rooted in the source of all life and is, hence, in that dwelling, already “immortal”. This is what Adam and Eve had. They were not immortal by nature, but immortal by relationship, by dwelling in God’s presence, which is the very source of all life (in fact, it IS life). I believe there is a reference here not so much to “immortality” but to God’s Presence in Torah. God’s presence is greater than life itself; it calls (it delights) the Psalmist to such an extent that the natural decay a tree would suffer is halted. This will be something I need to return to when we look at this Psalm in light of Christ.
b.       I cannot help but think that the blessed man’s “delight” in Torah is a perception of this perpetually giving source of water and life—this “eternal life” that wells up from God’s presence. Delight and perceptions of beauty are inherently an ecstatic perception (a moving away from oneself into the perceived). This “blessed man”, in his “delight”, is ecstatically taken (transplanted) out of himself and into God’s presence. We might even say that he is “transplanted” back into God’s garden (Eden) where God is, once again, his gardener and provider.
c.       This “blessed man” like a tree was made to drink, perpetually.
6)       “So in all he shall do he shall prosper”: Just like a tree that naturally produces fruit if it is well watered and cared for, so shall the blessed man naturally prosper if he is rooted in Torah. And this “prospering” is rooted in a “shall”. We might begin to understand the prophets’ (and Jesus’) amazement, then, when some plants do not “prosper” (bear fruit) when everything has been provided them.