Ps. 37.3-4 (when goods are good)

“Trust in Yhwh / and do good; - dwell / in the land / and find / safe pasture / and take delight / in Yhwh – and he will / give you / your heart’s desires.” The first two verses focused on what is to be avoided (fretting and envy) due to the chasm that has opened up by the wicked/evil person’s success. Stated negatively, this was to be avoided because these men will “wither quickly” and “die away”. In other words, the ‘teacher’ is imploring his student to ignore these men because their time is short.  As we will see, this focus on time is a central feature of the psalm. Here, the teacher moves into the positive exhortations: trust…do good…dwell in the land…find safe pasture…take delight…heart’s desires. If the previous verse was asking the student to ‘turn away’ from the evil men, this verse is presenting him with an object to turn toward. And, the teacher is supplying the reversal of verses 1-2: “do not envy those who do wrong” – “trust in Yhwh and do good”; “like grass they will wither quickly” – “dwell in the land and find safe pasture”; “do not fret/envy” – “take delight in Yhwh”.  There is one thing in particular I want to focus on in this regard: Yhwh as the source of all good things.

Yhwh as source: the first two verses, if read alone, have the potential of being interpreted in a manner that is very inconsistent with the rest of the psalm. It could be read to say not to focus on the wicked nor desire what they have. If read this way the verses would be encouraging a form of detachment from the ‘goods’ the evil possess (including wealth, honor, prestige, family, etc…). However, that does not seem to be the point. Rather, the goods the evil have are goods. The problem is not what they have but that they have them at all. However, there is something to that reading that is partially true. Verses 3-4 encourage the student to, during this ‘hiatus’, “trust in Yhwh” and through such trust his “heart’s desires” will be given to him. In other words, trust in Yhwh that he will close the gap and provide for you the things the evil men now have. Within this time of patience, though, the student must come to see that the stability that comes with the goods (the fact that they will not, as with the wicked man, be taken away quickly) only comes if one “trusts in Yhwh” and “takes delight in Yhwh”. If the goods are focused on, in and of themselves, ‘fretting’ and ‘envy’ emerge because these goods can and do come into evil men’s possession. The point is not simply to possess them, but to possess them with security and perpetually. It is these further qualities of the goods (security and perpetuity) that only comes from Yhwh. This is where that truth of detachment emerges but in a very modified way: goods are not grounded in themselves but only when they are given by Yhwh. Detachment, in our sense, recognizes that goods are ‘good’ only when they can be securely enjoyed and passed on (as we will see later, the righteous are able to pass these on as “an inheritance”). Understood from this vantage point, it seems very telling that many prophecies (from the OT up to Revelation) envision wealth flowing to the righteous only eschatologically (i.e., once ‘everything is subjected to the father’; once ‘haven descends to earth” upon Christ’s return). It is only then that ‘goods’ will find their fulfillment in time (in perpetuity and security).