Ps. 37.7 (the balm of vanity)

“Be still / before Yhwh  - and wait patiently / for him. – Do not fret / because they make their way / successful – because people / carry out / their schemes.” On one level this verse seems to simply reiterate what has come before: the teacher directing the student to ‘trust in Yhwh’ or ‘commit your way to Yhwh’. While patience has been certainly implied in the previous directives, it is not until here that it plainly emerges. The import is that Yhwh will rectify the imbalance, that he will restore to the righteous the ‘success’ they see the wicked obtaining. The image of ‘stillness’, however, develops the theme in important ways. We have seen already, and is here repeated, that the student is not to ‘fret’ over the wicked’s success. It seems as if this internal agitation is what the teacher is encouraging the student to refrain from by ‘being still’. Furthermore, this ‘stillness’ is not merely one of internal detachment (as we have criticized in previous reflections) but of relational stillness ‘before Yhwh’. It is precisely because of the one in front of whom one is still that one can achieve this freedom from anxiety. And, furthermore, it is because Yhwh is going provide for the righteous enduring goods, something the wicked cannot obtain. A second important aspect to these verses is that the wicked “make their way successful”, they “carry out their schemes.” We have emphasized in previous reflections that enduring goods (goods that can be had without anxiety and that can be passed down through generations) is something that only Yhwh can provide. What this psalm recognizes, on the other hand, is that a world devoid of Yhwh’s ‘giving’ is one of anxiety and of the continuous oscillating nature of goods. This is why these verses emphasize that the wicked “make their way successful” and “carry out their plans”. Success can be had within the world—that is not questioned. What can’t be had apart from Yhwh making the way successful is enduring success. Notice the contrast with verse 5 (“Commit your way to Yhwh … and he will do it….he will make your righteousness come forth…”). The ‘wicked’ are those who operate under their own steam, and, according to this psalm (and many others) suffer from the ‘natural law’ of evil’s own instability and the fact that evil ‘boomerangs’ back onto the person who commits it. In a sense, evil naturally ‘withers’ out of season and dies quickly (vs. 1); one other hand, it is also something that Yhwh “cuts off” from the land. The point is that if the student wants goods that endure the present is a time of patience, trust, waiting and stillness. Were one to ‘fret’ during this time one may well find oneself “cut off”, “withering” and “dying quickly”.