Ps 37.30-31 (wisdom: walking and talking)

“The righteous man’s / mouth / utters wisdom – and his tongue / speaks / justice. – His god’s instruction / is in his heart – and his footsteps – do not slip.” Up to this point the ‘righteous’ and the ‘wicked’ have been contrasted largely through how they treat their wealth. The wicked borrow, but don’t repay whereas the righteous give and lend freely. There has, as we indicated, in vs.  23-24 a very similar description of the righteous, particularly as it relates to their ‘walking’, but there has not been any indication, in either with the wicked or the righteous, as to their manner of speech. Likewise, even though the psalm is a ‘wisdom’ psalm, this is the first and only time the word ‘wisdom’ is actually used. The question then becomes how this section coheres with the rest of the psalm. Initially, we should note how the lines are arranged. The first two lines speak of operation of the ‘mouth’ and the ‘tongue’. It seems logical to conclude that they are largely parallel. If that is the case, then the utterance of wisdom is likened to the speaking of justice. Two observations: one a question, the other an interpretation. First, what does it mean to ‘speak justice’? Is it referring to some type of ‘ruling’? Don’t we usually think of performing justice? The answer seems fairly straightforward: wisdom and justice and integrally related in such a way that they are both ‘active’ (wisdom is not, here, the knowledge of the ‘right order’ of things and how to live in accordance with that order). They produce a good result in other words. This completely coheres with the other use of the word ‘justice’ in the psalm: “Turn from evil and do good … for Yhwh loves justice.” (vs. 27-28). Words, in these verses, as in almost all the other psalms we have looked at, are not merely ‘pointers’ to another reality; words are deeds—they accomplish things and are performative. Furthermore, as vs. 27-28 make clear, these words are objects of affection to Yhwh (he loves justice). All of this, however, is really merely preface to the following verse: “his god’s instruction is in his heart”. The ‘heart’ is mentioned twice in this psalm: here, and in vs. 15 where the wicked are described as performing a type of suicide (“their sword will enter their own heart”.) There, we saw how the wicked heart’s destruction was rooted, primarily, in the self destructive nature of evil itself: it creates its own judgment and boomerangs back upon the one enacting it. Here, the thrust is entirely different. This man’s heart, rather that being the object of an evil sword, is a ‘womb’ within which Yhwh’s instruction grows. Whereas the fruit of the wicked man’s heart is his heart’s destruction, the fruit of the righteous man’s heart is Yhwh’s protection and governance (“and his footsteps do not slip” is very similar to “A man’s steps are established by Yhwh … if he falls, he wont fall flat on his face for Yhwh is holding his hand.”). The ‘womb’ imagery also gets close to the second point: the wise man’s words are his, but the instruction in his heart is ‘his gods’. There is a dynamism at work here: the wise man has taken into himself the ‘seed’ of Yhwh’s instruction. Within his ‘heart’/womb he adds to that instruction his own active appropriation in such a way that what comes out of his mouth is “wisdom” and “justice” (qualities that are Yhwh’s), the ‘children’ of this union of instruction and appropriation. It is in this dual-nature of instruction and speaking that we find his ‘footsteps not slipping’. Just as the words are his, so too are his footsteps; however, this man is a ‘lover’ of Yhwh’s instruction. His steps and his words, therefore, are the expression of this loving embrace of Yhwh’s concern and care; in other words, his ‘goodness’. And, it is this cooperation that I think we come to see this section’s relevance to the rest of the psalm: the land given to the righteous in perpetuity is much like Yhwh’s instruction. Both of them are to be actively appropriated and incorporated into one’s life, and it is precisely in that active possession of Yhwh’s instruction and ‘the land’, that ‘perpetuity’ results, either in continuous possession or in ‘footsteps that don’t falter’.