Ps. 37.37-38 (Yhwh's garden)

“Observe / the blameless / and watch / the upright – for / a peaceful man / has a future – but transgressors / shall be destroyed / together – the future of transgressors / shall be / cut off.” The previous section began with the teacher’s (past) observation of the wicked as they grew, ‘luxuriant’, like a ‘native tree’. They seemed utterly at home in the land and drawing from it and being blessed by it. They were, in short, a remarkable object of beauty in their success. There was, however, a marked note of anxiety in this; they were, after all, wicked. The teacher (the observer), in observing this tree, was placed within the ‘hiatus’ between Yhwh’s seeing and Yhwh’s acting that we have noted throughout the psalm. These two actions should be united in Yhwh (his seeing and acting), but here (in ‘the land’) a tree was allowed to grow—and, not just grow, but flourish and dominate the landscape—that was in rebellion to Yhwh (and, truly, to the land itself). This was no ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’ nor was it a ‘tree of life’. This was a tree thriving on its power to take and never return, of slander and liable, and of ‘lying in wait’ to slay the righteous. This was a tree of death and curse. Here, the teacher’s ‘observations’ are focused elsewhere, to the ‘blameless and upright’. It is to them that one’s watchfulness should be geared. And the contrast with the previous section is indicative of the fact that these men are not surrounded by the glory of the wicked; rather, it is likely that they are humble and the lowly. And yet, as we have seen throughout the psalm, it is precisely to them that a future is granted. While they may not be a type of vegetation that is easily noticed now they will come to represent the only life in the land; they will, in short, come to have bestowed upon them all of the glory that the wicked now enjoy. But, for now, in that hiatus time between Yhwh’s seeing and acting, they are like small plants (one might say “mustard seeds”). They are being steadfastly looked over by Yhwh and protected, but their success is something that will come in the future once the larger ‘trees’ have been cleared so that the sun can enliven them. The point the teacher is attempting to get at is that the type of vision necessary to see these men is one of patience and trust in Yhwh’s ownership over them. While the larger wicked tree may be growing, like ‘native’ tree, that is precisely all is doing: it is growing purely on its own power and strength. And, just like all of the goods we have encountered in this psalm, if one’s life is not something given by Yhwh it will be cut off; it is an object of vanity. Rather, it is precisely the ‘transplanted trees’ (Psalm 1) that are the objects of Yhwh’s attention and care. We must recall that evil is something that is ‘works under its own steam’, much like a ‘natural plant’. It generates its own energy; it grasps at its own wealth. The righteous, by contrast, are provided for, they are ‘taken from one land’ and ‘planted in another’. They are anything but ‘natural’. They see themselves as not residing in themselves but being planted by Yhwh and are always already aware of the fact that they came ‘late in the game’. While almost any other culture reveals in its antiquity, Israel was created long after the fact. And, not only that, but their land is not one they originally came from. They didn’t ‘grow up there’ but were, in the words of the prophets, found ‘weltering in their (baby) blood’ in the desert. All of this may seem far afield of this verse (and it probably is), but the point is that the ‘inheritance’ that the teacher sees the righteous coming into is always in the future, much like Israel’s origins were not ‘in the beginning’ (yes, in some sense it was; but clearly in some sense it was not) and never really seemed complete, which is very much like these men the teacher is now asking the student to observe (they are like Abraham in the land; almost entirely unrecognizable and of almost no consequence and yet he was the harbinger of the future kingdom that would overtake the land). Transgressors, on the other hand, those who are actually native to the land, will be ‘cut off’. Although they have a past, they have no future in the land. In this regard, the land, as a type of garden, will always show forth this dynamic: that it is something fashioned not by itself, but by Yhwh the gardener who both clears away what is natural and plants what is alien.