Ps. 92.7 (the beginning of the beginning)

When the wicked thrive / they are like grass
and when all the evildoers / blossom out
it is to be / forever destroyed. 

There are several interrelated observations to make about this verse, solely from a structural perspective (its context in the psalm). The first pertains to the immediately preceding verse on the idiots and fools who fail to recognize/rejoice in Yhwh’s work. There, the focus seemed to be on a failure of perception and appreciation. The idiots and fools lacked a necessary quality; they were oblivious to the beauty and glory. Here, by contrast, the psalmist focuses on the ‘wicked’ and the ‘evildoers’. It would seem that these people are not so much failing as in actively transgressing certain boundaries. In other words, the first group failed to achieve a certain standard. These violate a standard. It may be that this explains why the ‘idiots and fools’ suffer no punishment while the wicked and evildoers are ‘forever destroyed’. The failure to achieve the standard of joyful perception is, itself, its own type of punishment. The active transgression of a standard, however, must be corrected by punishment and destruction. That said, the psalmist, by grouping them together, finds them to both be culpable in a similar fashion. Both of these groups are, in the final analysis, ‘removed’; they are ‘scattered’ (vs. 11), and, in the final vision of the Temple, there is only praise-recognition and righteous trees (no fools, and no grass). 

Which leads to the second structural observation, and that is how this verse is positioned as to what follows. The ‘flow’ of the psalm moves from the ‘grass of the wicked’, to the forever Yhwh-On-High, and then back down to the enemies and their destruction. There is a geographic drama here, from the lowliness of grass, the pinnacle of Yhwh on his Temple-Mountain, and then back ‘down’ to the realm of ‘perishing and scattering’ (vs. 9). The psalm implies a type of “W” structure (Praise, down to wicked, up to Yhwh, down to wicked, Praise). The geographic, theological drama contains within it the difference between the ‘sacred and the profane’. In the sacred realm of Praise and Temple—there is the ‘forever’ of Yhwh. In the profane realm of the wicked, and of grass, on the other hand, there is the realm of destruction and scattering. Importantly, however, the ‘profane’ is not, in the end, a place; it is a people (the wicked, the fools and the idiots, and the enemies of Yhwh and his king). For the psalmist, and the Scriptures, the ‘profane’ is moral, not physical (although the physical can be made profane through contact). Things are ‘made profane’ but not profane by nature, per se. 

A third structural observation is the use of the word ‘thrive’. Here, the wicked do, in fact, ‘thrive’. They are abundant; they are luxuriant. They are filled with (what I think is a central motif of the psalm) vitality. And, so are the righteous. In verse 12, they “thrive”; they flourish; they bear fruit; they are ‘full of sap’. The difference is that the wicked’s ‘thriving’ follows the natural course of ‘grass’ and ‘blossoms’ after a rain—they spring up only to wither away and be destroyed within a very short span of time. In fact, their ‘thriving’ is just as impressive as their destruction because they are both as ‘immediate’.  While ‘rain’ may fall on the wicked and righteous alike, their ‘perpetuity’ is entirely different. And this reality needs to be emphasized here, although we will focus more on the righteous in due course. What we need to point out though, is that they brevity of the wicked cannot (or, should not) be understood apart from the perpetuity of the righteous. The images mutually interpret each other. One is grass; the other, trees. One thrives, but only for a short time; the other thrives, but perpetually. The point, however, is clearly that these are not ‘equal’ images—it is the realm of the sacred and the presence of Yhwh in his Temple that is the ‘standard’ by which the wicked are judged. In other words, the wicked are encased by the images of the righteous. Their ‘short-lived’ nature cannot be fully understood unless and until one has first glimpsed the magnificence of the perpetual liturgy of the righteous. The ‘shadow’ within which the wicked live, is a shadow cast by the light of the righteous in Yhwh’s presence; and, without the light, there is no shadow but only darkness. The poverty of the wicked will not seem so poor until one has entered into the abundant, and luxuriant, ‘thriving’ of the righteous (vs. 12-15). As such, and I think the psalm is very intent on making this point by its structure, the ‘form of the wicked’ (their very ‘shape’) cannot be really perceived unless and until one first enters into the liturgy embodied by the Adam-king and the righteous (vs. 1-6 and 12-15). 

One final note: we have already remarked on the fact that the seventh day, the Sabbath, contains no darkness. It is a time of perpetual, and enduring light. It has, appropriately, been understood in this regard as an ‘already but not yet’ participating in the time when all of creation will enter into the final Sabbath, the ‘reign of God’ when the darkness will be entirely blotted out, forever. In this verse, the grass is not simply destroyed, but ‘destroyed forever’. There is a finality and completeness to their destruction. This might seem too tenuous until we realize that the following verse speaks of another ‘forever’—“But you are the One-Who-Is-On-High, forever, O Yhwh”. At the direct center of the psalm, like a pinnacle, is the forever of Yhwh. In a sense, Yhwh is the Sabbath. And, in his light, there is no darkness. This is a profound point—the psalm clearly applies to a ‘historical’ victory of the king (vs. 10-11). This ‘victory’ is, like the Sabbath, an ‘already-but-not-yet’ participation within the final victory of Yhwh when creation will, so to speak, be ‘completed’ in the Sabbath-of-Sabbaths (completed, we note, in Temple liturgy). Then will be ‘the beginning of the beginning’.