Sunday
Sunday
Psalm 1—the Righteous and the Wicked
The LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Psalm 1:6
The wisdom literature makes a clear-cut distinction between “the righteous” and “the wicked” as also between their present fortunes and their future destinies. In doing so, the psalmist is only anticipating the teaching of Jesus that men and women are either on the broad road that leads to destruction or on the narrow way that leads to life (Matt. 7:13–14).
On the one hand, the righteous will prosper, although not always materially. They choose their company carefully and whose counsel they seek. They delight in God’s law and make it their constant meditation. Indeed, God’s people still experience the same thing. Daily meditation in the Bible is our unending pleasure. As a result, we are like a tree planted by streams of water, enjoying perpetual refreshment, nourishment, and fruitfulness.
The wicked, on the other hand, will “perish.” Instead of being like a well-rooted and fruitful tree, they are like dry chaff blown away by the wind. It was a familiar scene in Palestine. The threshing floor was usually a hard, flat surface on a hill exposed to the wind. The wheat was lifted by large winnowing fans or shovels and tossed into the air. Then the precious grain would fall and be harvested, while the light husks of chaff would be scattered to the four winds. As John the Baptist was later to say of the Messiah, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt. 3:12).
Thus the wicked are like chaff in two senses. Firstly, they are desiccated and useless in themselves, and secondly, they are easily blown away or burned. So the tree is planted firmly, but the chaff is unstable. Stability should always be a characteristic of the people of God.
For further reading: Psalm 1:1–6