Psalm 1

Genre: Ps. 1 is one of three psalms whose focus is torah, which means both law and instruction. The others are 19 and 119. Torah psalms are sometimes classified as wisdom psalms (e.g., Ps. 37). This is because of the connection between torah and wisdom, a connection seen in Proverbs 1:8 and 13:14. Psalms 1, 19, and 119 nonetheless form a distinct class due to the centrality of torah. 

Theme: 

One of the themes that Ps. 1 shares with wisdom literature is the idea of the two ways. Like Proverbs 4:14-19, Ps. 1 speaks of two kinds of people and their destines. On one hand, there are those whose delight is God's torah (v. 2), who prosper in all they do (v. 3), and whose way is monitored by God (v. 6). On the other hand are the wicked, who are like chaff and are subject to God’s judgment (v. 5). This binary picture of human life is common in the Bible and appears in the New Testament's metaphors of light and darkness (e.g., Ephesians 5:8; John 3:19-21).

Metaphors: 

• Ps. 1 portrays the life of the righteous as walking along a path. The NASB preserves this metaphor: “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners,” which we find also in Prov. 4:14-19 and Deuteronomy 5:33. 

• Alongside this metaphor of movement, Ps. 1 contrasts the righteous and the wicked with the metaphor of standing: The righteous do not stand in the path of sinners (v. 1); the wicked will not stand (literally, stand up) in the day of judgment and will have no place among the righteous (v. 5).

• Verses 3 and 4 introduce an agricultural metaphor: The righteous are like trees that bear fruit; the wicked are chaff scattered by the wind.

Intertextuality: There is general agreement among scholars that Ps. 1 was written in the post-exilic period. In support of that thesis, it has been noted that Ps. 1 contains elements of Hebrew that are not found in the Old Testament’s ancient poetry.  These elements include the relative pronoun ("who") and the definite article ("the"). If Ps. 1 was written late in the history of the OT's compilation, then it makes sense to look for places where it borrows from or resonates with previous writings. Among these are: 

Joshua 1:8: “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night…. Then you shall make your way prosperous.” This passage contains commands Joshua to do exactly what the righteous person of Ps. 1 does: meditate on torah day and night. It also promises that Joshua will share in the outcome mentioned in Ps. 1—prosperity. Both Ps. 1 and Joshua 1:8 pick up a theme from Deuteronomy 17:18-20—that Israel’s kings were to study torah and observe its laws.

Jeremiah 17:7-8: 

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,

    whose trust is the Lord.

They shall be like a tree planted by water,

    sending out its roots by the stream.

It shall not fear when heat comes,

    and its leaves shall stay green;

in the year of drought it is not anxious,

    and it does not cease to bear fruit.

Many scholars believe that Ps. 1 has borrowed the image of the fruitful tree planted by the water from Jeremiah 17. Ps. 1 has taken this image and joined it to Deuteronomy’s emphasis on torah. 

Psalm 2:

There are also some intriguing connections between Ps. 1 and Ps. 2. The word “happy” occurs at the beginning of Ps. 1 and at the end of Ps. 2. “Sit” is mentioned in both 1:1 and 2:4 and 1:2 and 2:1 both contain “meditate” (the same Hebrew word, translated “plot” in the NRSV). The idea of the unrighteous perishing is found in both 1:6 and 2:12, and the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) adds that they will perish “from the path of righteousness,” creating a close similarity to 1:6. Besides a few other similarities, there is some evidence that Ps. 2 was regarded as the first psalm in some manuscript traditions. It has therefore been suggested that Psalms 1 and 2 were originally one psalm. This view, however, is held by a minority of scholars. Nonetheless, it calls our attention to the fact that the psalms may have been placed in their order for the purpose of highlighting thematic or verbal similarities. This means that we should consider how the scribes who compiled the OT may have wanted us to think about the immediate context of each text.

The book of Psalms:

Speaking of context, some commentators believe that Ps. 1 was intended to be a preface to the entire book of Psalms. In other words, in the process by which the psalms were collected and ordered, Ps. 1 was placed first as a guide to interpretation—each psalm is to be regarded as a meditation on torah. Other scholars doubt that placing this psalm first was the result of a deliberate plan to guide Israel’s reading of the psalms. Whichever theory is correct, it is profitable for readers today to interpret individual psalms canonically, i.e., to see each psalm as part of a dialog with other psalms and with the rest of the OT. The same applies to every biblical book. Each should be seen as a conversation partner with other books. So, Ps. 1 may not have been intended to be the interpretive guide for the book of psalms, but it is useful to think about how our understanding of each psalm is affected if we think of it in relation to the theme of Ps. 1, torah.

Parallelism: The fundamental characteristic of Hebrew poetry is parallelism. In Ps. 1 we find synonymous parallelism (where the thought of the first line is repeated or amplified in subsequent lines. For example, verse 1:

Happy are those

    who do not follow the advice of the wicked

or take the path that sinners tread

    or sit in the seat of scoffers

We also find antithetical parallelism (where subsequent lines provide a contrast with the first line):

• Verses 1-2: “Happy are those who do not…. but their delight is in the law of the Lord.”

• Verses 3-4: “In all that they do, they prosper. The wicked are not so….”

• Verse 6: “The Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”

Comments on some details: 

Verse 1: “Happy.” This word could also be translated “blessed” or “commendable.” It may have been chose because it creates a word-play: The Hebrew for “Happy is the one who” repeats the SH and R sounds (ashre haish asher). The psalmist could have used the other word for “happy” or “blessed” (baruch) but ashre sounded more poetic.

Verse 1: The NRSV’s “who do not follow the advice of the wicked” is more literally translated “who do not walk in the advice [or counsel] of the wicked.” The literal translation preserves the metaphor of walking. Similarly, “take the path that sinners tread” could be translated “stand in the path of sinners.” The Hebrew uses bodily metaphors (walking, standing) that the NRSV obscures.

Verse 2: “But their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.” The verbs are in the perfect (past) tense, so the meaning could be: They delighted in the law … they meditated. In other words, this verse could be referring to people who have, in the past, decided to delight and meditate and presumably still are. Alternatively, the verbs can be examples of the “gnomic” perfect, i.e., they describe habitual action: the righteous habitually delight in and mediate on the law. The grammar of the passage can go both ways.

Verse 2: “Meditate.” The modern sense of “meditate” is a bit misleading. This verb’s most basic meaning is to murmur. It can also be translated “growl” when the subject is a lion. From murmur we get the extended meaning of “speak.” When Ps. 1 says that the righteous meditate on torah, it means that the righteous recite it—they speak it and in doing so ponder its truth. 

Verse 3: “In all that they do, they prosper.” It isn’t grammatically clear whether this saying about prospering refers to the trees planted by streams of water or to the person who meditates on torah. Of course, the trees are a symbol of the righteous person, but there is a translation issue: if the immediate reference is to the trees, we should translate the text in this way: “Whatever it produces thrives.” If the immediate reference is the righteous, then “In all that they do, they prosper” is appropriate. Verse 3 thus reminds us that translation always involves interpretation.

Verses 4-5: “The wicked are not so but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment.” Note how the psalm cleverly moves from the fact that chaff is driven by the wind to the observation that the wicked will not stand. The image of chaff unable to stay put illuminates the condition of the wicked, unable to stand before God. In turn, this language reminds us of the righteous person, who does not stand in the path of the sinful (v. 1).

Verse 6: “The Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” Mention of the way of the righteous and of the wicked brings us back to the beginning of the psalm, which talks about the way (or path) of sinners.