PSALM 37

    ¹For David.

    Do not be incensed by evildoers.^ℵ

          Do not envy those who do wrong.

    ²For like grass they will quickly wither

          and like green grass they will fade.

    ³Trust in the LORD and do good.^ב

          Dwell in the land and keep faith.

    ⁴Take pleasure in the LORD,

          that He grant you your heart’s desire.

    ⁵Direct your way to the LORD.^ג

          Trust Him and He will act,

    ⁶and He will bring forth your cause like the light,

          and your justice like high noon.

    ⁷Be still before the LORD and await Him.^ד

          Do not be incensed by him who prospers,

                by the man who devises schemes.

    ⁸Let go of wrath and forsake rage.^ה

          Do not be incensed to do evil.

    ⁹For evildoers will be cut off,

          but those who hope in the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.

    ¹⁰And very soon, the wicked will be no more.^ו

          You will look at his place—he’ll be gone.

    ¹¹And the poor shall inherit the earth

          and take pleasure from great well-being.

    ¹²The wicked lays plots for the just^ז

          and gnashes his teeth against him.

    ¹³The Master will laugh at him,

          for He sees that his day will come.

    ¹⁴A sword have the wicked unsheathed^ח

          and drawn taut their bow,

    to take down the poor and the needy,

          to slaughter those on the straight way.

    ¹⁵Their sword shall come home in their heart

          and their bows shall be broken.

    ¹⁶Better a little for the just^ט

          than wicked men’s great profusion.

    ¹⁷For the wicked’s arms shall be broken,

          but the LORD sustains the just.

    ¹⁸The LORD embraces the fate of the blameless,^י

          and their estate shall be forever.

    ¹⁹They shall not be shamed in an evil time

          and in days of famine they shall eat their fill.

    ²⁰For the wicked shall perish, and the foes of the LORD,^כ

          like the meadows’ green—gone, in smoke, gone.

    ²¹The wicked man borrows and will not pay,^ל

          but the just gives free of charge.

    ²²For those He blesses inherit the earth

          and those He curses are cut off.

    ²³By the LORD a man’s strides are made firm,^מ

          and his way He desires.

    ²⁴Though he fall, he will not be flung down,

          for the LORD sustains his hand.

    ²⁵A lad I was, and now I am old,^נ

          and I never have seen a just man forsaken

                and his seed seeking bread,

    ²⁶all day long lending free of charge

          and his seed for a blessing.

    ²⁷Turn from evil and do good^ס

          and abide forever.

    ²⁸For the LORD loves justice

          and will not forsake His faithful.

    They are guarded forever,

          but the seed of the wicked is cut off.

    ²⁹The just will inherit the earth

          and abide forever upon it.

    ³⁰The just man’s mouth utters wisdom^פ

          and his tongue speaks justice.

    ³¹His God’s teaching in his heart—

          his steps will not stumble.

    ³²The wicked spies out the just man^צ

          and seeks to put him to death.

    ³³The LORD will not forsake him in his hands

          and will not condemn him when he is judged.

    ³⁴Hope for the LORD and keep His way^ק

          and He will exalt you to inherit the earth;

                you will see the wicked cut off.

    ³⁵I have seen an arrogant wicked man^ר

          taking root like a flourishing plant.

    ³⁶He passes on, and, look, he is gone,

          I seek him, and he is not found.

    ³⁷Watch the blameless, look to the upright,^ש

          for the man of peace has a future.

    ³⁸And transgressors one and all are destroyed,

          the future of the wicked cut off.

    ³⁹The rescue of the just is from the LORD,^ת

          their stronghold in time of distress.

    ⁴⁰And the LORD will help them and free them,

          He will free them from the wicked and rescue them,

                for they have sheltered in Him.

PSALM 37 NOTES

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1. Do not be incensed by evildoers. The form of this psalm is an alphabetic acrostic, with the letter ayin missing. (The Septuagint reflects a Hebrew version in which there appears to have been a line, in verse 28, beginning with ʿayin.) Two lines of verse are assigned to each letter of the alphabet, which explains why this acrostic is twice as long as the previous acrostics in the collection of psalms. This is emphatically a Wisdom psalm, expressing in a variety of more or less formulaic ways the idea that the wicked, however they may seem to prosper, will get their just deserts and the righteous will be duly rewarded. The distinctive note in all this is a plea for equanimity: The good person is enjoined not to get stirred up by the seeming success of the wicked. The verb used at the beginning (repeated later in the psalm) is one that derives etymologically from a root that means “to heat up.”

2. For like grass they will quickly wither. This simile is a stock image in biblical poetry. It is especially concrete for someone living in the climate of the Near East, where, after the rainy season ends in late spring, there is great heat and no precipitation, so that everything green becomes parched and quickly withers.

3. keep faith. The literal sense is “shepherd [or chase] trust.”

8. Let go of wrath and forsake rage. The plea for equanimity in the face of the success of the wicked is especially pronounced here.

16. Better a little for the just / than wicked men’s great profusion. This line of verse takes the explicit form of a didactic proverb (“Better x than y”) and thus clearly reflects the Wisdom character of the psalm.

18. embraces. Literally, “knows,” a verb sometimes used sexually that implies intimate knowledge and affection as much as cognition.

20. like the meadows’ green—gone, in smoke, gone. “Meadows’ green” (yeqar karim) might be a metaphor (literally, “meadows’ splendor”) for grass, although this translation prefers to see in yeqar (“splendor”) a simple reversal of consonants for yeraq, “green.” Some interpreters understand karim as its homonym, “sheep,” and so imagine that “sheep’s splendor” refers to the fat of the animal burned “in smoke” on the altar, but that reading seems rather strained. The entire verset in the Hebrew is notable for its alliteration and assonance—kiqar karim kalu beʿashan kalu—and the translation seeks to approximate that effect.

25. A lad I was, and now I am old, / and I never have seen a just man forsaken. The beauty of this line in part explains its presence in Jewish liturgy at the end of the grace after meals, but the questionable moral calculus behind it is precisely what Job argues against so trenchantly. The only way to sustain the idea that no just person is ever in want is to assume that a needy person must somehow be unjust, whatever the appearances to the contrary. This is the very conclusion that Job’s friends draw about him: if he is sorely afflicted, he must have done something terribly wrong to deserve it. The Job poet challenges this received wisdom and proposes a more complicated, indeed paradoxical, moral vision.

28. His faithful / . . . are guarded forever, / but the seed of the wicked is cut off. This psalm, with its heavy reliance on proverbial wisdom, tends to a good deal of repetitiousness in its formulations.

35. I have seen an arrogant wicked man / taking root like a flourishing plant. This line picks up the image from the beginning of the poem of the ephemerality of the triumph of evil as the transience of green growing things. It participates in the exhortation to the listener not to be perturbed by the seeming success of the wicked, for this success will soon be reversed.

40. And the LORD will help them. The concluding line of the psalm is triadic, instead of the dyadic pattern of the preceding lines. This is a formal device often used in biblical poetry to mark closure or transition.