Psalm 1 – Blessed Is the Man

In short

Those who do what God wants will prosper, while the wicked will be punished. Simple, right?

Why it is important

So, at this point I am supposed to talk about how this is the first psalm, and it sets up the whole book, etc. But, I mean, this psalm is THE BIBLE in a nutshell, right? These are some core truths!

What is in this poem

Six verses in three sections that build on each other. See picture. It’s probably time to spend a couple minutes on poetic structure in the Bible in general.

Poetic structure in the Bible

Poems in the Bible have a VERY predictable pattern: couplets of thoughts (and occasionally triplets). Almost all Bible poetry uses this. Let’s use verse 6 of this poem as an example:

For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous:

     but the way of the ungodly shall perish. 

The couplets serve one of three purposes:

1. To contrast two opposite ideas (like that verse)
2. To continue the same thought (like verse 4)
3. To put similar ideas in parallel (the second couplet of verse 1)

That last one is tricky, so let’s look at it in detail.

nor standeth in the way of sinners,

     nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

In the same part of each phrase, you see:

• STAND and SIT (both are positions)
• WAY and SEAT (both are places)
• SINNERS and SCORNFUL (both are bad people)

Apart from these couplets, longer poems typically have groups of thoughts. Just like we all struggle with where a paragraph should begin and end, people will respectfully disagree on how many sections a poem has.

In this poem, I see three sections. The (printed) ESV translation has three also, but they put verse 4 in the middle section, while I put it in the last one. It’s a bridging thought, so I can see both ways. But when I sat down to put these mini-headings in the poem, I found that verse 4 didn’t belong in the middle. But that’s just me.

Theology and doctrine

The poem is very heavy on the idea that the wicked will be punished. This is a theme of the Bible, especially poetry and prophecy. It’s not so fashionable today, but it is the judgment of a just God.