Bird's-eye view
This Psalm, an acrostic poem from a seasoned David, is a masterful piece of pastoral counsel for the saints who are perpetually tempted to stumble over the apparent success of the wicked. The central problem addressed is a spiritual one: the righteous are looking at the wicked, seeing their prosperity, and their hearts are beginning to churn with a toxic mixture of anxiety and envy. This is a psalm about perspective. It commands the believer to stop looking horizontally at the fleeting success of God's enemies and to start looking vertically at the steadfast promises of God and the final end of all things. The entire psalm is a sustained argument, urging the child of God to trade fretting for faith, envy for trust, and short-term appearances for long-term reality. It is a call to rest in the Lord and to wait patiently for Him, because the final scorecard is kept in heaven, not on earth.
The opening verses set this stage perfectly. They issue two sharp, negative commands: "Do not fret" and "Be not envious." These are not gentle suggestions; they are military orders for the soul. The reason given for this spiritual discipline is the ephemeral nature of the wicked. They are like grass, like a green herb. They may look vibrant and lush for a moment, but their doom is certain and their demise is swift. They have no root, and the hot wind of God's judgment is already on its way. This is practical, street-level theology for every believer who has ever felt the sting of injustice or the pang of seeing the ungodly flourish while the righteous struggle.
Outline
- 1. A Command Against Spiritual Agitation (Ps 37:1-2)
- a. The Prohibition of Fretting (Ps 37:1a)
- b. The Prohibition of Envy (Ps 37:1b)
- c. The Reason for Rest: The Brevity of the Wicked (Ps 37:2)
Context In Psalms
Psalm 37 belongs to the category of wisdom psalms. Unlike a lament or a hymn of pure praise, its primary purpose is didactic; it aims to teach the people of God how to live faithfully in a fallen world. It shares thematic space with other psalms that wrestle with the problem of evil and the prosperity of the wicked, most notably Psalm 73. In that psalm, Asaph confesses that his feet almost slipped when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. His crisis was resolved when he "went into the sanctuary of God" and understood their final end. Psalm 37 provides a similar resolution, but it does so from the outset. It does not begin with the crisis but with the answer. It is the calm, assured instruction of an older man, David, who has seen enough of life to know that God's promises are more substantial than the fleeting shadows of worldly success. The acrostic structure, where each stanza begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, suggests a complete, A-to-Z treatment of the subject. This is a comprehensive lesson on godly stability in a world of turmoil.
Key Issues
- The Sin of Fretting
- The Nature of Envy
- The Prosperity of the Wicked
- The Certainty of Divine Judgment
- The Importance of a Future-Oriented Faith
The Poison of a Horizontal Gaze
The two central commands of this text are prohibitions against fretting and envy. And we must see that these are two sides of the same tarnished coin. Both sins arise from an exclusively horizontal gaze. Fretting is the anxiety and agitation that comes from looking at the power of the wicked and feeling threatened. Envy is the resentful desire that comes from looking at the prosperity of the wicked and feeling cheated. Both are a form of spiritual atheism. They operate as though God is not in His heaven, as though He is not ruling, as though His promises are not true, and as though the final judgment is a fiction.
When the believer begins to fret, he is essentially saying that the wicked are a genuine threat to God's plan for his life. When he begins to envy, he is saying that the wicked have something truly desirable that God has withheld from him. Both are lies from the pit. The antidote, as the psalm will go on to show, is to redirect the gaze. We are to look up, to trust in the Lord, to delight in Him, to commit our way to Him. We are to look forward, to the inheritance of the righteous and the coming judgment of the wicked. A horizontal gaze will always lead to a disturbed heart. Only a vertical and future-oriented gaze can bring the peace that the psalmist commands.
Verse by Verse Commentary
1a Do not fret because of evildoers,
The first word is a command, and a strong one. The Hebrew word for "fret" means to burn, to be kindled with anger or anxiety. It's the picture of a slow burn, a hot agitation in the soul. This is not a suggestion to "try not to worry." It is a direct order to cease and desist from a particular kind of sinful agitation. And notice the object of the fretting: evildoers. The psalmist is talking about the righteous getting worked up over the apparent success of those who break God's laws. This is a common temptation. We see scoundrels getting ahead, liars being promoted, and the godless flaunting their wealth, and our insides begin to twist into a knot. David says, "Stop it." This is not a godly response. It is a carnal one. It is a failure to trust in the sovereignty and justice of God. Fretting over evildoers is like getting angry that a stage villain is playing his part well just before the hero arrives to throw him off the cliff. It is a failure to read the script.
1b Be not envious toward doers of unrighteousness.
This is the second barrel of the shotgun. If fretting is the hot response of anxiety, envy is the green-eyed monster of resentful desire. Envy is not simply wanting what someone else has. It is a malicious sin that resents the other person for having it. The envious man doesn't just want a nice chariot like his ungodly neighbor; he wants his neighbor to wreck his chariot. It is a sin that combines covetousness with malice. And here, David forbids it with regard to the doers of unrighteousness. This is a profound spiritual diagnostic. If you find yourself envying the wicked, it means that on some level, you believe that what they have, acquired through unrighteousness, is actually a blessing. You are looking at the fruit of rebellion and calling it good. This is a deep-seated spiritual problem. It is to forget that the blessings of the Lord make rich, and He adds no sorrow with it. The "blessings" of the wicked are always laced with the poison of God's eventual wrath.
2 For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb.
Here is the reason, the divine logic, for why we must not fret or envy. The prosperity of the wicked is an illusion because it is temporary. David uses two powerful similes from the world of agriculture. First, they are like grass. In the hot, arid climate of Palestine, grass can spring up green and lush after a rain, but it is scorched and gone in a matter of days under the relentless sun. Second, they are like the green herb. This refers to any leafy green plant. It looks vibrant and alive, but once it is cut down, it fades almost immediately. This is the biblical assessment of the wicked. From our limited, ground-level perspective, they may seem powerful, established, and permanent. But from God's perspective, they are already cut down. Their end is determined. They are a flash in the pan, a puff of smoke. To envy them is like envying a flower that has been cut for a vase. It may look beautiful for a day, but it has no root, and its death is certain. The righteous, by contrast, are like a tree planted by rivers of water, whose leaf does not wither.
Application
The application of this text is as straightforward as a punch in the nose, and just as necessary for us. We live in an age where the wicked seem to be prospering on an industrial scale. We see godlessness celebrated, perversion mainstreamed, and corruption rewarded. And if we are not careful, our hearts will begin to burn with that forbidden fretfulness, or simmer with that sinful envy.
This psalm commands us to get a grip, and it does so by giving us a proper theological perspective. Do not measure reality by what you see on the news tonight. Measure reality by what God has said in His eternal Word. The ungodly are grass. They are a vapor. Their time is short. To fret over them is to grant them a power and permanence they do not possess. To envy them is to desire a poisoned chalice.
The Christian response is not to fret, but to trust. It is not to envy, but to delight in the Lord. We are to be about our Father's business, cultivating our own patch of ground, and leaving the final judgment of the wicked to the only one qualified to render it. When you are tempted to look sideways at the fleeting success of the ungodly, this psalm tells you to look up at the eternal God and to look forward to the certain end. The wicked have their reward now, and it is fading as we speak. The righteous have an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for us. That is the reality, and we are commanded to live like we believe it.