Psalm 73 · Passage · Injustice
When the Wicked Prosper
Psalm 73 is Asaph's account of how he nearly gave up on God when he saw the wicked prosper, and of what brought him back.
Asaph had kept his heart clean and was punished every morning, while men who mocked God grew rich and carefree.
until I entered God’s sanctuary; then I discerned their end.
- The passage
- Psalm 73:1 to 28
- Book
- Psalms
- Hold in memory
- Psalm 73:25 to 26, Psalm 73:28
Summary
The psalm moves from envy to worship, and its turn comes in God's house. There Asaph judged each life by its end, and he judged his own bitterness too. He found that God had kept him all along. He ends wanting God more than anything the wicked had, and resolved to stay near Him and tell of His works.
- The psalm opens with the truth Asaph nearly lost, that God is good to the pure in heart.
- Asaph's danger was envy, which grew as he watched the wicked live at ease while he suffered.
- He kept his doubt to himself so that he would not betray God's children.
- He learned that the wicked stand on slick ground and fall suddenly.
- God Himself is Asaph's portion forever.
Feet That Nearly Slipped
Psalm 73:1 to 15 gives the confession, the picture of the wicked, and the thought Asaph kept to himself.
When the Wicked Prosper reads Psalm 73 whole, a psalm about envy and how it was cured. It belongs to the trial of injustice, where the wronged watch the wrongdoer thrive and wonder whether God sees.
The question it answers is how Asaph came back from envy to trust, and what he saw that changed him. It gives the psalm in its order with the Hebrew of its turning point and a table of what he saw before and after. It adds teachers who have preached it and three other texts that take up the same question.
Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.The psalm opens with the confession of God's goodness that the rest of it tests.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown wrote in 1871 that the opening line “is the conclusion of a perplexing mental conflict, which is then detailed.”
The trouble began with envy (Psalm 73:3).
They are free of the burdens others carry; they are not afflicted like other men. Therefore pride is their necklace; a garment of violence covers them. From their prosperity proceeds iniquity; the imaginations of their hearts run wild. They mock and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongues strut across the earth. So their people return to this place and drink up waters in abundance. The wicked say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?”These verses stand here as the evidence Asaph weighed against his faith.
The second word of Psalm 73:13 is riq, vanity, set before the verb for keeping his heart pure. Charles Spurgeon, in The Treasury of David, said that Asaph “questions the value of holiness when its wages are paid in the coin of affliction.”
For I am afflicted all day long and punished every morning. If I had said, “I will speak this way,” then I would have betrayed Your children.The verses show what held Asaph back at the edge of the fall.
Before and After the Sanctuary
Asaph's own words about the wicked and about himself, on either side of the turn.
The sanctuary changed what Asaph saw of the wicked and of himself.
| What he looked at | Before the sanctuary | After the sanctuary |
|---|---|---|
| The wicked at death | They have no struggle in their death | How suddenly they are laid waste |
| Where the wicked stand | always carefree as they increase their wealth | You set them on slick ground |
| His own heart | I have kept my heart pure | God is the strength of my heart |
| His own steps | my steps had nearly slipped | You hold my right hand |
| What he wanted | I envied the arrogant | I desire no one besides You |
The Turn in the Sanctuary
Psalm 73:16 to 28 moves from the problem he could not solve to God as his portion.
When I tried to understand all this, it was troublesome in my sightThe verse marks the limit of Asaph's own reasoning, just before the turn.
The turn comes when Asaph enters “God’s sanctuary.” The Hebrew word there is plural, the holy places of God. What he discerned there was 'acharit, the last or end of a thing, hence its future.
Like one waking from a dream, so You, O Lord, awaken and despise their form. When my heart was grieved and I was pierced within, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before You.The verses stand at the hinge from the end of the wicked to Asaph's judgment on himself.
The word for senseless is ba'ar, stupid, and the brute beast is behemot, a plural of beasts.
You guide me with Your counsel, and later receive me in glory.The verse adds guidance now and glory later to God's hold on the psalmist.
In Psalm 73:26 God is the rock of his heart, and his portion is cheleq, a share or allotment. The wicked had their share of wealth, and Asaph names God as his.
Those far from You will surely perish; You destroy all who are unfaithful to You. But as for me, it is good to draw near to God. I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may proclaim all Your works.The psalm closes on the two ways it began with and on Asaph's own choice between them.
Psalm 73:24, Psalm 73:27 to 28
The Same Question Elsewhere
A psalm of David, Job and Jeremiah take up the prosperity of the wicked.
Psalm 37, Job 21 and Jeremiah 123 verses
Do not fret over those who do evil; do not envy those who do wrong. For they wither quickly like grass and wilt like tender plants.David's counsel stands here as the answer of another psalmist to the same envy.
Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?Job stands here because he raised the question against friends who held that the wicked always suffer.
Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead before You. Yet about Your judgments I wish to contend with You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease?Jeremiah stands here as a prophet who pleaded the same case before God.
Asaph the Seer
The psalm's heading names Asaph, a Levite musician of David's day.
The Berean Standard Bible heads the psalm “A Psalm of Asaph.” It prints “BOOK III” above the heading, so Psalm 73 opens the third book of the Psalter.
Asaph was the chief of a company of Levite musicians, and he sounded the cymbals (1 Chronicles 16:5). David and his army commanders set apart Asaph's sons “to prophesy with the accompaniment of lyres, harps, and cymbals” (1 Chronicles 25:1).
Then King Hezekiah and his officials ordered the Levites to sing praises to the LORD in the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness and bowed their heads and worshiped.The verse stands here because it shows his words still sung in the temple long after his own day.
How the Psalm Has Been Taught
Ambrose of Milan and Matthew Henry on the psalm's first line and its turn.
died 397 · Ambrose of Milan
The opening verse drew this comment on who can rightly call God good.
“‘How good is God to Israel, to them that are right in heart!’ Growth in moral perfection is evident as a theme from the beginning of the psalm. Indeed, no one can truly proclaim that God is good but one who knows that goodness is not from his own successes and profits but out of the depth of the heavenly mysteries and the height of God's plan. For it is to be weighed not by the appearance of things present but by the advantage of things to come. Consequently, to the just person God is always good.”
Ambrose of Milan · Interrogation of Job and David, Book 3, Chapter II · on Psalm 73:1Patristic
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Henry draws the rule Asaph learned in the sanctuary.
“All is well that ends well, everlastingly well; but nothing well that ends ill, everlastingly ill. The righteous man's afflictions end in peace, and therefore he is happy; the wicked man's enjoyments end in destruction, and therefore he is miserable.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Psalm 73:17Puritan
What Is the Glory of Psalm 73:24?
Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes read it of heaven, and Adam Clarke read it first of return from exile.
Glory with God after this lifeMatthew Henry; Albert Barnes
Matthew Henry wrote in his Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710) of those led by God's counsel. They “shall be received to his glory in another world.” Albert Barnes, in his Notes, read the verse of being received to God in heaven.
The objection is that the promise just before it speaks of God's presence now (Psalm 73:23).
Deliverance and honour in this life firstAdam Clarke
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible (1832), read the psalm as spoken by the people in exile, “Captives as they were”. On this verse he looked first for deliverance, a return to their own land and honour there. He granted that a believer may use the words of “this and the coming world”.
The objection is that the psalm names no exile, and it calls God the psalmist's portion for all time (Psalm 73:26).
Near to God
The psalm gives the wronged a place to take their envy and a portion that cannot be taken.
Envy of the wicked is answered in this psalm by nearness to God. Those who suffer wrong may name their bitterness as plainly as Asaph did and bring it into His presence.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.”The verse stands here because a lament of the exile reaches the answer Asaph reached, the LORD Himself as the portion of the one who has lost.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible, Psalm 73 with its heading and book division.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- STEP Bible brief lexicons of Extended Strongs for Hebrew (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, with the Strong's glosses.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Psalm 73:1.
- Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, vol. 3 (1872), on Psalm 73:13.
- Ambrose of Milan, Interrogation of Job and David, book 3, chapter 2.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Psalm 73:17.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Psalm 73:24.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old Testament (1832 to 1869), on Psalm 73:24.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Psalm 73:1 and Psalm 73:24.
Keep Studying
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