Psalm 1

Psalms 1:1-2

The Psalter's first word is Blessed, and the opening verse moves in a downward drift, walking becomes standing becomes sitting, counsel becomes the way becomes the seat, until the ungodly's company is settled into rather than merely passed through. Against that drift verse 2 sets a single opposite: delight in the law of the Lord, held so constantly that it is meditated on day and night. Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 form the Psalter's double gate, some ancient witnesses reading them as one psalm, the law here and the Anointed there.

Psalms 1:3

The tree planted by the rivers of water differs from a tree that merely grows wild: it is set deliberately, with a constant source rather than a dependence on rain. Fruit in season, unwithering leaves, and prosperity in whatever he doeth are the tree's three marks, and the older commentators set the image beside Jeremiah 17:8, the same figure applied there to the man who trusts in the Lord. The verb prosper does not promise the absence of trouble, only that what is undertaken under God comes to its intended end.

Psalms 1:4-6

The ungodly are not so reverses the tree image at a stroke: chaff has no root, no fruit and no weight, driven by whatever wind passes. The judgment and the congregation of the righteous are two settings closed to the ungodly, a sifting the psalm states as fact rather than threat. The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous closes the psalm on knowledge rather than sentiment, the same two ways the older commentators trace back to Deuteronomy's blessing and curse.