Psalms 1:1

BOOK I: PSALMS 1-41

PSALM 1

THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED CONTRASTED

Psalms 1:1

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked,

Nor standeth in the way of sinners,

Nor sitteth in the seat of scoffers."

The word "blessed" may be read as "happy"; and the three words referring to the unrighteous are synonyms, all of them carrying the same basic meaning, namely, the people who do not love and serve God.

From Genesis to Revelation the Holy Bible recognizes only two classes of people - the same two classes that are identified in this verse, that is, the servants of God and the enemies of God.

In the New Testament especially this dual classification of all mankind appears many times, as in, the sheep and the goats, the wise and the foolish virgins, the builders upon the rock and the builders upon the sand, the faithful servant and the wicked servant, those upon the right hand and those upon the left hand, the wheat and the tares, the wheat and the chaff, doers of good and doers of evil, the fruitful tree and the unfruitful tree, etc.

Only in Jesus' parable of the sower does there appear several classes of the unfruitful soil, but even there the two simple divisions of the unfruitful and the fruitful hearers of God's Word are clearly visible.

Notice also that the happy man is described negatively as one who does not do certain things. Nothing could be farther from God's truth than the notion that only the positive declarations are sufficient. Even in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount there are no less than ten negative commandments in Matthew 6 alone. Without any doubt whatever, serving God is eternally identified with not doing many things.

Another interesting revelation of this verse is the characteristic of wickedness that it is able to exercise an increasingly strong power over any person indulging the least toleration of it. Walking in the counsel of the wicked is soon followed by standing in the way of sinners, and that leads to sitting in the seat of scoffers.

Alexander Pope in his Essay on Man, line 217, described this characteristic of evil thus:

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,

As to be hated needs but to be seen;

Yet seen to oft, familiar with her face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace."