Psalm 1: The Way and End of the Righteous and the Wicked

I’m going to start something new in Sunday School class this week. We’re going to memorize Psalm 1.  What better way to keep God’s Word in our hearts than than to read it by day and meditate in it by night. Music makes that easier, so here is a hymn based on Psalm 1 written by Isaac Watts and included in “The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts”, printed in 1997 by Soli Deo Gloria Publications.

BLESS’D is the man who shuns the place
Where sinners love to meet;
Who fears to tread their wicked ways,
And hates the scoffer’s seat:

But in the statutes of the Lord
Has placed his chief delight;
By day he reads or hears the word,
And meditates by night.

[He, like a plant of gen’rous kind,
By living waters set,
Safe from the storms and blasting wind,
Enjoys a peaceful state.]

Green as the leaf, and ever fair,
Shall his profession shine;
While fruits of holiness appear
Like clusters on the Vine.

Not so the impious and unjust;
What vain designs they form!
Their hopes are blown away like dust,
Or chaff before the storm.

Sinners in judgment shall not stand
Amongst the sons of grace,
When Christ, the Judge, at His right hand
Appoints his saints a place.

His eye beholds the path they tread,
His heart approves it well;
But crooked ways of sinners lead
Down to the gates of hell.

Here’s the text of Psalm 1 (HCSB):

How happy is the man
who does not follow the advice of the wicked
or take the path of sinners
or join a group of mockers!
Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night.
He is like a tree planted beside streams of water
that bears its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

The wicked are not like this;
instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not survive the judgment,
and sinners will not be in the community of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.

and from the ESV:

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on His law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: