Psalms 73
Big idea: A man tells you how close he came to walking away. My feet were almost gone; my steps had nearly slipped — and the cause was not suffering but bookkeeping. He looked at people who scoff at God and found them healthy, wealthy, untroubled, and concluded that his own clean hands had bought nothing. What changes is not the data. It is the vantage point: until I entered God's sanctuary, and considered their latter end. And what he finds there is not an argument about the wicked at all but a sentence about himself — nevertheless, I am continually with you; you have held my right hand.
Psalm 73 recovers one man's faith in the sanctuary. Psalm 74 arrives to find the sanctuary burned to the ground.
73:1–12 — I was envious of the arrogant
The psalm's first line is the conclusion it will reach, and its second admits it nearly did not get there. What follows is one of the most detailed and least flattering descriptions of envy in the Bible — he does not argue that the wicked are secretly miserable, he catalogues how well they are doing and admits the catalogue is accurate. Their bodies are sound, their deaths are easy, and their theology is a shrug.
1 A Psalm by Asaph. Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. 2 But as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had nearly slipped. 3 For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 For there are no struggles in their death, but their strength is firm. 5 They are free from burdens of men, neither are they plagued like other men. 6 Therefore pride is like a chain around their neck. Violence covers them like a garment. 7 Their eyes bulge with fat. Their minds pass the limits of conceit. 8 They scoff and speak with malice. In arrogance, they threaten oppression. 9 They have set their mouth in the heavens. Their tongue walks through the earth. 10 Therefore their people return to them, and they drink up waters of abundance. 11 They say, “How does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?” 12 Behold, these are the wicked. Being always at ease, they increase in riches.
73:13–20 — Until I entered God's sanctuary
The pivot of the psalm, and it is a change of vantage rather than of information. Nothing new is reported about the wicked — he simply goes into the sanctuary and considers their latter end, and the same facts read differently from there. The detail before the pivot matters too: he kept quiet, because saying it aloud would have damaged other people. This was a crisis he carried privately.
13 Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence, 14 For all day long I have been plagued, and punished every morning. 15 If I had said, “I will speak thus”, behold, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. 16 When I tried to understand this, it was too painful for me— 17 until I entered God’s sanctuary, and considered their latter end. 18 Surely you set them in slippery places. You throw them down to destruction. 19 How they are suddenly destroyed! They are completely swept away with terrors. 20 As a dream when one wakes up, so, Lord, when you awake, you will despise their fantasies.
73:21–28 — Whom do I have in heaven?
The last movement is the most personal in the Psalter. He calls himself a brute beast for what he had been thinking — and then 'NEVERTHELESS, I am continually with you', with the detail that God had hold of his hand the whole time he was slipping. Then verse 25, which gives up the argument entirely: he no longer wants what the wicked have, or anything else.
21 For my soul was grieved. I was embittered in my heart. 22 I was so senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you. 23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You have held my right hand. 24 You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. 25 Whom do I have in heaven? There is no one on earth whom I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. 27 For, behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to you. 28 But it is good for me to come close to God. I have made the Lord Yahweh my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).