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73. Psalm 73

¹ Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.

    ² But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
   I had nearly lost my foothold.
³ For I envied the arrogant
   when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

    ⁴ They have no struggles;
   their bodies are healthy and strong. With a different word division of the Hebrew; Masoretic Text struggles at their death; / their bodies are healthy
⁵ They are free from common human burdens;
   they are not plagued by human ills.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;
   they clothe themselves with violence.
⁷ From their callous hearts comes iniquity Syriac (see also Septuagint); Hebrew Their eyes bulge with fat;
   their evil imaginations have no limits.
⁸ They scoff, and speak with malice;
   with arrogance they threaten oppression.
⁹ Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
   and their tongues take possession of the earth.
¹⁰ Therefore their people turn to them
   and drink up waters in abundance. The meaning of the Hebrew for this verse is uncertain.
¹¹ They say, “How would God know?
   Does the Most High know anything?”

¹² This is what the wicked are like—
always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

    ¹³ Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure
   and have washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴ All day long I have been afflicted,
   and every morning brings new punishments.

    ¹⁵ If I had spoken out like that,
   I would have betrayed your children.
¹⁶ When I tried to understand all this,
   it troubled me deeply
¹⁷ till I entered the sanctuary of God;
   then I understood their final destiny.

    ¹⁸ Surely you place them on slippery ground;
   you cast them down to ruin.
¹⁹ How suddenly are they destroyed,
   completely swept away by terrors!
²⁰ They are like a dream when one awakes;
   when you arise, Lord,
   you will despise them as fantasies.

    ²¹ When my heart was grieved
   and my spirit embittered,
²² I was senseless and ignorant;
   I was a brute beast before you.

    ²³ Yet I am always with you;
   you hold me by my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,
   and afterward you will take me into glory.
²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
   And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
   but God is the strength of my heart
   and my portion forever.

    ²⁷ Those who are far from you will perish;
   you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
²⁸ But as for me, it is good to be near God.
   I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
   I will tell of all your deeds.

26. My flesh and my heart have failed. Some understand the first part of the verse as meaning that David’s heart and flesh failed him through the ardent desire with which he was actuated; and they think that by it he intends to testify the earnestness with which he applied his mind to God. We meet with a similar form of expression elsewhere; but the clause immediately succeeding, God is the strength of my heart, seems to require that it should be explained differently. I am rather disposed to think that there is here a contrast between the failing which David felt in himself and the strength with which he was divinely supplied; as if he had said, Separated from God I am nothing, and all that I attempt to do ends in nothing; but when I come to him, I find an abundant supply of strength. It is highly necessary for us to consider what we are without God; for no man will cast himself wholly upon God, but he who feels himself in a fainting condition, and who despairs of the sufficiency of his own powers. We will seek nothing from God but what we are conscious of wanting in ourselves. Indeed, all men confess this, and the greater part think that all which is necessary is that God should aid our infirmities, or afford us succor when we have not the means of adequately relieving ourselves. But the confession of David is far more ample than this when he lays, so to speak, his own nothingness before God. He, therefore, very properly adds, that God is his portion. The portion of an individual is a figurative expression, employed in Scripture to denote the condition or lot with which every man is contented. Accordingly, the reason why God is represented as a portion is, because he alone is abundantly sufficient for us, and because in him the perfection of our happiness consists. Whence it follows, that we are chargeable with ingratitude, if we turn away our minds from him and fix them on any other object, as has been stated in Psalm 16:4, where David explains more clearly the import of the metaphor. Some foolishly assert that God is called our portion, because our soul is taken from him. I know not how such a silly conceit has found its way into their brains; for it is as far from David’s meaning as heaven is from the earth, and it involves in it the wild notion of the Manicheans, with which Servetus was bewitched. But it generally happens that men who are not exercised in the Scriptures, nor imbued with sound theology, although well acquainted with the Hebrew language, yet err and fall into mistakes even in first principles. Under the word heart the Psalmist comprehends the whole soul. He does not, however, mean, when he speaks of the heart failing, that the essence or substance of the soul fails, but that all the powers which God in his goodness has bestowed upon it, and the use of which it retains only so long as he pleases, fall into decay.