Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Steps of a Man
Psalms 37:21-40
21 The wicked borrow, and don’t pay back, but the righteous give generously. · WEB
The argument is finished with a piece of testimony: an old man reports what he has and has not seen.
The wicked borrow, and don't pay back, but the righteous give generously Psalms 37:21.
The second half of the psalm keeps its two columns running side by side and adds detail to each. The contrast here is financial and it is exact: one takes and does not return, the other gives without the question of return arising.
A man's steps are established by Yahweh. He delights in his way. Though he stumble, he shall not fall, for Yahweh holds him up with his hand Psalms 37:23–24.
The stumble is conceded. This is not a promise of a life without missteps but of a hand under the arm during them, and the distinction between stumbling and falling is the whole verse.
I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his children begging for bread Psalms 37:25.
The most contested sentence in the psalm, and it should be read as what it says it is: testimony. An old man is reporting the range of his own observation, not issuing a guarantee — and the same collection contains a psalm that ends in unrelieved darkness Psalms 88 and another that watches the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper Psalms 73. Scripture does not use this verse to promise that no believer will ever be destitute, and reading it that way sets it against the book it is in. What the old man is saying is that in a long life he has not found God abandoning his own — which is a claim about God's faithfulness rather than about anyone's balance sheet.
Depart from evil, and do good. Live securely forever Psalms 37:27.
For Yahweh loves justice, and doesn't forsake his saints Psalms 37:28. The ground of the whole argument, stated at last. The psalm's confidence about the future rests on a statement about God's character, not on a pattern observed in events.
The law of his God is in his heart. None of his steps shall slide Psalms 37:31.
The internalized law of the first psalm, and it is offered as the explanation for the sure footing of verse twenty-three.
I have seen the wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil. But he passed away, and behold, he was not. Yes, I sought him, but he could not be found Psalms 37:35–36.
The second piece of testimony, and it balances the first. He has seen the righteous not forsaken; he has also seen the powerful man vanish. A tree in its own soil is the image of something perfectly established, and the psalm's answer is not that it was uprooted but that the observer went back and it was not there.
But the salvation of the righteous is from Yahweh. He is their stronghold in the time of trouble Psalms 37:39. The last word is not that the righteous outlast the wicked, but where their salvation comes from.
settled What this mark means