Psalm 1:1-2 - Delighting in the Word of God

1 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;

2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psalm 1:1-2 ESV

Blessed, sometimes translated as happy, is the man. Blessedness or happiness belongs to him. The first psalm begins with three negatives: a man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, does not stand in the way of sinners and does not sit in the seat of scoffers. This shows a movement downward, walking, standing and sitting, falling and settling into sin. Verse 1 describes the effects of sin on the life of man. The “blessed man” refrains from the sin of the world.

This psalm not only describes the “blessed man” in his abstinence from sin but also his practice of his most important duty. Verse two contains a positive in the form of the word delight. The wisdom of the psalter cannot be understated, as he describes the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, the Word of the Lord. In the Old Testament, “the law of the LORD” (Hebrew: torah) means more than just legal commands. The phrase torah is best understood as instruction, teaching, revelation; everything God has spoken to His people (God’s Word.)

The righteous man finds joy in God’s Word because it is what truly guides his life. Because of this, the “blessed man” meditates on God’s Word day and night, describing an active pursuit of knowledge or insight. The theologian Matthew Poole wrote in his commentary “Day and night; not seldom and slightly, as hypocrites do; but diligently, frequently, constantly, and upon all occasions.” To meditate implies a deep and serious thoughtfulness about God’s Word. Every situation, no matter how mundane, must be approached with a perspective of following God’s Word.

Notably, the man is not under the law, but is in the law, and delights in it because it may rule his life and turn him to righteousness. The law is not just the commandments, but also the promises and doctrines God provided the Israelites. Rev. Joseph Benson writes in the Benson Commentary “...this is recorded as the particular character of a good man, that he takes delight, not only in God’s promises, which a bad man may delight in, but even in his commands, which are unwelcome and disagreeable to the wicked.”

Psalm 1 calls us not to consider what we avoid, but what we love. The blessed life, the life of the “blessed man”, is not found in our willpower but only in our heart being transformed by the Word of God. We must follow his promises, but also his commands. The righteous, blessed man is shaped by God’s Word, not by the folly of the temporal world we find ourselves in. May we all be immersed in God’s Word, day and night, and find our minds transformed and hearts renewed. as we meditate upon it.

“He takes a text and carries it with him all day long; and in the night-watches, when sleep forsakes his eyelids, he museth upon the Word of God. In the day of his prosperity he sings psalms out of the Word of God, and in the night of his affliction he comforts himself with promises out of the same book.” -Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David