All right, well, this is the second lesson of Psalms Lift Up Your Heart, we're gonna tackle Psalms one through ten, and this may be a long lesson. In fact, every single lesson for the rest of this entire Bible study might be long because there's just so much great stuff, and I wanna take the time to at least briefly go to the New Testament references that we're gonna see. It's just really exciting. I'm really excited to do this with you.
But we're gonna tackle Psalms one through ten, and let's just dive straight into it with Psalms one and two, which really serve as an introduction for the entire Psalter. So last lesson, when we did the general introduction, introducing the Psalms, I explained to you that the master structure of the entire Psalter is based on five books, and it follows the historical, the royal history of Israel, beginning with King David, going through the kingdom, and the fall of the kingdom, and the exile, and the hope for restoration, these five different parts, okay? So this first book, we're gonna start today right now, and it's gonna be Psalms one through 41, but technically Psalms one through two are set apart. So depending on what you're reading, what commentary you're looking at, they might include one and two, usually, usually most people are gonna very, very clearly delineate one and two as an introduction, but I think for simplicity's sake, they're often included in the first book.
Very much like the final five Psalms are a conclusion, but they're included in the fifth book, but you get what I mean. So I want to start with Psalms one and two, and spend a considerable amount of time on them because they are extremely important in their own right, but also because they do serve as an introduction to the entire book of book one, and the entire Psalter as well. The themes that we see in Psalms one and two are really important for remembering, memorizing, because we're gonna see them echoed throughout the rest of the Psalter. So Psalms one and two, some people will say that once upon a time in a land far, far away, they were considered as one Psalm.
That must have been a long time ago, because even in the New Testament, like Psalm two is quoted as the second Psalm, but you might find that in your readings of you, if you spend more time reading different commentaries, but there are two distinct Psalms, however, they are very, very much connected. You can think of them, if you wanna think of them one Psalm, the two parts, fine, but they're very, very much connected with each other. So here's a little quote from your commentary, one of your commentaries here, Catholic introduction deal, Testament, which says, although formally Psalms one and two belong to book one of the Psalter, they are unlike most of the other Psalms in book one, and have certainly been placed intentionally at the beginning of the Psalter to serve as an introduction. Not just a book one, but to the entire collection.
That's what I'm saying. All right. These two Psalms are united by the theme of blessing or more literally happiness in Hebrew that's Asha. Asha, we'll see that in a second.
They present two alternate ways to achieve true happiness, either one through meditating on God's law, or two by taking reference, a refuge in the Lord and his anointed one in Hebrew, Mashiah. All right. And that's Psalm two verse 12. Now this last particular sentence here, I think is really important.
These two Psalms present two alternate ways to achieve true happiness. I don't want you to see when it says two alternate ways, I don't want you to see that as an either or. I don't think that's what the authors, Beecheemburgs, are saying. It's not like either or.
It's really a both and. There are two separate ways to achieve true happiness, but they're very much linked to each other. Almost like, how do you wanna be happy? Well, the Psalms are presenting a one, two step.
The first step is meditating on God's law, on the practice as rejecting the way of unrighteousness or the way of wickedness. Get rid of that. And then adhere to the Lord's anointed one, the Lord's king. So it's a one, two punch, a two step plan to achieving true happiness.
It's a both and. And so you can see that, although these Psalms are distinct, they are very much united because there's these various literary patterns that Psalms one and two are sharing. Now, I'm gonna share a bunch of connections here for you. I guess at this point, I wanna remember to say, before you listen to these lessons, I think this is true certainly for the Psalms, but really any Bible study that I put together for you, especially for the Psalms, because it's not pros, it's not just the history of the A-ed, for example, in First and Second Samuel, or the history of the patriarchs and the reading Genesis or whatever it might be, because this is very dense, very jam-packed meanings in its poetry and you have to really read it more often than just once, you have to soak it up.
I really encourage you to please try to read the scriptures, read the Psalms before the lessons, because I'm gonna try to spend a lot of time showing you the patterns, the repetitions, the connections, the links and the chain as all of these Psalms are connected to each other. So I highly encourage you, if you can, to read the Psalms before the lesson, if you can't obviously, I hope you get a lot out of the lesson regardless as I'll try to draw everything together for you. Okay, so on that very point then, if you read Psalms one and two carefully, you're gonna notice these literary patterns and repetitions. So, and this is what the quote here was about was saying just a moment ago, that both of these Psalms, they both begin and end with the theme of blessedness or happiness in Hebrew, Usher, which I'll impact as we get to Psalm one.
So if something begins and ends with a particular verse or a particular word, that's what we call an inclusio. I talk about this a lot, and pretty much every Bible study, because it's a very important literary device, then inclusio, or think of them as book-in versus, or a book-in-verse concept theme, or if you're hungry, think of it as a sandwich. It's like you got the two pieces of bread, and everything in the middle is kind of enclosed within the two pieces of whole wheat bread. However you wanna look at it, just call them inclusio.
And so, chapter one verse one says, blessed is the man, et cetera, et cetera. And then at the end of Psalm two, it says, blessed are those who take refuge in him. So, this Psalms one and two begin and end, there's an inclusio there with the theme of blessedness. Another connection between these Psalms is that they have a contrasting image of sitting.
In Psalm one verse one, there is this concept of someone who sits in the seat of scoffers, and that is contrasted in chapter two, verse four, where it says, he who sits in the heavens laughs the Lord has them in duration. So, there's a contrast there between sitting in the seat of scoffers, the wicked versus God, sitting up in heaven and laughing at the scoffers, basically God always gets the last laugh, never laugh at God. A number three, another connection here is both of these Psalms state that the quote unquote, way of the wicked will perish. So, chapter one, verse six, the way of the wicked will perish.
And then chapter two, verse 12, it says, do not, lest he be angry, and then you the wicked perish in the way. So, there's a complimentary concept there of the wicked perishing. And then number four, a final connection for you is that in chapter one, verse two, it's talking about how the blessed man, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he haggaz, he meditates on the law day and night. Haggaz is the word in Hebrew there, and it's the same word in chapter two, verse one, where it says the people's plot or haggaz in vain.
So, there's a contrast there, the man who meditates or plots on the scriptures day and night versus the wicked, people who meditate or plot in vain against the Lord. All right, so all of these little literary techniques here and repetitions and patterns that you find in the Psalms really teach us that these two serve as a one-two punch for introducing the entire Psalter. So, what are the two major themes that I really, really, really want you to look for, especially in book one, but in general, the entire Psalter, the first theme here that's being presented in Psalms one and two, is that every single person must choose between the two ways, the way of the righteous or the way of the wicked. All right, so blessedness or cursedness, that's the essence of book one, even book two, or should I say book one, a bigger part in Psalm one, and then Psalm two develops that.
And so, the way of the righteous, the blessed that are gonna focus on adhering to the Davidic king. So, in Psalm two, it's this anointed Davidic king, and I'm not a practicing to go along, it was to get especially to Psalm number two, but there's the anointed Davidic king, the son of God, he's suffering because of the nations that rise up against him, the wicked who rise up against him. He suffers but he's righteous, and he puts his trust in God, and he asks God to give him victory, and then he is blessed as a result. So, these are the two themes that Psalms one and two really emphasize, so that's gonna be the two ways, righteousness versus wickedness, and adhering, kissing, we're gonna see this in Psalm two, kissing the son of God, kissing the anointed king, loving him and serving him, and not rising up against him, because when you adhere to the Davidic king, what are you but following the way of righteousness?
And if you resist the Davidic king, and you've plot against him, and you scheme against him, well then what are you doing, you are adhering to the way of wickedness. So, they're very, very complimentary here, distinct, but complimentary themes about what the two ways look like. I hope that makes sense here. And again, I emphasize, look for those themes, I'm gonna bring them out to the forefront for you, as we go through Psalms one through 10 in this lesson, and then let's see here, if I remember correctly, we've got three more lessons, just to finish Book One, and we're gonna see that chain uniting all of the Psalms.
Because I always take this personally, whenever I read in the comments, or even a good commentary, like for example, all the Psalms in Book One are not really related to each other, they're very haphazard, they're very random, and they're all about David's life, but there's no really coherent theme, I always take that as a personal challenge. All right, game on, bet, let's see, let's see if we can find the theme, and I think that there's a really clear theme starting with these two themes of Book One and Psalm One and Two, and seeing how it unravels throughout the rest of Book One, adhering to the Davidic King, or fighting against the Davidic King. Okay, that's what you wanna look for, and as I'll share this with you, we'll see it all, take place. All right, another that, let's look at Psalm One.
Psalm One is called a wisdom Psalm, and that's really important, the very first Psalm of the entire Psalter is a wisdom Psalm. So let's begin with a little quote here. It says Psalm One functions as a kind of wisdom introduction, suggesting that the Psalter is a book of wisdom, along with Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and so on. In other words, in addition to being a Psalm Book of Praise, this altar is also a guide for right living, end quote.
I really appreciate this particular statement from your Catholic introduction, you'll Testament, because I also, it gets under my skin when I read commentaries, and they separate the Psalms from the rest of the wisdom literature. So Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the song of Solomon, Catholic books, of course, we've got wisdom and Sirac, and Job also is included in there. Psalms, a lot of people put Psalms to the side because it's a song of praise and worship and prayer, but it is fundamentally a wisdom book. So I totally agree with this, that Psalm One serves as an introduction to the whole Psalter as a book of wisdom.
It's not just praising and praying to God, that in and of itself is wisdom, right? So wisdom is a prayer to God, praising God, rejecting the way of wickedness. These are the themes that you're gonna see in the rest of our studies on the wisdom books. If you read them carefully, this main theme about choosing between the two ways, that's everywhere in the wisdom literature.
So it really, it really grinds me a little bit when I see people treating the Psalms as if it were not a wisdom book. Of course, it's a wisdom book, so don't dispute that. It teaches us right living on how to worship God and choose the way of righteousness. So yes, the Psalms is a wisdom book.
I really like to emphasize that big time. All right, so let's start here with this concept of, actually, you know what, first and foremost, let me read this to you. It's not very long, Psalm One begins really soft here. It's only six verses, verses one through six.
Let me read it for you. I'm gonna try to do that as much as I possibly can, which is read the majority of the Psalms. So we have the opportunity to at least touch upon the main themes of each Psalm. Can't get into all the specifics and read everything really closely and comment on every line because we would never finish this Bible study.
So I'm gonna do the best I can for you. So let's read verses one through six. Blessed is the man who walks not in the council 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, which the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in 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. All right, that's it. You can clearly see that I read this Psalm out loud. These two major themes of the two ways, because that's what the whole Psalter is depicting here, the two ways, the way of righteousness, the Lord knows, and the way of the wicked, which will perish.
Now this is touching upon a big theme of the entire Bible. I wanna really emphasize this. This is not unique just to the Psalms, or it's not unique just to the wisdom literature. The entire Bible depicts a choice that humanity must make between obeying God, loving him and serving him with a whole heart, with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and then also rejecting him.
So you can go back, I mean, in your notes, I only gave you two examples from Deuteronomy and Matthew, but honestly, we can even go back to Genesis. It's not in your notes, but I'm just thinking about this right now. In Genesis chapter three, after Adam and Eve's sin, and the Lord is speaking to Satan and proclaiming what we call the Proto-Evengelium, or Evengelium, depending on how you pronounce that. It's the first gospel.
And he says, God says to the serpent, I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He or she will crush your head and you will bruise his heel. All right, that right there is in essence the two ways. Either you are of the righteous line of the woman, the seed of the woman, the descendants of the woman, or of the devil, right?
So you basically have two choices, and this is all unpack with the righteous line of Seth, versus the unrighteous line of Cain, which then repeats in the sons of Noah and so on and so forth. This to the two ways are depicted historically in the entire Pentateuch. But then I'll fast forward here to Moses to be very famous, a very beautiful passage. I can imagine Moses on his knees, begging the people, pleading with them, pretty much for the entire book of Deuteronomy, honestly, but especially in verses like this, where he says, and this is in your notes, Deuteronomy 30 verse 19, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have said before you life and death, blessing and curse, therefore choose life that you and your descendants may live.
What a powerful verse that is. So basically you Israelites, as you go into the land, you have a choice. All right, you're gonna have blessing or curses, life or death, and I keep saying, I beg of you choose life that you guys may live. That's gonna be, of course, unpacked throughout the rest of the historical books as they go back and forth in the vassalate between choosing life and death, and so on and so forth.
All right, and then famously in Matthew chapter seven, verses 13 and 14, Jesus talks about the narrow and the wide gate. Well, you don't know, I mean, the narrow and the wide gate is a very famous verse, but you have to understand that verse is touching upon the overarching biblical theme of the two ways. So Jesus will say famously, enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leaves the destruction and those who enter it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leaves to life and those who find it are few.
In quotes, that's a pretty frightening verse, honestly, that's always kind of giving me the heebies, because everybody, not everybody, I beg your pardon, those who go by the wide gate that lead to destruction are many, but those who go by the narrow gate are few. Now, I can't do a huge Bible study on Matthew chapter seven, but he's talking about ultimately the gate into the temple, the temple worship where you offer your sacrifices to God and you praise him and you worship him. So that's a whole concept of the biblical theme of entering into heaven as well, which I'm gonna talk about that as we go through here. I got some passages and Ezekiel revelation to share with you.
So hang on to that idea about going into the temple to worship him, but very few find it, but these two gates, the wide gate in the narrow gate, those are the two ways, my friend. So whether it's Genesis or Deuteronomy or Matthew or the Psalms and we're gonna go through Proverbs and wisdom and seerak and really all of these different books of scripture, the two ways is essentially the underlying choice that every single human being must make here, okay? So that's what the essence of Psalm one is all about, contrasting the way of the righteous versus the way of the wicked. All right, so then let's get back to verse one here, where it says that a man is blessed in Hebrew that's Asher, A-S-H-E-R or it could be R-E-A-Shah or Asher.
What does that mean? Well, I did give you a little footnote here for you from your Ignat's Catholic study Bible. It says that Asher functions as a declaration, that one is fortunate to enjoy advantageous circumstances. It indicates that one is either worthy of God's favor or already in possession of it.
Happiness is thus understood as a divine blessing or favor. And that is why I love this quote, regardless of whether it affects one's emotions. So you may have a terrible day, it's all gloomy and gray and rainy outside and your car broke down and your dog is sick and all this stuff is happening and you don't really feel particularly happy. But if you are in a state of grace and have a relationship with God, you are Asher, you are blessed, you are happy because you are worthy of God's favor and you possess God's favor as being in a state of grace with him and that makes you advantageous because you and union with Christ are defeating death and Satan and sin.
So that's what Asher means. So a man is blessed if he rejects the way of the wicked. Now really quickly before I move on to the contrast here of the man who rejects the way of the wicked and verses one and following. I just wanted to make another connection.
I'm gonna make tons of connections to the New Testament as we go through this Bible study. But this whole concept of a man being blessed as receiving the favor of the Lord, that is what Jesus is evoking in the Sermon on the Mount. Very famously in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter five, you have the Beatitudes. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the me, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are merciful, pure and heart, et cetera.
Eight beatitudes there. So it's really interesting, this whole concept of blessedness when Jesus says, Asher if he's speaking in Hebrew or very similar Aramaic to the crowds, which is probably what he was doing, not in Greek, he's speaking in Hebrew. When he says blessed is he who et cetera, he's 100% echoing the Psalter. Everybody knows that the Psalter begins with blessed is the man.
So the first word out of Jesus is his mouth and the Sermon on the Mount is blessed are these people. Everybody's thinking holy, holy, what Jesus is doing, they're not niming not say holy, holy, but what Jesus is doing is giving a commentary on the Psalter. So the Psalter illuminates the Sermon on the Mount and vice versa. So if you want, as you study the, the Psalter together in the next, when it's 16 part Bible study and other studies that you might do, then you go and you read the Sermon on the Mount, you're gonna begin to see all these great parallels back and forth.
I think 100% when Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount and it starts with the first word blessed, he's echoing the first word of the Psalter because he is giving a commentary on the entire Psalter. In other words, the Sermon on the Mount is a further commentary on the way of the righteous. That's what the Sermon on the Mount is, it's describing the way of the righteous. And so remember that next time you read the Sermon on the Mount because it is a description of who the righteous man is as blessed, rejecting the way of unrighteous.
And I hope that helps you and the Sermon on the Mount. Okay, so what is this blessed man doing? Gosh, we're still on chapter one verse one here, man. We have a lot to do.
All right, blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers. This is really interesting. This is a beautiful series of lines here. Remember we call these progressive parallelisms, this is progressive parallelism where one builds upon the other.
So as you read, I can't mention all the types of parallelism that we discussed in lesson one. From time to time you're gonna see some really cool stuff and I'll try to remember to mention that to you, but always look at what kinds of parallelism is talking about. Well, this is progressive and it's probably a staircase. I'm probably wrong about that, but it's building on each other because there's a progressiveness of what's going on here about rejecting the way of the wickedness as depicted by walking and then you're standing and then you're sitting with the wicked.
So the words walk, and this is what your Novard Bible says, just a quick quote. The words walk and stands not and sits not, indicates three successive stages in moving away from the right path. That's a beautiful image. So imagine you're a man just doing what are woman, of course, doing whatever you're doing, you're kind of doing your life, living your life, living your day, and then you're walking along with the wicked and then you're intrigued and then you stop, you're walking and you stand to listen a little bit more, and then you're like, oh, I'm really buying these lies here, and then you sit down to accept the instruction of the wicked and the way of the center.
Don't do that. This is a very interesting first three verses of the whole Psalter, which tell us, when we're just to basically run away is what I would say, don't walk with the wicked, and then stand to talk with them, and then just sit and receive their instruction. That's going to be very, very bad. You're moving away from the right path.
Very interesting here. So instead, blessed is the person, the man who, verse two, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. This is really, really awesome here. So you are going to meditate on the law of the Lord.
What is the law of the Lord? Well, law is in Hebrew, Torah. It's instruction. It's God's teaching.
That's what you're meditating on day and night. Why? To remain in his covenant, to maintain the relationship that you have with him. That's really important.
We think of law, we think of rules, and that's not wrong, but those rules mean something. Those rules are instruction and teaching, and you should also understand Torah as wisdom. The law of the Lord is God's wisdom for Israel to maintain the covenant, the relationship that he has with this people. Because honestly, the way to understand sin is not breaking a rule.
Sin is breaking a relationship. That's what it's all about, breaking a relationship, breaking a covenant that you have with him. That's what sin is. I like to think of it that way.
Of course, there's many ways to describe sin. But when you break God's law, his eternal law, and the natural law that he gives and puts into our souls, our color, spiritual DNA, you're breaking a relationship with God, just like any person in a normal relationship, spouses, or parents, and children, or friends, when you sin against them, you're breaking that relationship. So when we meditate on God's law, his instruction, his teaching, his wisdom, we're remaining in the covenant. And so I really like how Psalm 1 begins with this concept of moving away from the way of sinners and meditating on the Torah of the Lord day and night.
There's a couple of echoes going backwards to the original law of Moses. So very famously, this particular verse is echoing the great Shema prayer of Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 and following. Here, Shema, oh Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And these words which are commanded this day shall be upon your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children, you shall talk of them when you sit on your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise, bind them on a sign on your hand, and frontless between your eyes, put them on the door post of your house and on your gates, all this stuff, be all in.
The great Shema verses 4 through 9 of Deuteronomy 6 is you need to be all in. There's no lukewarm Judaism, just as there's no lukewarm Christianity, which is the fulfillment of Judaism, I might add. But in any case, this particular verse in Psalms about meditating on the law of the Lord day and night is 100% echoing the great Shema prayer. And that's no accident, I don't think at all.
There's also another echo to Joshua chapter one verse eight, where Joshua is now inherited the authority of Moses. Joshua's a little mini-moses. Go back and listen to the Bible study on Joshua, if you need to, to refresh yourselves on that. But God gives him this great pep talk.
I call it a divine little pep talk before he leads his people. And what God says to Joshua in chapter one, all back up to verse seven here, he says, be strong and courageous, being careful to do according to all the law which Moses and my servant commanded you, turn not from the right hand or the left, but you may have good success wherever you go. And this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall what meditate on it day and night that you may be careful to do all that isn't it? So just Psalm chapter one verse two is echoing the great Shema of Moses.
And it's echoing God's words to Joshua. And that's important for us too. I should add just all these little points of relevance because we are like little Joshua's. We are conquering the promised land.
In essence, we're trying to conquer in our spiritual battles of our lives. We're trying to conquer the land and enter into heaven. All right, so we are little mini Joshua's I like to meditate on and teach students. We need to go and conquer our spiritual enemies so we can enter the land.
How are we gonna do that? Well, obviously through Joshua chapter one and through Psalm chapter one and so many other verses, you gotta meditate on the law. So this is where I'm just gonna encourage you. If you're listening to this and you're listening to other Bible studies or you're doing scripture study in various contexts, that's really essential.
People who do not study scripture regularly are gonna have a much harder time in their spiritual battles, conquering their sin, falling in love with Jesus Christ and so on and so on. I'm not gonna get all too preach about this right now. I'm not even preaching to the choir here, but you gotta study scripture, meditate on his wisdom and his teaching as instruction if you wanna conquer the land, if you wanna be blessed, if you wanna follow the way of righteousness. All right, so I'll say that.
Now, one more thing about Haggah or meditation that Hebrew is Haggah. It's right there in your notes, H-A-G-H-A, Haggah. Now that has the sense of devouring and I'm not gonna take you to Isaiah chapter 31 verse four but it's in your notes. In Isaiah 31, four, there is this concept of a lion that Haggah is his prey.
Devours, consumes his prey. That's how you want to meditate on the law or the teaching or the instruction or the wisdom of God. His word, his scriptures. You need to devour it like a lion devours his prey.
And gosh, I'm just gonna feel so preachy in this particular lesson. Maybe in this whole Bible study, I'm gonna feel so preachy. I hope you hope you're receiving it well. But if you're not feeling like you wanna devour the law, you're not hungry enough for the law and there's gonna be a little examination of conscience there for you.
How hungry are you for God's word? If you're not all that hungry, then maybe you gotta change something in your life. But if you are ravenous for God's word and you wanna devour, meditate on it day and night, well, something's going well. So that could be a little examination of conscience for all of us, myself included.
I know for a fact, even though I teach scripture for a living, I know for a fact, I can still spend more time throughout the day reflecting on God's word, reflecting on the daily mass readings. We can always do better. So I guess my point here for reflection is, are you hungry enough for the word of God in his scriptures as a lion is hungry and wants to devour his prey, his antelope or his dear, whatever he's eating? If not, well, then ask the Lord to give you that hunger.
All right, we gotta move on here because this is so much. Okay, and the next point here is the verse three. The guy who does this, the person who meditates hagaz on the law of the Lord day and night, verse three. He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.
And all that he does, he prospers, that whole concept of prospering, that's 100% echoing Joshua again. I just read that to you, God says Jesus, Father, Son of Holy Spirit, say to Joshua, man, do you want to prosper Joshua? And taking the people to land meditate on the law, the word prosper is repeated there as well. But let's focus here on the tree.
You're like a tree that's planted by streams of water. So this tree, many commentators will say, this tree evokes the tree of life in the garden of Eden. Now the garden of Eden was fed by four different rivers, streams of water going into the garden, going into paradise to irrigate it and keep it lush and beautiful, all right? So the one who meditates on the law of the Lord is like a tree by streams of water.
So basically what it's saying is, okay, producing fruit by the way, I would add that really quickly before I forget, a tree that produces fruit in season. So you're like a tree that produces fruit for yourself, for your own life, for you to handle the challenges of life, every single day, every month, day in and day out, you're producing fruit to stay, I guess, have all the nutrition that you need, I suppose you could say, metaphorically speaking, that you need to live life and to live a life to the full, right? But you're producing fruit for other people as well. When you meditate on God's law on his word, you're producing fruit for yourself, but you're producing fruit for other people in your life.
So do you wanna have the right words of counsel and wisdom for people in your life, your spouse, your friends, your children, or whomever? Well, you better be meditating on the word of God in order to do that. So you're producing fruit in season for everybody. And the part of the idea here also is that by meditating on the law, the law of God, his word, brings us back to paradise.
It brings us back to the garden of Eden, and ultimately as we're going to see throughout the Psalter, meditating on the law brings us to his temple, to worship God, to love him and to serve him, to offer good sacrifices to him. So meditating on the law gives you the ability to produce fruit because you're going back to paradise. And that's the whole theme of all of scripture is exile and return. God created Adam and Eve in a state of righteousness and justice and friendship with him.
They sinned and they're exiled from the garden. So the question is how do we get back? How do we get back to paradise into the garden of Eden? Well, the Psalms are telling us the first step would be meditating on the law, hagong and devouring it, all right?
Now one more other thing I wanna clarify before we move on, actually there's a lot of things I wanna say is, okay, so streams of water, you're a tree that's planted by streams of water, okay, that is 100. Okay, let me, what I wanna do first? Ah, my brain is going too fast. Okay, so Ezekiel, let's look at Ezekiel first.
Ezekiel chapter 47, verse 12, and honestly, Revelation 22 is got the same kind of theme here. Let me try to flip to Ezekiel quickly. Ezekiel 47 is all about a vision of the temple. Ezekiel is this great vision of water that flows from the temple, but if you, that's gonna be a whole new Bible study for another time.
But let me just read verse 12. And what Ezekiel has a vision of is the water that flows from the temple of the Lord and verse 12 on the banks, on both sides of the river, they were grown all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail. I mean, you can hear Psalm 1 in this, can't you?
There'll be like trees producing food, their leaves will not wither, their fruit will not fail, but they were bare fresh fruit every month because the water for them flows from the sanctuary, their fruit will be for food, and their leaves will be for healing. So in essence, what Psalm 1 is talking about is that meditating on the law is going to bring you back to paradise and you're gonna be in touch with the heavenly temple in order to bear that fruit, in order to heal other people. And this water flows from the sanctuary. What is that water?
It's the Holy Spirit. When you're meditating on the word of God, devouring it, you're going to be tapped into the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit will guide you in the meditation. Now we have to read scripture and meditate on the word of the Lord in union with the church and from the heart of the church.
We're not infallible, the church is, we of course have to keep that in mind, but nevertheless the spirit will work in us. The Jesus does it all the time in the scriptures in the gospel. He's always talking in John 4, the Samaritan woman, and when he's in the temple itself in John chapter seven, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. This whole concept of living water, whenever you read that, you should always be thinking, Holy Spirit, like Holy Spirit alarm bells should be going off in your brain.
So when you're meditating on the law, you're gonna be like a tree planted by streams of water. In other words, you're tapped in, you're planted into the Holy Spirit, bearing the good fruit of the Holy Spirit, which Paul will talk about in Galatians, right? So you begin to see all of these little concepts connecting with each other. Now, the temple I don't wanna forget about before I move on here, because Ezekiel 47, I just read to you verse 12, is all about again, an echoing of the Psalm, Psalm right here, Psalm number one, about being planted like a tree producing fruit and the spirit, really the water comes out of the sanctuary of the temple.
That same exact concept is repeated in Revelation 22, chapter 22 verse two, because we're talking about the heavenly temple for all eternity. So Ezekiel really has a vision of the heavenly temple, which John has the same vision of. And honestly, you can't understand the book of Revelation without the prophet Ezekiel, but that's another Bible study for another time. I guess all I'm saying here is I'm kinda geeking out with you a little bit is the prophecies of Ezekiel and Revelation are tapping into Psalm one, where the Holy Spirit flows from the heavenly temple, really in Revelation it says, from the throne of the Lamb as well as the Father, the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, get that okay, feel real quick, in order to bear fruit in our lives.
All of this, my dear friend, is packed in chapter one verses one through two. I'm kinda doing this fast because we're well over a half an hour and I'm just super far behind, but that's okay, we always pause it and grab a snack and come back. All right, so that is what the Blessed Man does. He meditates day and night, he's like a tree, he's a guy, he's producing fruit because he's tapping at the Holy Spirit, which is symbolized by rear-resolting water.
Now we got the contrast in verses four through following of the wicked man, all right, where the wicked man is like chaff, all right, now chaff is essentially a withered up leaf, so the righteous man, his weak leaf does not wither, the wicked's leaf is like chaff, he is a wither leaf basically, which the wind drives away. So chaff is punishment, right, so you know, you got wheat, you bang it into the, in the threshing floor, the grain is left behind and then the dried up leaf blows away, that is a symbol of judgment. And by the way, in scripture, threshing floors are images of judgment because judgment is the beating of the wheat, what's left behind is the fruit symbolizing the blessed man and the chaff symbolizes the wicked man, it's blown away or it's burned and fire, right? So the wicked evil center, sinful man, is gonna be judged and it's gonna be punished because he's a withered leaf, all right, but there's still an opportunity for repentance.
Saint Jerome says, I quoted this from your introduction, oh, I didn't, I quoted it from your Catholic study bible, Saint Jerome says the wicked will be saved if they repent in due penance. This song does not say that the wicked will perish but that the way of the wicked disappears, when the wicked man repents, wickedness vanishes. That's a really interesting take right there, where penance gives the ability for the wicked man to depart the way of wickedness and then to be, to receive or to go by the path of righteousness. That's very, very interesting, a very interesting quote right there, there's always the opportunity to repent, at least into the last moment of death, so we should always be repenting.
All right, so there is the essence of chapter one, song chapter one, this contrast, and of course the whole song ends, I'll read it one more time, the Lord knows the way of the righteous but the way the wicked will perish. So all the images that we just discussed from verses really two through five, contrasting the way of the righteous versus the way of the wicked now is summarized here in this parallelism, right? In verse six, the right of the righteousness is blessed by God. He knows it, God knows the righteous people themselves but the wicked will be like chaff.
Awesome stuff, I hope you enjoyed chapter one. Now I need to go to chapter two, I just have to force myself here. So chapter two is a royal and messianic song. Hey, this is Dr.
Nick, thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at scripture and tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want. So thank you so much, God bless you and keep studying your Bible.