Session 4 - Module 1 - Meditating on Psalm 1:4-6 - Reading the Bible as Meditation Literature

Okay, we're going to move forward, take in the second half of Psalm 1. We stopped our meditations on verse 3, I want us to take in now verse 4, and then look at how it relates to verse 3. So verse 4 reads, "...not so the wicked, rather he is like chaff which is driven away by the wind." So what's interesting, maybe just noticing the form, this is the first line that doesn't have a really tight structured parallelism. The first line is, "...not so the wicked, rather he is like chaff that wind drives away." Those two lines are not in between themselves parallel except that the wicked is the subject of the second line. But it's not like, "...not so the wicked, he's whatever, carried away by a storm, he's like chaff that the wind drives away." Like that would be a parallelism. So we've abandoned parallelism for verse 4, that's interesting. It's as if somebody wants us to take verse 4 and just instantly join it as an answer to verse 3. And notice how the first words give us a clue, "...not so," it's a contrast. So the word, "...so," is explicitly activating tree man. And so the wicked is not like tree man, rather, here's what the wicked is like, and then we get this new metaphor, he's like chaff. You can't see it in English, but the phrase, "...like a tree and like chaff," look nearly identical in Hebrew. I kind of used color in the notes, but, "...like a tree," is ka-ets, "...like chaff," is ka-mots. But the letters, this really sequence of letters, looks almost identical. So it's a good example. This is like an Ullipo move, where different words, but they are spelled with letters that actually look almost identical. Which makes your mind connect them, even though they're different. Now what's also interesting is that both of them are plant metaphors, aren't they? A tree is like a vital living thing, full of sap and producing fruit.

And chaff, we're talking about, so wheat growing, and then there's the buds with all the little wheat seeds. And then you pull off a wheat seed and there's kind of like the peel of an onion, there's that outer layer that's just dry and cracky. It's like that. Chaff. So it's the opposite of a tree. But the words look almost identical to the phrase, "...like a tree." Isn't that great? It's similar to make your mind connect them, but then the meaning of ka-mots, like chaff, couldn't be more opposite than like the vital tree full of life and so on. So he's wanting us to now connect these two metaphors as a contrast portrait, aren't they? Like a tree, which gives fruit, which is successful. Like chaff, which is driven away by the wind. And this is another one where maybe this is just my imagination, I don't know. But if you say out loud the last line of each verse, there is a cadence and a density of similar letters. I'll say it in Hebrew and maybe you'll hear it, but I don't know. It might be in my brain alone. Verse three ends with, "...v'chol asher yaseh yatzliach." Verse four ends, "...ki im ka-mots asher t'dfenu ruach." I think. There's something there, but I won't go to bat for it, you know. But it's interesting, it's the final line of each one, and the word success, yatzliach, is the opposite of being driven by the wind, the ruach. Ruach is wind? Ruach is wind, yeah. Other observations about three and four together? Is ruach used elsewhere in the Bible to describe the spirit of God? Yes, yes it is.

Ruach? Ruach. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is the word translated as spirit. This is impersonal, invisible energy. Whereas when you're talking about a person's invisible, vital energy, you could talk about their ruach. And there we would use the word breath. And then when you're talking about God's personal, vitalizing, energizing presence, then you get God's ruach, which we have a different English word, yeah, we have three English words. But in Hebrew, it's one. It's interesting, though, that that was the word choice, just thinking about the contrast, the streams of water. I think we're supposed to think about the Spirit, and then the wind, you sort of think about the Spirit as well. Yeah. Okay, so what you're noticing is that water and wind are at the first line and the last line of three and four as a whole. That's fantastic. I actually never noticed that before. That's great, because wind and water, Spirit and water, like in Isaiah 44 that we saw earlier, are often joined together as images. Would that be confusing to them? When you see ruach listed there, then also talking about the Spirit of God, would they think, does this mean that the Spirit is driving me away? Oh, I see. Think similarity and difference. So just because something is joined doesn't mean that it's the same. When the design structure makes me notice something and then I put it into relationship,

the actual relationship between them could be, well, you've got to think about it. But the fact that they're joined in connection with each other doesn't necessarily mean they're the same. It might, but it might mean that they're opposites, or it might mean that one is an image of the other. So am I meant to think that the wind is God's agency driving the wicked away? Well, in a way, yes. Think of the way in Proverbs you view the universe. It's that if you live against the moral grain of the universe, you dig a pit for others, you're probably going to find yourself in a pit at some point. And the biblical authors are really keen to assure us that God is the orchestrator of that arc of justice. And so in that sense, what we're talking about is what the next line is going to say, which is God's judgment. That God's the one who has both ordered the cosmos and is overseeing it so that certain ways of being lead to life. And if you don't want to be or do that, you won't get to life. You'll get to the opposite of life. So maybe there is something to that relationship there that you're supposed to ponder. Thank you for raising that. On the note of plant analogies, it reminds me of what Jesus says about the vine and the pruning. So that connection between the wind or the ruaka, spirit of God driving away the wicked,

and the correspondence of what he was saying about those that would be cut off and thrown into the fire versus the pruning that happens and the planting and being secure in the vine and the planted by the streams of water. That connection, just since we're talking about plants. Yeah, fruitfulness versus dry, unproductive. And then their fates are different, right? Success and life versus exile. Driven from is the image of... Actually, it's the opposite of planted, isn't it? Instead of permanence, it's impermanence and exile. It feels like the Garden of Eden story is so much on the brain, but it's all underneath the surface in terms of just the images used. So what you're observing, and let's live within the metaphors. We have the garden image here. It's connected with life. And then this rootedness, planted. So there's a permanence to that. And then what's contrasted here instead of garden is exile. Isn't that interesting? Driven away, which we're like fully in the thought world of the Garden of Eden story here. The opposite of life, of course, leads to death. But what's drawn attention here is the separation is the thing under focus, which is so interesting. And shaft is dry. Yeah, so maybe lifeless. Lifeless.

Instead of saying dead, it's just without the life principle. Yeah. And if it's lifeless and in exile, you would say it's temporary, impermanent, ephemeral. So this contrast, it's very... I mean, notice how few words are used, but it's so evocative. Notice we're comparing water and wind. We're comparing planted and exile, tree and shaft. They're so productive. Each one of them is worth a long walk to ponder it. It's robust, as you said. So now we did one and two. We backed up and looked at it. We did three and four. We looked at it. And do you see how there's little pairs? 1 and 2 are a pair, 3 and 4 are a pair, let's look at the pairs of pairs. Let's look at 1 through 4 as a whole. And I'll just draw attention to some features here. Notice how we began with good life man, but mostly, after introducing good life man, mostly we were thinking about the opposite of the good life, right? The counsel of the wicked, the path of sinners, the seat of mockers. Then we, remember this rather, it's the phrase keim, here's this delight. Then we get this depiction of good life man, a positive portrait this time. So notice we had good life and a negative contrast. We have this rather, then we get good life man and a positive portrait. Good life man and a negative portrait, good life man and a positive portrait. And then notice this word rather appears two times. So good life man, negative portrait, well what's the opposite of the negative? Torah meditation.

Good life man and a positive portrait, rather, not so the wicked, and then you get the negative out. In other words, the flow of thought works in a symmetrical design. And the key, the word rather is the pivot between the negative and the positive. The word asherah is spelled with the same letters as the word who and which, which occur just at verse 1 and verse 3. Notice how the negative doesn't walk, doesn't stand, doesn't sit. And then the negative only occurs elsewhere in verse 3, his leaf does not wither. This is the first one I notice between 1 and 3, sitting. He doesn't sit. So we're told where good life man does not sit in verse 1, in the seat of mockers, well where does he sit? He sits where he's planted, as it were. So plant and sit are different Hebrew words, but they're the same idea. Remember Seth, when you told the story from movement to cessation, it's as if he doesn't sit, he doesn't end up in a permanent place, but where does he end up in a permanent place? And that's what verse 3 is. So there's this interesting set of relationships between 1 through 4 that if I look at it as this is what's called a forward symmetry. So A, B, A, B. But often symmetrical patterns like my wife's plants are put together not in a forward symmetry. I mean, if you think there's only so many logical ways you can set up a pattern. You can do A, B, A, B, A, B, or you could do A, B, B, A. What happens when I turn the poem again and I look at the poem as what you could call an inverse symmetry or a chiasm? And what I'll notice is that good life man is contrasted with the wicked in the first line and then the wicked is mentioned in line 4 only here. So the wicked is mentioned at the beginning and then at the end. And then notice that words for time appear here in the center. He meditates day and night.

He gives its fruit in its time. Whether the author intended, like think of an author constructing a poem. How much of this was consciously and intentional to repeat the time words in the center and the wicked at the beginning and the end, but then to distribute other words in a forward symmetry. This is where it's difficult, and it's so interesting, you know, to listen to artists and musicians and ask, what were you thinking when you wrote the song? And very often the way literary art or just art works is it's intuitive. It's not actually on the conscious brain, but there really is an intentionality going on. And so all of these observations of repeated words and linkages, they stand at different levels in my mind of like, yeah, that's probably for sure intentional. And I have no idea, but it's cool, you know, like the time words. So does someone, do you know if it was meant to be sung as a song? And so did the author think of rhyme just like you would in writing a song? So you purposely structure it so it would rhyme. So it could be. a song as a song. Do you know if this was one of the... Yeah, that's great. Many of the poems in the Book of Psalms began life in the temple liturgy. They name, like the Sons of Korah were Levite singers. But many of them aren't connected to, like the poems of David in the wilderness, or these. They're also like alphabet poems that would be really hard to sing as a hymn. And actually, this is just true in general. Hebrew poetry is not marked by any kind of meter or rhyme. It is marked by a certain cadence and by word association using similar letters to connect. Like the first line of this, asher ha'ish asher. There's a cadence. So, a poem like this feels like it was designed to be haggad, that is for quiet recitation. And the way, instead of rhyming syllables or meter, it's about rhyming thoughts in sequence. Something like the parallelism, right? The juxtaposition. Keep rocking. Verse 5. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

Pretty tight parallel structure, yes? So you have bad guys, you have this... Actually, the verb used here is implied in the second line, isn't it? There's no verb in the second line. So, they're structured so tightly that you're just meant to fill it in in your mind. The wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor will sinners stand in the assembly of the righteous. So, it's interesting. You have this contrast between... Notice, you have wicked and sinner, so that's a similarity. But then you have wicked and righteous, which is a contrast. So, a quick little education in legal terminology in the Hebrew Bible. So, when you have judgment, what you're referring to is something that happens in the city gates. You get the elders of the town together. Two people have a dispute. So-and-so stole my donkey. Evidence is brought forward by the mouth of two or three witnesses, not just one. And the judges, who's called a shofet, will offer a judgment, which is this word called mishpat. And the judges will listen to the evidence, and then they'll declare somebody to be the rasha, that's the word wicked, to be in the wrong. And then they'll declare somebody to be the tzaddik, that's to be in the right. So, here's the classic statement of these kind of basic categories in the law from Exodus. Do not distort the judgment, mishpat, due to your needy brother in his dispute. Keep far from a false charge. Do not put the innocent or the righteous to death, for I will not declare righteous the one who is wicked, rasha. So, what we're talking about here is like a little court scene in verse 5. We've shifted from a vineyard and a field to like a court scene in the city gates. We're in a moment where justice is being declared, and some people are rasha, based on what they've done. Some people are tzaddik, righteous, based on what they've done. But what we're told is, do you remember how the good life man was described by what he doesn't do? Now, the wicked are defined by where they will not be able to stand. So, this idea of who can stand in the judgment, it's sort of like once you're declared rasha, you're sitting down. The consequence is coming. But if you're declared as the righteous one, you can stand in the judgment. It's sort of like you're vindicated.

The wicked won't stand in the judgment. Well, who does get to stand in the judgment? Well, the righteous will, because they're being vindicated. Other observations about verse 5? I mean, we're bringing back those ideas and verbs, I guess. I mean, that's what you're saying, standing. There's paths. I mean, those are all coming back. It's not all of them, but it's some of them. Yes, not standing. That's what you're remembering. The righteous, well, actually, we didn't call him the righteous man. He was just good. life man. But now we have another descriptor. He's the one declared right and he will stand. So the good life man doesn't stand with the wicked and the wicked man won't stand with the righteous. Yeah and there's a parallel between the assembly of righteous versus the, what was the first verse, the company of mockers. So in either case there is an assembly happening. So we are part of, you know, a group and we associate with that. The question is which group do we want to be associated with? Yeah, we'll get there. When we look at the poem as a whole in a moment, but the word council of the wicked, like the little planning circle, and this word assembly of the righteous, council and assembly are spelled with almost identical looking letters. So in other words, the fact that your brain went there without even knowing that, but you drew a relationship, that you knew that there's something going on there and it is actually something there in the design shape. There's something that's implied in verse six because Yahweh knows the path of the righteous, but the path of the wicked will perish. That connects, that being known by Yahweh leads to a life of prosperity, which is hinting at three to four. Okay, great. Let's bring in verse six now. You took us there. Because, so that word itself obviously depends on, it's a linking word, explicitly linking verse six back up to verse, whatever happens in verse five happens because

of verse six. So why is it that the wicked can't stand in the judgment or sinners in the assembly of the righteous? Because Yahweh knows the path of the righteous, but the path of the wicked will perish. Notice our path. In terms of structure, you have Yahweh knows and you have these two paths, the path of the righteous, but the path of the wicked and then you have a verb, will perish. So it kind of works in a, this is an inverse symmetry, A, B, B, A. The two paths. Where does, what's associated with the two paths? Okay, so now I'm going to bring it back to what you're noticing. Notice how the contrast between the two paths is Yahweh knowing the path or just a path perishing. So you draw attention to relationship, knowledge as an image of relational knowing. It's not just that Yahweh knows something about the righteous. Yeah, so what does this metaphor mean? Yahweh knows the path of the righteous. Feels like intimacy. We meditated on path as an image for way of life. So, yeah, what, of course Yahweh knows how the righteous live, but why is that in contrast to a different path that perishes? How does Yahweh knowing something lead to the opposite of perishing? Does that make sense? Why is knowing the opposite of perishing or being known is the opposite? Isn't that interesting? You would think like prosper versus perish, but being known by God or perishing. That is a very evocative pairing, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. The question of knowing, what does it mean to be known by God reminds me of the scripture where Jesus says many will come to him and say, Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out demons in your name? And he would say, get away from me. I do not know you. And I've always struggled with that. Like, what do you mean you do not know? So that question of like, what does it mean to be known? And how does that lead to the path of prosperity and righteousness is interesting. It's great. My mind went there too. You might expect in a judgment scene for the judge to say, you know, guilty, innocent, right? Or in this case, Rasha, wicked, Tzadik, right? But then what God's relationship to the righteous is that he knows them. Or actually, he knows their way. God has a way. Like Moses says in Psalm 90, show me your ways. And ways that lead to life will be Yahweh's ways because Yahweh is life. So there's some connection there. but to follow a way that Yahweh doesn't recognize. Such a powerful image. It's like, of course Yahweh doesn't know

the way of the wicked. He knows how they live, but he doesn't. That's not how Yahweh lives. Yahweh doesn't operate by that pattern, and so it's a pattern that leads to nothing, nothingness. Like it's a reduction back into nothing. Yeah, it seems like there's this critique on that which is parasitic upon the created order. So, for example, the chaff. Unlike the grain, which by its nature sprouts and produces fruit, the chaff can't come about on its own. It's dependent upon the grain, so it's parasitic. It lives only because the grain is there, and then the breath comes and separates it out. And so, too, the wicked, they're parasitic upon the good that the righteous have brought about, this path that God has established. And so, they can only exist, they can only manipulate and deceive and mock insofar as there's something for them to hold onto. But they're holding onto it in a false way, and so God says, I know that you are not a part of my path because you're abusing it. You're misusing what I have created, and so. I'm just thinking about the instruction up here in verse two of being the Torah, where it's talking about the instruction of Yahweh. And then back here, we see the mention of Yahweh again. Like, the Torah is the way to the path of righteousness.

The ways that God has, the path that God have, it's actually really clear in the Torah. Is that the connection that's being made there? Fantastic, thank you, thanks, okay. We'll never finish Psalm one, but we do need to conclude our meditations for the moment. There are many ways that you could look at the relationships between these six lines. What you were just drawing attention to, Seth, is that Yahweh's instruction in verse two has this interesting relationship to Yahweh's, the path that Yahweh's known. And so, yeah, for instruction and path is for sure a joined idea. Notice also, though, that path links all the way up to the path of the sinners in verse one. You were noticing the divine name occurs just two times in verse two and in verse six. So, if you just track with all the repeated words or ideas, you'll just get a mess of colors. And the question is, do the colors fall into any kind of pattern? I'll submit to you that there's two patterns at work in the shaping of the poem, and what parts you match will determine what you see. So, let's look here at it as a chiasm, where you walk in towards the center and then you walk back out again. Notice the good life man at the beginning, the first pair of lines, is brought up again.

Then he's just he, he, he, he, he, but then he's named the righteous here in the end. But now we have good life man and righteous. We have divine name and divine name at the beginning and the end. We have instruction and judgment. Yahweh's judgments and his instructions are tightly linked. We have the path and the path, but also Yahweh's instruction in the path. And then you have the plant imagery in the very center. And you're like, whoa, that seems intentional. You've got this contrast between the righteous and the wicked, a contrast of righteous, wicked, a contrast of righteous, wicked in three pairs. But plants in the center, life habits at the beginning, judgment outcome at the end, but these beginning and end are joined in a cool way. But let's flip it and let's think, well, what if it were like an A, B, C, A, B, C? So you can join good life man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand or sit in the path of sinners. And then you get filled out the portrait of the wicked. Notice the wicked and the wicked are brought up in verses one and four. Notice how instruction is connected with judgment here. Now we already noticed that here on this one, didn't we? Instruction and instruction.

But what I found most interesting here was how the distribution of the wicket, it's in the first line here, but then it's in verse four, but then it's also in verse five and verse six. So it's both at the beginning and the end, and it's at the beginning and the beginning of the first part and of the third part. So it could be that that's not intentional, and I'm killing the butterfly by dissecting it, but I think I've just found paying attention to design so productive, not just because it's cool to look at, but when things are designed to go together, it leads you on a journey of meditation, where the subjective and the objective come together. Psalm 1 is a beautiful poem, and my hunch is many of these insights we could have gotten had we started with, what sticks out to you, what sticks out to you? But my hunch is there's a whole bunch of things that we also notice that wouldn't have stuck out to us, but they really are there, that somebody wants us to see. And if somebody wants to deepen their tool set, I mean, wouldn't you want to notice more? Who doesn't want to notice more? Do you kind of see how it works? Let's do it again with Psalm 2 for a couple sessions, but before we get there, let's take a break and let our minds rest.