Psalms 37:12-22

37:12 Evil men plot against the godly ¹ 

and viciously attack them. ² 

37:13 The Lord laughs in disgust ³  at them,

for he knows that their day is coming. ⁴ 

37:14 Evil men draw their swords

and prepare their bows,

to bring down ⁵  the oppressed and needy,

and to slaughter those who are godly. ⁶ 

37:15 Their swords will pierce ⁷  their own hearts,

and their bows will be broken.

37:16 The little bit that a godly man owns is better than

the wealth of many evil men, ⁸ 

37:17 for evil men will lose their power, ⁹ 

but the Lord sustains ¹⁰  the godly.

37:18 The Lord watches over the innocent day by day ¹¹ 

and they possess a permanent inheritance. ¹² 

37:19 They will not be ashamed when hard times come; ¹³ 

when famine comes they will have enough to eat. ¹⁴ 

37:20 But ¹⁵  evil men will die;

the Lord’s enemies will be incinerated ¹⁶  –

they will go up in smoke. ¹⁷ 

37:21 Evil men borrow, but do not repay their debt,

but the godly show compassion and are generous. ¹⁸ 

37:22 Surely ¹⁹  those favored by the Lord ²⁰  will possess the land,

but those rejected ²¹  by him will be wiped out. ²² 

[37:12]  ¹ tn Or “innocent.” The singular is used here in a representative sense; the typical evildoer and the typical godly individual are in view.

[37:12]  ² tn Heb “and gnashes at him with his teeth” (see Ps 35:16). The language may picture the evil men as wild animals. The active participles in v. 12 are used for purposes of dramatic description.

[37:13]  ³ tn Heb “laughs.” As the next line indicates, this refers to derisive laughter (see 2:4). The Hebrew imperfect verbal form describes the action from the perspective of an eye-witness who is watching the divine response as it unfolds before his eyes.

[37:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “for he sees that his day is coming.” As the following context makes clear (vv. 15, 17, 19-20), “his day” refers to the time when God will destroy evildoers.

[37:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “to cause to fall.”

[37:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “the upright in way,” i.e., those who lead godly lives.

[37:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “enter into.”

[37:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “Better [is] a little to the godly one than the wealth of many evil ones.” The following verses explain why this is true. Though a godly individual may seem to have only meager possessions, he always has what he needs and will eventually possess the land. The wicked may prosper for a brief time, but will eventually be destroyed by divine judgment and lose everything.

[37:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “for the arms of the evil ones will be broken.”

[37:17]  ¹⁰ tn The active participle here indicates this is characteristically true.

[37:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the Lord knows the days of the innocent ones.” He “knows” their days in the sense that he is intimately aware of and involved in their daily struggles. He meets their needs and sustains them.

[37:18]  ¹² tn Heb “and their inheritance is forever.”

[37:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “in a time of trouble.”

[37:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in days of famine they will be satisfied.”

[37:20]  ¹⁵ tn Or “for,” but Hebrew כי in this case would have to extend all the way back to v. 17a. Another option is to understand the particle as asseverative, “surely” (see v. 22).

[37:20]  ¹⁶ tc The meaning of the MT (כִּיקַר כָּרִים [kiqar karim], “like what is precious among the pastures/rams”) is uncertain. One possibility is to take the noun כָּרִים as “pastures” and interpret “what is precious” as referring to flowers that blossom but then quickly disappear (see v. 2 and BDB 430 s.v. יָקָר 3). If כָּרִים is taken as “rams,” then “what is precious” might refer to the choicest portions of rams. The present translation follows a reading in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QpPs37), כיקוד כורם (“like the burning of an oven”). The next line, which pictures the Lord’s enemies being consumed in smoke, supports this reading, which assumes confusion of the Hebrew letters resh (ר) and dalet (ד) at the end of the first word in the sequence.

[37:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “they perish in smoke, they perish.” In addition to repeating the verb for emphasis, the psalmist uses the perfect form of the verb to picture the enemies’ demise as if it had already taken place. In this way he draws attention to the certitude of their judgment.

[37:21]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “an evil [man] borrows and does not repay; but a godly [man] is gracious and gives.” The singular forms are used in a representative sense; the typical evildoer and godly individual are in view. The three active participles and one imperfect (“repay”) draw attention to the characteristic behavior of the two types.

[37:22]  ¹⁹ tn The particle כִּי is best understood as asseverative or emphatic here.

[37:22]  ²⁰ tn Heb “those blessed by him.” The pronoun “him” must refer to the Lord (see vv. 20, 23), so the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:22]  ²¹ tn Heb “cursed.”

[37:22]  ²² tn Or “cut off”; or “removed” (see v. 9).