Psalms 37:35

עריץ (after the form צדּיק) is coupled with רשׁע, must as these two words alternate in Job 15:20 : a terror-inspiring, tyrannical evil-doer; cf. besides also Job 5:3. The participle in Psa 37:35 forms a clause by itself: et se diffundens, scil. erat. The lxx and Jerome translate as though it were כארז הלבנן, "like the cedars of Lebanon," instead of כאזרח רענן. But אזרח רענן is the expression for an oak, terebinth, or the like, that has brown from time immemorial in its native soil, and has in the course of centuries attained a gigantic size in the stem, and a wide-spreading overhanging head. ויּעבר does not mean: then he vanished away (Hupfeld and others); for עבר in this sense is not suitable to a tree. Luther correctly renders it: man ging vor׬ber, one (they) passed by, Ges. ֗137, 3. The lxx, Syriac, and others, by way of lightening the difficulty, render it: then I passed by.

This psalm is a sermon, and an excellent useful sermon it is, calculated not (as most of the psalms) for our devotion, but for our conversation; there is nothing in it of prayer or praise, but it is all instruction; it is "Maschil - a teaching psalm;" it is an exposition of some of the hardest chapters in the book of Providence, the advancement of the wicked and the disgrace of the righteous, a solution of the difficulties that arise thereupon, and an exhortation to conduct ourselves as becomes us under such dark dispensations. The work of the prophets (and David was one) was to explain the law. Now the law of Moses had promised temporal blessings to the obedient, and denounced temporal miseries against the disobedient, which principally referred to the body of the people, the nation as a nation; for, when they came to be applied to particular persons, many instances occurred of sinners in prosperity and saints in adversity; to reconcile those instances with the word that God had spoken is the scope of the prophet in this psalm, in which, I. He forbids us to fret at the prosperity of the wicked in their wicked ways (Psa 37:1, Psa 37:7, Psa 37:8). II. He gives very good reasons why we should not fret at it. 1. Because of the scandalous character of the wicked (Psa 37:12, Psa 37:14, Psa 37:21, Psa 37:32) notwithstanding their prosperity, and the honourable character of the righteous (Psa 37:21, Psa 37:26, Psa 37:30, Psa 37:31). 2. Because of the destruction and ruin which the wicked are nigh to (Psa 37:2, Psa 37:9, Psa 37:10, Psa 37:20, Psa 37:35, Psa 37:36, Psa 37:38) and the salvation and protection which the righteous are sure of from all the malicious designs of the wicked (Psa 37:13, Psa 37:15, Psa 37:17, Psa 37:28, Psa 37:33, Psa 37:39, Psa 37:40). 3. Because of the…

37:35-36 The wicked might appear to be flourishing like a tree (cp. 52:8; 92:12-13), but they eventually die and are forgotten (37:2).