Psalm 1: Walking Trees
Bryan’s thoughts on Psalm 1 as the gate into the entire psalter, and what its vivid imagery teaches us about life with God
Psalm 1
Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. (NIV)
Blessed Is the One...
As we continue our series on the Psalms, we wanted to take some time to look at Psalm 1 together, which is believed to have been one of the last Psalms to be placed in the Psalter, strategically arranged to serve as an entry point into the rest of the Psalms. Psalm 1 invites us to ask two questions: “What are the Psalms here for?” and “How do we read them?” But more importantly, they ask some fundamental questions of us: “Who are we, and who are we becoming?” and “What is our vision of the good (or virtuous) life?”
Right here at the beginning, the psalmist presents two ways of becoming: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked, “expressing with remarkable clarity the polarity of persons and their destinies” (Word Bible Commentary Old Testament: Psalms, “Psalm 1,” P.C. Craigie). Blessed is the one who walks in the way of the righteous, the psalmist declares. These are the people who will be like trees planted by streams of water and will yield good fruit, and whose way will be known by the Lord. He begins the psalm with a beatitude, similar to the beatitudes at the beginning of the sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. The word for “blessed" can be more closely translated as “happy”: happy is the person who walks in the way of the righteous. In our day and age, happiness is a fleeting emotion, usually based on a particular experience.
Think of Disney Land, the happiest place on earth: enjoy rides based on classic childhood movies, walk around until your legs are tired and your children are screaming, fill your stomach with overpriced greasy foods and stand in long lines filled with sweaty, smelly people—and then your emotions will spike, and you'll feel the emotion of happiness. (Just kidding - we love Disney Land. 🙂)
The ancient concept of a happy life was much more expansive than a singular, fleeing emotion; instead, it referred to the virtuous, well-lived life. The one who walks in the way of the righteous will live the good life. A blessed life isn’t referring to always finding a close parking spot and everything in life looking sunny and rosy. It’s about the life we all long for, the life that in the deepest core of our being we hope is possible. And it’s the life that comes from walking with God.
Think about it this way: what did you want to be when you were growing up? It’s fascinating to me at how young the future becomes vocational, and we start dreaming about the jobs we want to have. Ask a five-year what they want to be when they grow up: a firefighter or a police officer, a doctor, a teacher, a musician, the president of the United States, etc. In a few weeks kids all over the country will throw on a costume for Halloween, many of which will represent what that child dreams about becoming when they get older. It’s a question that many of us are still asking. But what’s interesting is that we spend far less time dreaming about who we want to become.
Writer Steven Garber calls this the problem of "homeless souls." Our educational institutions prepare us to be successful in specific tasks, teaching us how to acquire skills and training. But we're no longer concerned with being formed into virtuous people. The Psalms assert at the beginning that its aim isn’t about developing a skill set, resume, or credentials, but about our formation as God’s people as those who walk with God and in His ways.
Choose Life
The way of God—the blessed, well-lived life—is is found through delighting in His word and allowing it to shape our lives. This isn’t a "works-righteousness” kind of faith, but an assertion of a fundamental reality: the choices we make end up making us. How we live in the day-to-day matters, because it’s shaping who we are becoming. When God created us, He did so with a specific vision for the good, well-lived life in mind; through Jesus Christ, and by his Spirit, we are empowered to live out that vision.
This psalm is really an echo of Deuteronomy 30:15-16:
“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it." (ESV)
The Lord then goes on to say in verse 19: “So choose life." We can choose which way we want to go—the way of life and good, or death and evil—but the blessed life is only found in God and His ways. If we take the road towards death and evil, following the scoffers, sinners and the wicked, then that will be where we arrive. The psalmist remarks that the way of those who walk with God will find a sure foundation, like a tree with roots that are sustained and able to flourish, but those who walk the opposite way will live a life of impermanence, like chaff getting lost in the wind.
So, how do we enter into the blessed life?
Delighting and Meditating
It’s simple, says the psalmist: we enter into the blessed life by delighting and meditating on God’s word. “Delighting" connotes an attitude with which we approach the scriptures, while “meditating” communicates an intensity. To delight in God’s word is not a humdrum, boring, less-than-appetizing engagement. We don’t relate to God’s word the way I related to my college textbooks. I didn’t always crack open my books, but when I did, it was often begrudgingly, barely paying attention to or retaining the words I read. More than strained acquiescence or skeptical submission, the psalmist invites us to approach God’s word with delight—with joy, with a sense of expectation that we’ll find exactly what we’re longing for—because within His word is a revelation of the God who loves us more than we can imagine or comprehend, and the God who is on the edge of His seat, waiting to give us the blessed life. Everything we need for life, every bit of it, and for pursuing godliness is found in His word.
This should spark something deep within our hearts! Psalm 119, the longest psalm (and longest chapter in the Bible!) is 176 verses proclaiming enjoyment of God’s word. The psalmist wrote the entire psalm in an acrostic: every 8 verses starts with the same letter in the Hebrew alphabet, emphasizing that everything we could possibly need, from beginning to end, A-Z, is contained in God’s word.
Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions.
I am only a foreigner in the land.
Don’t hide your commands from me!
I am always overwhelmed
with a desire for your regulations. (Psalm 119:18-20)
The one who delights in the law will naturally want to meditate on it day and night. The word “meditate” is actually the word for chewing constantly—to taste and savor God’s promises and revelation of Himself, and to be nourished by it. (Eugene Peterson actually writes about how this word is like a dog chewing on a bone!) It also draws up an image of one who utters back these words constantly: that as they chew on the words and let them sink deep into the whole of their lives, they naturally pour these words back out. Meditation isn’t about acquiring more knowledge about God or scripture, but about living into the words found within the scriptures.
Walking Trees
When we find joy in his word and meditate on it, the psalmist paints a picture of what we will become. He says we will be trees planted by streams of water, that bears good fruit. But he gives us a mixed metaphor of walking trees. When I first came across this great mixed metaphor, my mind immediately went to the Ents in Lord of the Rings. In the Two Towers, Merry and Pippin escape the orcs and flee into a forest, only to be captured by the mythical walking trees called Ents. They eventually befriend the Ents, and together they destroy Saruman's tower. The Ents are pure hearted and good, slow-moving yet powerful creatures. When they finally see the destruction that Saruman is causing, they destroy his stronghold with relative ease. But they are also rooted, or have the ability to put down solid roots. In one of my favorite scenes, they break down the dam above Saruman’s tower, and as the water comes crashing into the fortress like a tidal wave, all the Ents simply brace themselves and plant their rooting feet, while the orcs are swept away into the cracks and crevasses of the earth.
Oddly enough, this mixed metaphor of walking trees shows up multiple times throughout scripture. It is mentioned in some of the prophets, then also in the story of Jesus healing the blind man in Mark 8. After healing him, Jesus asks the blind man what he sees, and the man replies, “I see people, but they look like trees walking around.” Later in the New Testament, Paul gives us the same picture in Colossians 2:6-7: "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (ESV).
Susan Phillips notes in The Cultivated Life that both sides of this imagery are needed. If we see ourselves and others as walking, but not trees, then we would overlook the importance of being rooted and grounded. When life circumstances become uncertain or chaotic, then it would be too easy to be tossed to and fro by what is thrown our way, like trees that falter in the wind. The image is important because the rest of the psalter will show us, the blessed life isn’t an easy life, or a life in which nothing bad happens. The blessed life is one in which we are rooted in God, even in the midst of circumstances beyond our control. Phillips says, “Garden [or tree] imagery draws our attention to variations due to seasons, weather and age, and ultimately the generativity of bearing fruit and enriching the soil. Life in the garden entails the rooted realities of interdependence and intimacy.”
In addition to garden or tree imagery, though, we also need this picture of walking. She goes on to say: “On the other hand, to see people as like trees but not walking on a path neglects our forward movement through time and space, the development of our stories and progress toward destiny. The narrative of a journey tells of places seen, left behind and appearing on the horizon.”
God calls us to be rooted in Him, like a tree planted by vibrant, living streams of water, and to walk the path that the leads to the good life. We enter the psalter through this gate of choosing the way toward this blessed, happy, virtuous life found in God, and we read the Psalms with delight as this way of life is opened up to us through mediating on His word.
Meditation on Psalm 1
Below is a short meditation on Psalm 1. Take a few minutes to read it and prayerfully consider how this psalm touches your life.
Read Psalm 1, slowly.
What do you notice? What words or phrases are grabbing your attention?
Read Psalm 1 once more.
How does this image of “walking trees” strike you?
Read Psalm 1 for a third time.
What might be the invitation from the LORD through the words of this psalm? How will you respond?