“The Song of God’s Fairness—Psalm 73″ (Part One)

Introduction: This is the third and final psalm in our trilogy of psalms on the law, or doctrine, of retribution we have been considering, and again, Derek Kidner’s commentary on psalms has been a great help in this study. First of all, let’s be reminded of what that law stated in OT thinking…

God blesses the righteous according to his righteousness, and judges the wicked according to his wickedness.

The great problem before the psalmist is that this doesn’t seem to work in the living out of life. The righteous seem to suffer, and the wicked seem to prosper- and to us that just is not fair!

In the first two installments in this trilogy…

• David expresses the basics of the principle in Psalm 34;
• David approaches a righteous sufferer with these thoughts as counsel in Psalm 37.

Specifically, we saw last week that David wanted to give the righteous sufferer advice on how to respond to injustice in the world. His counsel?

Trust God and do good.

Now, in this final segment of the trilogy, the shoe is firmly on the other foot. The psalmist, Asaph, is the one who is suffering and struggling. It recalls the kinds of anguished questions asked by Job and Jeremiah- and they are pointed questions. Why? Because where once there was objective theological theory or third person counsel, now the is personal pain- and the psalmist struggles for answers!

I. Hindsight’s Wisdom (vv.1-3)

(v.1) “Surely God is good to Israel, To those who are pure in heart!”

What an opening for a psalm that deals with someone who is questioning the goodness of God! From the very outset, the psalmist acknowledges that God is good, not only to Israel in general, but in particular to the “pure in heart”- the righteous, those who are totally committed to God.

Remember that the core of the conflict is that the righteous does not SEEM to be blessed. In retrospect, however, the psalmist says that this concern is unfounded. God does bless the pure in heart- and that is the key. In fact, the word “heart” appears 6 times in this psalm! As Buber said,

“The state of the heart determines whether a man lives in the truth, in which God’s goodness is experienced, or in the semblance of the truth, where the fact that it goes ill with him is confused with the illusion that God is not good to him.”

It all comes down to the heart of the matter, which is the matter of the heart!

(v.2) “But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling; My steps had almost slipped.”

Again, see the accuracy of the retrospective view. Hindsight really is 20-20. The psalmist sees in retrospect (vv.21-22) his dangerously wrong attitude that nearly caused him to stumble in rejection! Why did he feel this way? See his honest declaration here (v.3 elaborates)…

• I was envious of the boastful
• I saw the prosperity of the wicked

It put him in great spiritual jeopardy. Join us tomorrow to see as the next few verses describe the conflict of spirit he experienced between what he saw, and what he believed.