Psalm 37 self-interestedly choosing the good

CJB emphasis in blue, green, red, and blue; Nomads* comments in yellow; and my comments in gray.   *Participative Sunday-school-class at UBC led by Kenneth Tipton. My continually improved statement re Genesis 1:26-28 is at the end.

Word study

Adonai 18:  [dominant word]

Commit 1:

Do good 2:

Evildoers 2:

Forever 4:

Generous 2:

God 1:

Hope 1 hoping 1:

Inherit the land 5:

Justice 3:

Trust 2:

Wicked 15: [dominant word]

Key phrases from below:

·         Trust, delight, commit, hope re Adonai

·         do good

·         justice of your cause

·        The Torah of his God

·         Adonai  will raise you up

·         posterity

·         Paul’s zeal to establish his church on Christ further hid Yeshua’s civic influence or Yeshua’s church.

 

Psalm 37 CJB: ^37 (0) By David:

⁽¹⁾ Don’t be upset by evildoers [villains?]
or envious of those who do wrong [dissidents and rebels?],
² for soon they will wither like grass
and fade like the green in the fields.
³ Trust in Adonai, and do good [Ken felt the class on 4/21/24 had pointed to the good as generosity.];
settle in the land, and feed on faithfulness.
⁴ Then you will delight yourself in Adonai,
and he will give you your heart’s desire.

⁵ Commit your way to Adonai;
trust in him, and he will act.
⁶ He will make your vindication shine forth like light,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

⁷ Be still before Adonai;
wait patiently till he comes.
Don’t be upset by those whose way
succeeds because of their wicked plans.
⁸ Stop being angry, put aside rage,
and don’t be upset — it leads to evil.

⁹ For evildoers will be cut off,
but those hoping in Adonai will inherit the land.
¹⁰ Soon the wicked will be no more;
you will look for his place, and he won’t be there.
¹¹ But the meek will inherit the land [Matt 5:5 has the earth.]
and delight themselves in abundant peace.

¹² The wicked plots against the righteous
and grinds his teeth at him;
¹³ but Adonai laughs at the wicked,
knowing his day will come.
¹⁴ The wicked have unsheathed their swords,
they have strung their bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to slaughter those whose way is upright.
¹⁵ But their swords will pierce their own hearts,
and their bows will be broken.

¹⁶ Better the little that the righteous has
than the wealth of all the wicked.
¹⁷ For the arms of the wicked will be broken,
but Adonai upholds the righteous.
¹⁸ Adonai knows what the wholehearted suffer,
but their inheritance lasts forever.
¹⁹ They will not be distressed when times are hard;
when famine comes, they will have plenty.

²⁰ For the wicked will perish;
Adonai’s enemies will be like sheep fat,
ending up as smoke, finished.
²¹ The wicked borrows and doesn’t repay,
but the righteous is generous and gives.
²² For those blessed by [Adonai] will inherit the land,
but those cursed by him will be cut off.

²³ Adonai directs a person’s steps,
and he delights in his way.
²⁴ He may stumble, but he won’t fall headlong,
for Adonai holds him by the hand.

²⁵ I have been young; now I am old;
yet not once have I seen the righteous abandoned
or his descendants begging for bread.
²⁶ All day long he is generous and lends,
and his descendants are blessed.

²⁷ If you turn from evil and do good,
you will live safely forever [? Suggests this is addressed to a group?].
²⁸ For Adonai loves justice
and will not abandon his faithful;
they are preserved forever.
But the descendants of the wicked will be cut off.

²⁹ The righteous will inherit the land
and live in it forever.
³⁰ The mouth of the righteous articulates wisdom,
his tongue speaks justice.
³¹ The Torah of his God [Adonai seems a civic mediator between the bad and the good] is in his heart;
his footsteps do not falter.

³² The wicked keeps his eye on the righteous,
seeking a chance to kill him.
³³ But Adonai will not leave him in his power
or let him be condemned when judged.
³⁴ Put your hope in Adonai, keep to his way,
and he will raise you up [suggests the cross but in a positive association with Yeshua to those how choose the good? If so, I think it is an error. The good is good on its own. If Yeshua suggest the good, that’s a benefit, but each person is empowered and has the authority to choose the good.] to inherit the land.

When the wicked are cut off, you will see it.
³⁵ I have seen a wicked man wielding great power,
flourishing like a shade tree in its native soil.
³⁶ But I passed by again, and he was no longer there;
I looked for him, but he could not be found. [Does this image foretell Yeshua damning a fig tree? If so, it’s poor judgement on the writers to insist on fulfilling a bad suggestion.]

³⁷ Observe the pure person, consider the upright;
for the peaceful person will have posterity.
³⁸ But transgressors will all be destroyed;
the posterity [future generations] of the wicked will be cut off. [See the non-religious preamble to the U.S. Constitution.]
³⁹ Adonai is the one who saves the righteous;
he is their stronghold in time of trouble.
⁴⁰ Adonai helps them and rescues them,
rescues them from the wicked and saves them;
because they take refuge in him [Today, 4/21/24, I perceive pursuing Yeshua’s-civic-influence-to-the-good as the prophesied fulfillment of Psalm 37’s false claims that Adonai guarantees success to the righteous. The Greek introduction of “Iesous” 250 years before Yeshua was born confused contemporaries who heard the Aramaic-speaking Yeshua. (Wikipedia, “Greek Iesous (Ἰησοῦς), from which, through the Latin IESVS/Iesus, comes the English spelling Jesus. The Hebrew spelling Yēšūaʿ (ישוע) appears in some later books of the Hebrew Bible.”) Moreover, Paul’s zeal to establish his church on Christ further hid Yeshua’s civic influence or Yeshua’s church. However, Yeshua will overcome all the confusion.].

 

[I read to apply perhaps 5500 year old Sumerian political philosophy. It’s primitively expressed by Semite scholars of 3900 years ago in Genesis 1:26-28; in my paraphrase:  Female-and-male-human-being may and can, independently choose to constrain political democracy on earth: on earth, humankind has the power and authority to pursue the good and constrain the bad. Civic citizens may use the rule of law to develop justice. Yeshua* affirmed these ideas in each Matthew 19:3-8, in Matthew 5:48, and in other direct dialogue. The next Bible canon could and should include the law codes of Sumer and competing civilizations. Resulting insights would take the heat off Judeo-Christianity, a Christ vs Messiah** vs God competition.*** Competition egregiously deludes Yeshua’s civic influence. The resulting, collaborative view could accelerate mutual pursuit of human being (verb) and lessen baby killings, like those happening in Israel, in Ukraine, and in the U.S.

*In 4 BC, Yosef and Myriam of Nazareth begot Yeshua. 250 years beforehand, Greek translation of the Torah provided Ἰησοῦς and χριστός, both of which competed with Yeshua, the former during life and the later in death. By the 16^th century, Christianity used “Jesus Christ” to repress Yeshua. The person, Yeshua, said, in my paraphrase: if people don’t speak my name they can’t consider my civic influence.

**Cyrus, 600 BC, is called a messiah in Isaiah 45:1.

***Competitive monotheism survives on war.]