Psalms 1:6

_FOR THE LORD KNOWETH THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS: BUT THE WAY OF THE UNGODLY SHALL PERISH._ Way ... way - not used in different senses, but in the same: the portion or lot (Psalms 37:5; Psalms 37:18; Psalms 37:23) which results from the course of the unrighteous and ungodly respectively. God knows the way of both by His omniscience: that of the righteous with approving favour (Psalms 101:6; John 10:14; 2 Timothy 2:19): the result, therefore, must be, as He

Even in this world the prosperity of the ungodly begins to pass away as often as God manifests the tokens of his judgment; (for then, being awakened out of sleep, they are constrained to acknowledge, whether they will or no, that they have no part with the assembly of the righteous;) but because this is not accomplished always, nor with respect to all men, in the present state, we must patiently wait for the day of final revelation, in which Christ will separate the sheep from the goats. At the same time, we must maintain it as a general truth, that the ungodly are devoted to misery; for their own consciences condemn them for their wickedness; and, as often as they are summoned to give an account of their life, their sleep is broken, and they perceive that they were merely dreaming when they imagined themselves to be happy, without looking inward to the true state of their hearts. Moreov...

4-6 The ungodly are the reverse of the righteous, both in character and condition. The ungodly are not so, ver. 4; they are led by the counsel of the wicked, in the way of sinners, to the seat of the scornful; they have no delight in the law of God; they bring forth no fruit but what is evil. The righteous are like useful, fruitful trees: the ungodly are like the chaff which the wind drives away: the dust which the owner of the floor desires to have driven away, as not being of any use. They are of no worth in God's account, how highly soever they may value themselves. They are easily driven to and fro by every wind of temptation. The chaff may be, for a while, among the wheat, but He is coming, whose fan is in his hand, and who will thoroughly purge his floor. Those that, by their own sin and folly, make themselves as chaff, will be found so before the whirlwind and fire of Divine wrat...

Verse Psalms 1:6. _THE LORD KNOWETH_] יודע _yodea_, approveth the way, _aloweth the way_, _Coverdale_, of the righteous, צדיקים _tsaddikim,_ from צדק _tsadak_, to _give even weight_; the men who give to all their _due_; opposed to רשעים _reshaim_, Psalms 1:1, they who withhold _right_ from all; see above. Such holy men are under the continual eye of God's _providence_; he _knows_ the way that they take; _approves_ of their motives, purposes, and works, because they are all wrought through himself. He _provides_ for them in all exigencies, and _defends_ them both in body and soul. _THE WAY OF THE UNGODLY SHALL PERISH._] Their projects, designs and operations, shall perish; God's curse shall be on all that they hav

FOR THE LORD KNOWETH THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS - This is given as a reason why the wicked would not stand in the judgment with the righteous. The reason is, that the Lord, the great Judge, fully understands the character of those who are his friends, and can discriminate between them and all others, whatever pretences others may make to that character. Only those whom God approves, and loves, as his friends, will be able to stand in the day when the great decision shall be made. No one can impose on him by any mere pretensions to piety; no one can force his way to his favor, or to the rewards of the just, by power; no one can claim this in virtue of rank and station. No one can be admitted to the favor of God, and to the rewards of heaven, whose character is not such that it will bear the scrutiny of the Omniscient eve. Compare the notes at 2 Timothy 2:19. Man

EXPOSITION IT is remarkable that neither the first nor the second psalm has any title. Titles are so much the rule in the first and second books of the Psalter, that, when they are absent, their absence requires to be accounted for. As thirty-eight out of the forty-one psalms in this section are distinctly assigned to David, we must suppose that the compiler did not view this psalm as his. Perhaps he did not know the author. Perhaps, if he was himself the author, he shrank from giving himself the prominence which could not but have attached to him if his name had, in a certain sense, headed the collection. Reticence would have specially become Solomon, if he was the author. Commentators have generally recognized that this psalm is introductory and prefatory. Jerome says that many called it "the Preface of the Holy Ghost." Some of the Fathers did not even regard it as a psalm at all, but...

FOR THE LORD KNOWETH THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS,.... The way in which he walks by faith, which is in Jesus Christ; the way in which he goes to the Father, and carries to him his sacrifices of prayer and praise, which meet with acceptance through him; the way in which he seeks for and expects justification, pardon, and salvation, namely, through the blood, righteousness, and sacrifice of Christ: and also it may denote his course, his walk and conversation; for the righteous man is a follower of God, he takes up the cross and follows after Christ: he walks not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, according to the rule of the word, and as becomes the Gospel of Christ: and this way of his in every sense the Lord "knows"; not merely as he is omniscient, for by his omniscience his eyes are upon the ways of all men; he knows the way of the wicked as well as the way of the righteous; but the sen...

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS I. THE GENESIS SECTION: BOOK ONE:Psalm 1-41 Psalm 1-8 Psalms 1 The Godly and the Ungodly _ 1. The godly, his character and his fruit (Psalms 1:1)_ 2. The ungodly in comparison with the godly (Psalms 1:4) The first eight Psalms are the Psalms in embryo, just as the opening Chapter s of the book of Genesis are the Bible in a nutshell. Throughout the Psalms we can trace the subjects of these eight Psalms, the godly and the ungodly; but especially the great theme of the Psalms, Christ, the Perfect Man, the King rejected, the suffering of the righteous during the time of His rejection, the King enthroned and all things put under His feet. These are the leading themes

BOOK I. PSS. I- XLI. I. The Jewish Saint. This and Psalms 2 (see, however, on Psalms 33) are the only Pss. in Book I. which have no title or superscription. In Acts 13:33, there is very ancient authority for reading in the first Ps., though the Ps. quoted stands second in the Psalter, as we have it. Origen had seen Psalms 1 joined with Psalms 2 in a Heb. copy, and the same arrangement is still found in some Heb. MSS. Probably then Psalms 1 was prefixed as an introduction to the rest of the Psalter after its completion. But it is not one with Psalms 2, nor even resembles it. It expresses the general spirit of the Psalter admirably. For that very reason it does not reach a high level. It has nothing of the spiritual tone which is so striking in 4, 73, and in other Pss. Rather it represents the current orthodoxy of its time, which must have been a very late one. It is legalistic, and accen...

FOR. _Effect_ latent in first clause: _cause_ latent in second clause. KNOWETH. approveth, or acknowledged. Figure of speech _Metonymy_ (of Cause). Compare Nahum 1:7; 2 Timothy 2:19. PERISH. come to naught....