VERSES OF SONG
Psalm 92 1 A Psalm to Sing for the Shabbat Day. 2 aFh It is good to give thanks to the Eternal, to praise Your name, God beyond all, 3 to tell of Your love in the morning and Your faithfulness every night. 4 With the ten–stringed lute, with the lyre, with the gentle sound of the harp. 5 For You made me rejoice in Your deeds, O God, at the works of Your hand I sing out. 6 God, how great are Your works, Your thoughts are so very deep. 7 The stupid do not know this, nor can the foolish understand, 8 that when the wicked flourish they are only like grass 9 Only You are exalted forever, Eternal. 10 For see Your enemies, God! see how Your enemies shall perish, all who do evil shall scatter. 11 But You exalted my strength like an ox, anointed me with fresh oil. 12 My eyes saw the fate of my enemies; and those who rose up to harm me, my ears have heard their end. 13 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, grow tall like a cedar in Lebanon. 14 Planted in the house of their Maker, they shall flourish in the courts of our God, 15 bearing new fruit in old age still full of sap and still green, 16 to declare that the Creator is faithful, my Rock in whom there is no wrong. and when all who do evil spring up their end is always destruction.
also ‘flourishes’, as strong, enduring and fruitful as a palm tree. The same phrase, ‘those who do evil’, stands on each side of the central verse of the Psalm. Before it, verse 8, they spring up, but after it, verse 10, they perish and vanish. At the exact geographical centre of the Psalm, as a climax, is a short four–word Hebrew sentence. It describes how God stands eternally above these evildoers, and it is built so that, as a climax, the final triumphant word is the name of God.
av Psalm 92 The Psalm opens with the choirs and music of the temple and closes with the joy of those privileged to serve God there. But as we move towards the centre of the Psalm a darker theme enters, the difficulty of understanding God’s ways, especially when evil seems to grow in the world. However, the wicked who ‘flourish like grass’and seem overwhelming in their numbers will scatter and disappear. In contrast the good person, the righteous, though single and alone, is not short–lived like grass, but
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