You may have noticed that the 73 rd Psalm and the 37 th Psalm are on the same subject; it will help you to recall this fact if you remember that the figures are the same, only reversed.
Psalms 73:1. Truly God is good to Israel,
Settle that matter in your hearts, whatever doubts may distress or disturb your mind, fix this point as certain: «Truly God is good to Israel,»
Psalms 73:1-2. Even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.
He was a good man, one of the leaders in Israel, yet he had to make this confession, «My feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.»
Psalms 73:3-4. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.
Many of them have so stifled conscience that it does not trouble them even in that last dread hour, and they pass into eternity with blinded eyes, self-deluded to the last.
Psalms 73:5. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.
They are not the children of God, and that is why they escape the rod of God. The rod is not for strangers, but for the children of the family. Yet the psalmist began to envy these people because, said he, «they are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.»
Psalms 73:6. Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain;
They wear it gladly, and think it to be an ornament.
Psalms 73:6-9. Violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish. They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression: they speak loftily. They set their mouth against the heavens,
As though they would blow them down, as the wind blows the clouds that are full of rain.
Psalms 73:9. And their tongue walketh through the earth.
Like the ravening lion of the pit, seeking characters that they may destroy or devour. There is no end to the mischief that such people can do. If they are not in trouble themselves, they make much trouble for other people; and while they set themselves on so high a pinnacle, they are mean enough to slander the characters of the good.
Psalms 73:10. Therefore his people return hither: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them.
They have to drink of the bitter cup again and again; it seems to them to be always full; and the wicked have their full cup, filled, as it seems, with the juice from the very finest fruit.
Psalms 73:11. And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?
They admit that there is a God, but they ask, «What does he know, and how does he know?»
Psalms 73:12-14. Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.
It was one of his greatest sorrows that, the more holy he was, the more troubled he seemed to be; and the more closely he endeavored to follow his God, the more it seemed as if God only frowned upon him. Yet the psalmist's was no exceptional case, of which there is only one in all history; there have been many such, and there are many such to this day.
Psalms 73:15. If I say, I will speak thus; behold, I should offend against the generation of thy children.
You know that some people have made up a kind of proverb like this, «If you think it, you may as well speak it;» but it is not so. Bad thoughts should never be spoken. If a man has a bottle of whisky in his house, or in his pocket, that is bad enough; but if the cork is never taken out, it will do no very great hurt to anybody. So, if a man has evil thoughts, but does not utter them, the mischief will not be so great as if he were to make them known to others.
Psalms 73:16. When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me;
He could not bear the thought of offending God's children; but, at the same time, the problem itself, concerning the righteous and the wicked, until he could solve it, was too painful for him.
Psalms 73:17. Until I went into the sanctuary of God;
When he went into God's holy place, when he began to understand God's purposes and plans, and looked beyond the present life into the dreadful future of the ungodly, he could say:
Psalms 73:17. Then understood I their end.
And understanding their end, his difficulty ceased, his puzzling problem was solved.
Psalms 73:18. Surety thou didst set them in slippery places:
As if they stood upon a ridge of ice, from which they must slip down; who wishes to be lifted up upon an Alp of prosperity, from which he may be dashed down at any moment? If you knew that there was a man standing on the top of the cross of St. Paul's at this moment, I do not suppose that any of you would envy him; certainly I should not. Let him have a patent for standing there, and let nobody else ever attempt it. And an ungodly man, in the elevated places of prosperity, is in such a perilous position that we need not envy him.
Psalms 73:18. Thou castedst them down into destruction.
Down they go! If not in this life, yet in the next, and who will envy them then?
Psalms 73:19-20. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.
When a man wakes up, the image that was before his mind, in his dream, is gone; and when God wakes up to judgment, these wicked men, who were but as images in a night dream, shall pass away.
Psalms 73:21. Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.
In the tenderest and most vital parts of his being, he felt an inward and terrible pain.
Psalms 73:22. So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.
Judging as the beast judges, that can only see the little grass around itself, and fattens itself, knowing nothing of the shambles, and of the butcher's knife that is being sharpened to kill it there. «So,» says the psalmist, «I was like that, I forgot about the future, I did not judge as an immortal being should judge concerning the infinite and the eternal, but I judged things as a beast might judge by the narrow compass of its little grazing ground.
Psalms 73:23. Nevertheless
This phrase is most delightful, coming in connection with his previous confession: «I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless»
Psalms 73:23. I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.
That is your portion also, Christian. However few your pounds, however short your supplies, you are continually with God, and he holds you by your right hand. Will you envy the ungodly after that?
Psalms 73:24. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
There is where your chief possession lies, locked up in that which is marked «Afterward.» Not today, possibly not tomorrow, but «afterward» is your inheritance: «afterward thou wilt receive me to glory.»
Psalms 73:25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.
Here is the Christian's heavenly and earthly portion and treasure. He has his God, both here and hereafter; and this is better than all that can fall to the lot of the worldling.
Psalms 73:26-27. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.
That is, setting their hearts on unlovely things, and forgetting to love God.
Psalms 73:28. But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.
The Psalm ends jubilantly, as it began, though part of it had been in a minor key.