Psalms 1:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The happiness of the godly; the unhappiness of the ungodly. Psalms 1:1. Blessed is the man— This Psalm is generally supposed to have been designed as a preface to the rest, and as a short luminary of the whole book. The subject of it is, the difference between pious and ungodly men, both in this life and in that which is to come: it was compared either by the collector of this book of Psalms, or by David himself, as Apollinarius and others think. Fenwick, in his introduction to this Psalm, thinks that the subject of it, as of the whole book, is the Messiah; who seems, says he, to be THE Man, (for the Hebrew is emphatical,) whom the prophet here meant to describe as a Blessed One: and so judged St. Augustin. He came to give us an example and to fulfil all righteousness, and is, for that reason, represented as never walking in the counsel of the wicked, but placing his whole delight in the law of the Lord. The character of this Blessed One appears to be drawn here by way of climax. He does not walk after the counsel of the wicked; he does not stand, or even take a step in the way of sinners; he does not even sit in company, so as to have any intimacy or familiar correspondence with such scorners of God and his law, though occasionally, and for their good, he converses with them. Thus, I have not sat with vain persons,—I will not sit with the wicked, Psalms 26:4-5 plainly mean, "I will not make them my familiars or chosen companions;" and, thus taken, it seems most naturally to lead to the character of one whose whole delight is in the law of the Lord, and who, for that reason, will be so far from doing evil himself, that he will never enter into any familiarity with evil men. See Fenwick's Psalter in its original form, and Bishop Hare.