Psalm 1/Lexical Semantics

Lexical Semantics

Difficult Words

More complete explanations of the words used in Psalm 1 can be found in the UBS Translators Handbook on the Psalms and in commentaries like the Word Biblical Commentaries series. A few words that may cause difficulties for translators are highlighted here.

v. 1

• אַשְׁרֵי הָאִישׁ – (see below)

• ְהָלַך – (see below)

• עֵצָה – This word most often refers to the “counsel” or “guidance” one receives from others. To “walk in the advice of the wicked” means to allow their evil ideas to impact and determine one’s behavior.

• רְשָׁעִים – (see below)

• דֶּרֶךְ – (see below)

• עָמַד – (see below)

• מוֹשָׁב – (see below)

• לֵצִים – (see below)

• יָשָב – (see below)

v. 2

• תּוֹרָה – (see below)

• יֶהְגֶּה – The word הָגָה is not as much ‘meditate’ but ‘mutter.’ The idea is not that the blessed person thinks on the law day and night, but the law is actually on his or her lips. The problem with the translation into English is that ‘he mutters his law’ does not sound like a good thing necessarily. Something like ‘muses’ might be better or ‘chews on’, but both of these miss the muttering component. It might be best to put a footnote with ‘muse’ to indicate that speaking is involved. It has been translated "meditate/think about (ESV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, NET, NLT, CEV) < "study" (NJPS, TEV).

v. 3

• עֵץ – (see below)

• שָׁתוּל – (see below)

• פַּלְגֵי מַיִם – (see below)

• בְּעִתּוֹ – (see below)

v. 4

• מֹץ – (see below)

v. 5

• מִשְׁפָּט – It is difficult to tell whether מִשְׁפָּט means ‘lawcourt’ (as in the place) or as referring to the act of making a ruling. Both are possible. The former is suggested by the parallel to בַּעֲדַת, but the latter fits the context as well.

• יָקֻמוּ – (see below)

• עֵדָה – This concept is not necessarily limited to a local assembly of people, like a local synagogue. It may refer to the regular public meetings at the sanctuary (tabernacle or temple) as well. It is normally a large crowd of people.

v. 6

• יוֹדֵעַ – To “know a way” means, in its most basic sense, “to recognize-acknowledge a pathway, route, or prescribed way of life” (see Jos. 3:4, Job 21:14, Ps. 67:2, Isa. 42:16, Jer. 5:4-5). In the OT and a covenantal context, the verb ידע has a relational implication: Yahweh in personal relationship with his faithful people. When the stative ידע is used verbally as a participle, it may mean ‘care for’ (see Prov. 12:10; 29:7). In this case, the “way of the godly” is not their behavior, but their course of life or destiny. Alternatively, the word may indicate familiarity and suggest that God walks with the righteous on their pathway. It could also refer to the Lord recognizing the behavior of the godly and, by metonymy, rewarding their godliness with security and prosperity (“the LORD rewards the behavior of the godly”). It has been translated "knows" (ESV, NASB), "watches over/guards/protects" (NRSV, NIV, NET, NLT), "guides" (TEV), "cherishes" (NJPS).

• צַדִּיקִים – (see below)

• תֹּאבֵד – (see below),

References to God

יְהוָ֗ה only in v. 2 (בְּתֹורַ֥ת יְהוָ֗ה) and v. 6 (יֹודֵ֣עַ יְ֭הוָה דֶּ֣רֶךְ צַדִּיקִ֑ים). The Lord is thus the genitive for the Torah, the object of the blessed one's study, and also the one in the end 'knowing' the way of the righteous. By implication, the Lord 'knowing' the way of the righteous is what causes it to prosper, for the flip side is that the way of the wicked perishes. Any semantic nuance is more on the side of 'knowing' than the name, 'LORD'.
This feature is considered relevant for this psalm.,

Tetragrammaton

No other words for God.,

Repeated words

• דֶּרֶךְ – “Pathway” (דֶּרֶךְ) in v. 1 refers to the characteristic lifestyle of people, in this case, that of God-hating sinners. So also in v.6, it seems to refer to the life of each group, the righteous’ and wicked’s lives being described as a path/road/journey metaphorically (see v. 1). In this verse, the “way of the wicked” may refer to their course of life (Ps. 146:9; Pr. 4:19; Jer. 12:1), their sinful behavior (Pr. 12:26; Pr. 15:9)—or both, with the latter means implying the former inevitable result.
• רְשָׁעִים – Who are the ‘wicked’ as opposed to the Law-loving ‘righteous’? They are not merely bad and immoral people, but actively enemies of the Law and God’s people. The wicked were not only the unbelieving people of neighboring pagan nations opposed to Israel and persecuting it, but also Israelites not living lives aligned to the Law and persecuting those who are, the righteous ones. In the psalms, רְשָׁעִים describes people who are proud, practical atheists (Pss. 10:2, 10:4, 10:11), who hate God’s principles and commands, commit sinful deeds, speak lies and slander (Ps. 50:16-20), and cheat or deceive others (Ps. 37:21). Rendering it as mere ‘bad people’ will be weak.
• צַדִּיקִים – The righteous are more than mere good people, they are Torah-loving people, they are people in line with God’s will, they are the true people of the Covenant. Translating the word with ‘good people’ will be inadequate. Maybe a term like faithful ones, or aligned ones, or even straight ones, will work better. But the chosen word needs to be considered in the light of other Hebrew Biblical terms like the upright ones, the blameless ones, and so on.
• תּוֹרָה – The word תּוֹרָה can refer either to instruction in general or specifically to God’s instruction as contained within the first five books. The choice to render this key concept is important because it will appear many more times. It has been translated "law (ESV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, NLT, TEV, NET (commands)), "teaching" (NJPS, CEV). In English, the translation “commands” is too limiting (and legalistic!) a rendering for תּוֹרָה; in this context, “instructions” is closer to the original meaning, and even “God’s word” would also be broadly appropriate. Yet it may also refer specifically to the Pentateuch.

"Often the Hebrew word torah is identified with the Law – the primary identifying document of Israelite (and later Jewish) faith. The Torah in this sense refers to the first five books of our Old Testament–Genesis through Deuteronomy–which as a unified collection came to a final form as authoritative Scripture only in the exilic period (ca. 450-400 B.C.). While this is an appropriate understanding of torah in many contexts, the word often has a much more general sense of 'guidelines, instruction.' This sense is by far the more common use in wisdom contexts, and since our psalm clearly moves in the wisdom environment, many have suggested it is the more general meaning that is appropriate here."

"It may be possible to affirm both levels of meaning. As James L. Mays has shown us, Psalm 1 is the first of several Torah psalms strategically placed within the book of Psalms (1; 19; 119). These psalms exhort the hearers/readers to pay close attention to God's commandments and to be faithful in their response to them. At the same time, however, the wisdom understanding of torah prevents easy limitation to the first five books of the Torah. Biblical wisdom literature had already begun to identify torah (the life-giving commandments of Yahweh) with the life-giving insights given by Yahweh through the wisdom tradition. Thus, most likely torah here implies the traditional commandments of God in the Torah–commandments Israel is expected to obey–as well as the life-giving guidance God gives elsewhere in Scripture."

"Our comprehension of this verse and of the whole psalm now depends on the interpretation of the term תורה (Torah)... תורה is 'instruction' in the sense of the 'merciful revelation of the will of God (Von Rad). In Psalm 1 this merciful revelation of the will of God is presupposed as something fixed and written. For an understanding of this view of תורה we must in the first place adduce the late Deuteronomic, or Deuteronomistic, conception. The תורה is the complete, written revelation of the will of God, which may be read in public (Deut. 31:9-11) or in private (Josh. 1:7)... The תורה in this sense is the authoritatively valid 'Sacred Scripture.' The scope of sacred Scripture in Ps. 1:2 cannot be determined. Is the reference to Deuteronomy, to the Pentateuch, or even to the (partly) completed canon? This question is related to the uncertainty of the dating of Psalm 1. Indeed, in its nature as a preamble to the Psalter, the concept תורה in any case–and even primarily–includes the scriptural scroll of the Psalms."

"Torah was in the pre-exilic period not so much 'law' in our sense as 'teaching, instruction.'"

"Given these wisdom connections, it seems natural to understand תורה in Psalm 1:2 as 'instruction.' This sense seems to be confirmed by the antithesis of תורה, which is 'the advice (עצת) of the wicked' (v.1), not their legal commands." However, "it seems that at the time of writing of Ezra and Chronicles the תורת יהוה, given through Moses, was identical to the תורת משׁה, given by the Lord, and that both refer to the Five Books of Moses (cf. 2 Chron. 34:14; Ezra 7:6). So the תורת יהוה in Psalm 1 naturally refers to the Five Books of Moses." "When we combine the sense of תורה as 'instruction' with תורת יהוה as the Five Books of Moses, we conclude that the book of Psalms invites believers to meditate on the Five Books of Moses as a source of instruction for experiencing the joys/blessings (v.1) and prosperity/success (v.3) held out in Psalm 1."

• מוֹשָׁב – Here the Hebrew term מוֹשָׁב, although often translated “seat” (cf. NEB, NIV), appears to refer to an entire assembly of evildoers. The word also carries the sense of “assembly” in Ps. 107:32, where it stands in synonymous parallelism with קָהָל (“assembly”).
• יָשָב – To “sit in the assembly” of לֵצִים means to completely identify with them in their proud, sinful plans, discourse, and behavior. יָשַׁב here may mean more than just ‘sit,’ though it is having physically sat in the company of scoffers (to hear their evil speech) that is the problem; it may indicate something more long-term like ‘dwelt’ in parallel with the other two verbs (הלך and עמד).

1a
1b	רשׁעים
1c		דרך	חטאים
1d
2c				תורה	יהוה
2d				תורה
3a
3b
3c
3d
4a	רשׁעים
4b
5a	רשׁעים
5b			חטאים			צדיקים
6a		דרך			יהוה	צדיקים
6b	רשׁעים	דרך

This feature is considered relevant for this psalm.,

Semantically/thematically related words

• "Wicked"
  • רְשָׁעִים – (see above on Repeated words)
  • לָצִים – The plural Hebrew noun ִליץ refers to arrogant individuals (Pr. 21:24) who love conflict (Ps. 12:4; Pr. 22:10) and scornfully reject wisdom and correction (Pr. 1:22, 9:7-8, 13:1, 15:12). It has been translated "mockers" (NIV, NLT), "insolent" (NJPS), "sneering" (CEV), "scoffers" (ESV, NRSV, NET), "+at God+" (CEV), "no use +for God+" (TEV).
• Motion Verbs
  • ְהָלַך – הלך in BH is normally ‘go’ not ‘walk’, since it takes a location proposition. However, הלך ב seems to be metaphorical for ‘live according to’. In other words, the blessed person has not lived according to the counsel of wicked people.
  • עָמַד – To “stand in the pathway of/with sinners” means to closely associate with them in their sinful attitude and behavior. The phrase means something very similar as הלך ב, since עמד can mean to remain.
  • יָשָׁב (see above on Repeated Words)
  • יָקֻמוּ –

"Ever since Antiquity, verse 5 of Ps 1 has been interpreted in different ways. Modern translations give us usually three main meanings:

a) to stand up or to rise,

b) to stand (to keep standing),

c) to prevail (in a judgment).

As for modern commentaries, they tend to develop one of the three former interpretations."

The collocation with קוּם and מִשְׁפָּט seems to have a special meaning, namely to ‘get up to accuse,’ (compare to Isa. 54:17). The idea is that the wicked will not be able to accuse the righteous in judgment in any way. Alternatively, it may refer to being pronounced innocent and acquitted in court, with the sense of “withstand”; “endure,” as in 1 Sam. 13:14 and Job 8:15. In either case, the context suggests a judicial setting in which the wicked lose their case/are judged guilty. It has been translated "stand" (ESV, NRSV, NASB, NIV) > "stand in innocence" (NLT, TEV), "withstand" (NET), "survive" (NJPS), "have an excuse" (CEV).

• Agricultural Terms
  • עֵץ – The noun עֵץ, occurring 330 times in the Hebrew Bible and 6 times in the Psalms, may refer to a “tree” (sg) or collectively to “trees” (pl), or to the material that comes from trees, namely, “wood.” When referring to a “tree” or to “trees,” עֵץ “emphasizes only the genus, while individual species of trees (e.g., אֶרָז ‘cedar,’ אֵצֶל ‘tamerisk,’ בְּרוֹשׁ ‘cypress,’ גֶּפֶן ‘grapevine,’ זַיִת ‘olive tree,’ לוּז ‘almond tree,’ שִׁקְמָה ‘sycamore,’ תְּאֵנָה ‘fig tree,’ תָּמָר ‘date palm’) or tree shapes (e.g., סְבַךְ/סְבֹךְ ‘bush’ or the word group אַלָּה/אַלּוֹן אֵלָה/אֵלוֹן ‘large tree,’ usually understood as ‘oak/terebinth’) acquire specific designations.” Languages have different words for trees. Not all trees grow well next to the water, and not all have leafs all year, nor fruit.
  • שָׁתוּל – see below on Rare Words.
  • פַּלְגֵי מַיִם – The phrase refers literally to “channels of water”—as in a well-maintained irrigation system. "In the metaphorical world of the psalm, [the] stream is God’s instruction.” The use of the phrase פַּלְגֵי מַיִם together with the attributive participle שָׁתוּל suggest a garden setting for the tree.
  • בְּעִתּוֹ – Lit., “in its season/time”—that is, one’s life-“time” as divinely determined.
  • מֹץ – The word מֹץ is another agricultural term, referring to the light-weight casks of winnowed wheat that is useless and which is so light that it easily can be taken by the wind, never to be seen again.
• Pathway language
  • דֶּרֶךְ – (see above on Repeated Words)
  • הלך, עמד – (see above on Motion Verbs)
  • תֹּאבֵד – The root אבד is used for the sense of both ‘be destroyed’ and ‘be lost,’ and it may be a play on words here in the context of דֶּרֶך, normally meaning ‘road/way,’ being used as ‘life.’ In English, ‘lost’ can be used with the same two senses, so it may be helpful to translate as ‘lost.’ It has been translated "perish/doom/ruin/(ends in/leads to) destruction" (ESV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, NET, NLT, TEV, CEV, NJPS).

The sequence רְשָׁ֫עִ֥ים / חַ֭טָּאִים / לֵ֝צִ֗ים is all introduced in v. 1 as that which the blessed/righteous person shuns. It seems to go from generic to specific, with the mocker being the one who despises wisdom, the polar opposite of the one who seeks wisdom in the Torah. The intensification of their accompanying verbs, הָלַךְ֮ / עָמָ֑ד / יָשָֽׁב, starts with a fairly generic verb and proceeds to a specific semantic notion of 'sitting' and even 'dwelling', given more weight with the cognate noun 'seat/dwelling'. The frame is one of righteousness: 'blessed is the one who does not . . .' but then the next 3 lines are all stepping further into wickedness. The righteous is actively choosing to avoid these, suggesting that the first thing a seeker of blessing must do is:

>> To stop all things leading to wickedness and, then, one can devote oneself to the Torah.

>> The source of wisdom is not in oneself / humans (as the mocker might presume) but rather in the Torah alone.

The negative structure of intensification is a foil for a positive intensification of the tree, which

is planted by water, bears fruit in season, has foliage that doesn't wither, and prospers in all things. This whole prospering of the tree is contrasted with its semantic opposite, both in terms of agriculture (tree brings food, chaff is inedible and useless) and morality (righteous vs wicked). Interestingly, the agricultural object used as an analogy for the righteous is not grain or the crops we tend to perceive of as regularly sown and harvested, but rather that which is planted once (e.g. olive/fig tree) and carefully tended over the years. If שָׁת֪וּל is to be understood as 'transplanted', then there may be in view a former position/life of the tree/person, such that it needs to be removed from its former context and placed in a new context in order to flourish. This would fit with a sense of rejecting wickedness to devote oneself to the Torah. Note the asymmetry: rejecting walking/standing/sitting among the wicked in order to delight in/meditate on the Torah. There isn't even any 'walking according to the Law of the Lord' but only delighting in it and meditating on it day and night.

>> This psalm is not about our actions but rather our allegiance.

יֹומָ֥ם וָלָֽיְלָה is the timeframe for meditating on the Torah: a merism indicating 'at all times'. If walking/standing/sitting might refer to different parts of life, each of which requires rejecting wickedness, there is no part of life that excludes the Torah.

The psalm begins with the righteous being declared blessed because he rejects the ways of the wicked, while it ends with the wicked being excluded from the assembly of the righteous. One must choose either to reject or to be rejected; either:

reject wickedness > choose righteousness, or choose wicked > be rejected from the righteous (To consider: 'judgment' > 'place of judgment' > courts/city gates, with or without eschatological overtones?)

The metaphor of 'The Way' is used extensively, from walk/stand/sit to explicit uses of 'way', with the culmination of the psalm that Lord 'knowing' the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked perishing. A title for the psalm might be: 'The Way of the Righteous v the Way of the Wicked'.
This feature is considered relevant for this psalm.,

Rare words

• אַ֥שְֽׁרֵי־הָאִ֗ישׁ - meaning and pragmatic function

'formal introduction of a blessing' per Zimmerli (pursue).

The phrase in Psalm 1 has been translated "blessed/happy is the one/man" (NIV, ESV, NASB, NJPS), "happy are those" (NRSV, NLT, TEV) "+God+ blesses those people" (CEV).

The Hebrew noun is an emphatic abstract plural, ֥אַשְׁרֵי (‘happinesses/joys-of’), i.e. “Oh, how joyous!” Goh suggests “commendable” , which seems more appropriate in this setting.

אַשְׁרֵי is to be distinguished from ברך, the principal word in the Old Testament referring to the multiplying and abundant benefits of the Covenant. Here to be ‘blessed’ (אַשְׁרֵי) means to be considered fortunate and blessed, to be admired by others. "Barak is a benediction, ashar more of a congratulation."

In other contexts the word refers metonymically to the peace and contentment that God-given fellowship and security produce (see v. 3; Pss. 2:12, 34:9, 41:1, 65:4, 84:12, 89:15, 106:3, 112:1, 127:5, 128:1, 144:15).

"The Old Greek and the Vulgate interpret the opening Hebrew word, אשרי, as a declaration of blessedness. This view maybe corroborated by the juxtaposition of the verbs אשר and ברך in Ps 72:17. The equivalence is further suggested by Jer 17:7-8, which has ברוך הגבר אשר (“Blessed is the man who ...”) in a context that, as in Psalm 1, speaks of a tree being planted by waters. Yet the verb אשר is never used with God as the subject or the object, and the form אשרי is never used of God or by God. The closest one comes to the use of the verb with Gods involvement is only by implication: “May Yhwh keep him and preserve him; may he be commended [יאשר] in the land” (Is 41:3). One may conclude, therefore, that אשר is an atheological equivalent of ברך. Whereas ברך is “bless,” אשר in the piel means something like “commend.""

• אַ֥שְֽׁרֵי־הָאִ֗ישׁ as a title? see below
• The opening word of the Psalm, “Blessed is…” is a theme frame (a word that holds the theme together in a longer stretch of text). Languages have different ways to position a theme framing word in a story or in a poem. In Hebrew, it is the first word of the poem. It is likely the same in many languages, but it is necessary to research local poems for examples. It can even be left-dislocated, followed by a comma, or a relative clause “The one who is blessed is…”, or even by a cleft sentence.
• שָׁת֪וּל – The verb שׁתל appears 10 times in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (Jer. 17:8; Ezek. 17:8, 10, 22, 23; 19:10, 13; Hos. 9:13[?]; Ps. 1:3; 92:14) only in the Qal stem and most often as a passive participle (8/10 times). Its use here indicates that this is an agricultural context, i.e. we are talking about something cultivated rather than natural. The word suggests an intentional “planting” (or “trans-planting”) at a particular favorable place by some other agent, with God being implied (v. 6a). In this way, the word is distinguished from the more general נטע ("plant"). This act of “transplanting” (שׁתל) is associated in the biblical literature with gardens (Ezek. 17:8, 10, 22, 23; 19:10[LXX]), water (Jer. 17:8; Ezek. 17:8; 19:10; Ps. 1:3) and fruit/productivity (Jer. 17:8; Ezek. 17:8, 23; 19:10; Ps. 1:3; 92:14). The most illustrative occurrences of the meaning of the verb are in Ezekiel 17, where a “twig/sapling” (יֹנֶקֶת) plucked from among the tops of the high cedar trees (Ezek. 17:22-23) is planted (שׁתל) on Yahweh’s high and lofty mountain for the purpose of growing branches, producing fruit, and becoming a majestic cedar (Ezek. 17:23).