The purpose was the psalmist's probable intent or reason for writing this psalm. The Content is a concise summary of the whole psalm's content. The Message is the main idea the psalmist probably wanted the audience to remember upon or after hearing the psalm.
Purpose: To persuade the hearer that following YHWH's instruction is worthwhile.
Content: It is not the wicked, but the one who follows YHWH's instruction who is "happy." This is because "YHWH cares for the way of righteous people, and the wicked's way will come to an end.
Message: In the end, it's those who follow YHWH's instruction who will flourish.
Cultural, historical, and contextual information that is important to know to understand this psalm
People declare someone to be "happy" (אַשְׁרֵי) when they admire that person's condition and consider it to be admirable and desirable (cf. Janzen 1965, 215-226; SDBH). For example, when the Queen of Sheba saw the wealth and wisdom and King Solomon, she exclaimed, "Happy (אַשְׁרֵי) are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!" (1 Kgs 10:8, ESV).
When wicked people flourish, others are tempted to declare them "happy." For example, Malachi (which occurs immediately before Ps 1 in the order of the Hebrew canon) says, “You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it’” (Mal 3:14-15, NIV; cf. Jer 12:1; Ps 73).
YHWH is the judge of all the earth (Gen 18:25), and the job of a just judge is to acquit the righteous/innocent (צַדִּיק) and condemn the wicked/guilty (רָשָׁע) (see Deut 25:1).
“In winnowing, grain is threshed in order to separate the kernel of grain from the husk and straw. The mixture is thrown into the air with a winnowing fork or shovel. The wind blows the light husksaway, the heavier straw falls near the edge of the threshing floor, and the grain falls back to the floor to be collected. Both the light husks and the heavier straw are referred to in the words translated ‘chaff’ in the Bible” (Ryken et al. ed. 1998, 136).
The place of YHWH's life-giving presence is depicted as a garden paradise (Gen 2; Ezek 47:12) in which the righteous grow like trees (Pss 52:10; 92:13-15; cf. Creach 1999).
A brief explanation of the "story behind" the psalm--what was going on in the psalmist's life, and/or Israel's history, that prompted the psalmist to pen this psalm? The colors in the boxes correspond to the participants in the psalm (see Participant Analysis).
These sections divide the content of the psalm into digestible pieces , and are determined based on information from many of our layers, including Semantics, Poetics, and Discourse.
The columns, left to right, contain: the verse numbers; the main title of the section; a brief summary of the content of that section (quote marks indicate the text is taken directly from the English text of the psalm (as per our Close-but-Clear translation)); and an icon to visually represent and remember the content.
The Overview video is a brief, concise explanation of the psalm, pulling all the most important information specific to this psalm from each of our analytical layers. The video begins with a high-level, birds-eye view of the content of the psalm, then explores and explains the psalm verse by verse. Relevant contextual information is also included. No Hebrew knowledge required--this video serves as an entry point for all users to all our other information about the psalm.
Video files
The script for the Overview video is available here.
The slides for the Overview video are available here.
Translation Aids
Recommended steps for translating the psalms
To translate poetry accurately and beautifully, a knowledge of both the source language's poetry and the target language's poetry is needed. So, here are the steps we recommend to follow when setting out to translate the psalms:
GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE TARGET LANGUAGE'S POETRY/ARTS. Research and analyze many examples from numerous genres of poetry, storytelling, and music in the target language and culture, and document findings. See our for help.
GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SOURCE LANGUAGE'S (HEBREW) MEANING AND POETRY. The aim of all our materials is to provide exactly this for the translator, poet/musician/artist, and consultant: an understanding of what the psalm means, as well as its poetics.
TRANSLATE THE PSALM IN THE APPROPRIATE LOCAL ART/POETRY GENRE.
Translation and Performance Notes
TPNs are an at-a-glance reference for anyone involved with translating or checking a translation of the psalm. Specific words, phrases, and images that could be difficult to understand or to translate are highlighted, and then briefly discussed. Each note is intended to help the reader understand the meaning of the Hebrew word or phrase in its context, as well as provide a few translation options or suggestions, often pulling from existing translations. Where pertinent, our preferred translation option is given. NOTE: These notes are intended to supplement a robust internalization of the psalm, not replace it.
Translation Challenges for Psalm 1 not available yet.
The Close-but-clear translation (CBC) exists to provide a window into the Hebrew text according to how we understand its syntax and word-to-phrase-level semantics. It is not intended to be used as a stand-alone translation or base text, but as a supplement to Layer-by-Layer materials to help users make full use of these resources.
1. Happy is the one who has not walked in the counsel of wicked people,
has not taken a stand in the way of sinful people,
and has not settled in the dwelling place of insolent people!
2. Instead, his delight is in YHWH's instruction,
and he meditates on his instruction day and night.
3. And he will become like a tree transplanted beside water channels
that gives its fruit in its season
and whose leaves do not wither.
And he will cause all that he does to flourish.
4. Not so the wicked people!
Instead, they will be like chaff that the wind drives away.
5. Therefore, wicked people will not stand firm in the judgment,
and sinful people [will not stand] in the group of righteous people.
6. Because YHWH cares for the way of righteous people,
The Hebrew of the psalms can be difficult to understand at times. In this section, you can explore (in either video or text format) what we've deemed to be the three most important difficulties in the Hebrew, and follow our reasoning as we do a deep dive in scholarly work and explain our conclusions.
Lexical semantics is the study of word meanings. It examines semantic range (=possible meanings of a word), the relationship between words (e.g. synonymy, hyponymy), as well as the relationship between words and larger concepts (conceptual domains). One component of our approach involves not only the study of the Hebrew word meaning, but also of our own assumptions about word meaning in modern languages. Because the researcher necessarily starts with their own cultural assumptions (in our case, those of Western-trained scholars), this part of the analysis should ideally be done afresh for every culture.
Phrase-level semantics analyses the meaning of syntactic units which are larger than the level of the word and smaller than the level of the clause. Specifically, this layer analyses the meaning of prepositional phrases , construct phrases (a special type of construction in Hebrew), phrases formed by a coordinating waw conjunction, and noun phrases which consist of a noun plus a determiner (such as "the") or a quantifier (such as "all").
Verbal Semantics focuses on the relationship between verbs, time and modality, and gives details about each verb in the psalm. This is important for interpretation and translation, and how one analyses a verb can have a significant effect on how it is rendered.
The Story Behind triangle tells the "story" (reading from left to right, beginning at the bottom left corner) of what might have prompted the psalmist to write this psalm. The events and ideas on the triangle are taken from the Propositions and Assumptions table below.
Propositional content is the part of the meaning of a clause or sentence that is constant, despite changes in such things as voice, illocutionary force, tense/aspect/mode, person/gender/number, etc. It refers to “the kind of situation or event described by the underlying proposition.”
Once we have identified the propositional content, we ask, “what would the world have to be like for this [proposition] to be true?” That is, what does this proposition presuppose about the world? What does it entail? What might be implied? In what kind of situation does this make sense? In other words, what assumptions are bound up with this proposition? We distinguish three kinds of assumptions:
Common-ground assumptions
Local-ground assumptions
Playground assumptions
See the Legend accompanying the chart for more details on the types of assumptions.
Understanding the assumptions involved will help translators understand the implicit information present in the text, so that they can decide which of these to make explicit in the translation or biblical helps for their audience to understand the text's larger meaning.
This layer examines each participant in the psalm, whether they have speaking roles in the psalm, or are just referenced in the poem. Often, the relationships and interactions among participants sheds much light on the understanding and translation of a psalm. The summary visuals give a view of the participants in the psalm as a whole, while the tables list the participant information for each clause.
