Psalm 37:23-34
Just a day or two ago I commented that almost every verse in that day’s reading had to do with the wicked. Today is just the opposite – it’s all about the righteous. The word “wicked” only appears three times, in Psalm 37:28,32,34, and even there two of those occasions are half-verses. But today is about the righteous.
Verse 23 is intriguing when we look at the ESV translation with no deific capitalizations: The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way… Neither pronoun is capitalized in the ESV, but we know from the context that at least one of them should be. The NASB and the NKJV have “He” capitalized: The steps of a man are established by the LORD, And He delights in his way. Because they have “He” capitalized, we know that this is a proper translation. Surprisingly, however, when I read this verse in the ESV, I imagined the “his” to be capitalized: The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in His way… This incorrect translation results in another comment that I made a few days ago, that we are more fully blessed when we follow the path that the Lord has laid out for us. So even reading the non-capitalized ESV incorrectly leaves us with a very positive statement. Fun!
Last night, the second chapter of Ken Burns’ documentary on Ben Franklin centered on the American Revolution. The tyranny of the King of England and his sending a huge invasion force that not only destroyed homes and property, but terrorized the population, created an armed revolt of ordinary folk, willing to fight to the death for their freedom.
Psalm 37, in its entirety, gives us faith and strength in God’s promise to champion the righteous and protect the innocent.
The parallels between the American struggle and that of the Ukrainian people today are most obvious. France came to our rescue then, and now the countries of Western Europe and North America, as well as Australia and others are sending help militarily and in humanitarian relief to Ukraine.
In asking a Ukrainian acquaintance what we could do to help, he answered, “Pray for us.” The faith of the Ukrainian people remains strong in the Lord. Their struggle has shown the world how Democracy should be valued. Our hope and our prayers, as the original democratic experiment, should be that God will see that Ukraine prevails, and that the evil and tyranny forced upon them by Putin and his army are vanquished.
Watching the Ben Franklin documentary brought all of these things together for me. We are so fortunate to have had great men at the right time, a united spirit in the face of a dominant force, a strong faith that God was with us, and the will to fight to the death for a cause that was righteous. I hope and pray that the Ukrainian people can stay the course and defeat the wicked – with God’s help.
Awesome comment, Tom! The parallels are there. Add the Polish general Tadeusz Kościuszko to that list of assistance the USA received from Europe back then!
I would not be so quick to call one rendering of pronouns “correct” and the other “incorrect”. The fact is that the text is a bit ambiguous and the translators have made a judgment call and are therefore imposing their interpretation onto the text. The ESV translators have instead chosen to preserve the original ambiguity, which encourages us to think more deeply on our own.