Psalm 73

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Surely Elohim is good to Israel

¹ Surely Elohim is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

² But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped. ³ For I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. ⁴ For they have no pangs until their death, and their body is fat and sound. ⁵ They are not in the trouble of mortal man, nor are they stricken like other men. ⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. ⁷ Their eyes bulge from fatness; the imaginations of their heart overflow. ⁸ They scoff and speak with malice; from on high they speak of oppression. ⁹ They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walks through the earth. ¹⁰ Therefore his people turn back to this place, and waters of a full cup are drained by them. ¹¹ And they say, "How does El know? And is there knowledge in the Most High?" ¹² See, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in wealth.

¹³ Surely in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. ¹⁴ For all the day I have been stricken, and chastened every morning.

Until I went into the sanctuary of El

¹⁵ If I had said, "I will speak thus," see, I would have betrayed the generation of Your children. ¹⁶ When I thought how to understand this, it was a wearisome task in my eyes, ¹⁷ until I went into the sanctuary of El; then I understood their end.

¹⁸ Surely You set them in slippery places; You make them fall to destruction. ¹⁹ How they have been brought to desolation in a moment! They have been swept away, utterly consumed by terrors. ²⁰ Like a dream when one awakes, Adonai, so when You arouse Yourself You will despise their image.

²¹ When my heart was embittered and I was pierced in my inmost being, ²² I was brutish and did not know; I was like a beast before You.

Nearness to Elohim is my good

²³ Yet I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. ²⁴ You guide me with Your counsel, and afterward You will receive me to glory. ²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You I desire nothing on earth. ²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail, but Elohim is the rock of my heart and my portion forever.

²⁷ For see, those who are far from You shall perish; You destroy everyone who is unfaithful to You. ²⁸ But as for me, it is good for me to be near Elohim; I have made Adonai Yahweh my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.

Notes

• 73:1 Title: as in Psalm 50, the title, mizmor le'asaf, stands at the start of verse 1 in the Hebrew; the TRB puts it in the title line, and verse 1 begins after it, so the verse numbers here are the same as in Hebrew Bibles. On Asaph see the note at 50:1; Psalms 73-83 all bear his name. With Psalm 73 the third book of the Psalms begins (73-89; see the note at 1:1), while the collection that often prefers Elohim to Yahweh runs on to Psalm 83 (see the note at 42:1). The psalm turns on the small word akh, "surely": the confession of faith (verse 1), the doubt (verse 13) and the answer (verse 18). It begins and ends with what is "good" (verses 1 and 28). The Hebrew of a few verses is hard. Some scholars divide the consonants of verse 1 differently, "Surely El is good to the upright, Elohim to the pure in heart," and those of verse 4, "they have no pangs; their body is sound and fat"; in verse 7 the ancient Greek translation reads "their iniquity" for "their eyes," and the sense of verse 10 is uncertain. The TRB follows the Masoretic text.
• 73:13 Here the doubt reaches its depth: "in vain" he has kept himself pure. "Washed my hands in innocence" is the language of 26:6, "I wash my hands in innocence," and of the rite in which the elders declared themselves clean of innocent blood (Deuteronomy 21:6). The wicked are not "stricken" like other men (verse 5), but he has been "stricken" all the day (verse 14, the same verb, naga). Yet he did not say it aloud (verse 15): to speak so would have betrayed "the generation of Your children," the company of those who belong to Elohim. Job presses the same question (Job 21:7).
• 73:17 This is the turning point of the psalm. Thinking alone was "a wearisome task" (amal, verse 16), until he went into "the sanctuary of El." The Hebrew is plural, "the sanctuaries of El" (mikdeshe-El), which may mean the holy courts of the house of Elohim, or, as some think, the holy things and purposes of El. There he "understood their end" (acharit, the latter end, the word rendered "future" in 37:37-38). Nothing in the life of the wicked had changed; what changed was the place from which he looked at it.
• 73:24 Four verses begin with va'ani, "and I" or "but as for me" (verses 2, 22, 23, 28): his slipping feet, his brutish folly, and then the One who holds his right hand. "You will receive me" is tikkacheni, "You will take me," the verb used of Enoch, "for Elohim took him" (Genesis 5:24), and used with the same hope in 49:15 (see the note there). "Afterward… to glory" may mean that Elohim will afterward lead him to honor in this life; many hear in it a hope that reaches beyond death, though the psalm does not spell out how. Verse 26 takes up the gift of the priests, to whom Yahweh said, "I am your portion and your inheritance" (Numbers 18:20; see the note there): when flesh and heart fail, Elohim Himself remains "my portion forever."

Psalm 72 · Psalm 74

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