Psalm 73

Scripture:

A Psalm of Asaph.

1 Truly God 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 arrogant
    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4 For they have no pangs until death;
    their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
    they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
    violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness;
    their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
    loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
    and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them,
    and find no fault in them.
11 And they say, “How can God know?
    Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked;
    always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean
    and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken
    and rebuked every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
    I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

16 But when I thought how to understand this,
    it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
    then I discerned their end.

18 Truly you set them in slippery places;
    you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment,
    swept away utterly by terrors!
20 Like a dream when one awakes,
    O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
    when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant;
    I was like a beast toward you.

23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
    you hold 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 there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
    you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
    I have made the Lord God my refuge,
    that I may tell of all your works.

Devotion:

Psalm 73 is one of twelve psalms attributed to Asaph, a Levite musician appointed by David to lead worship before the ark of God. He was not an outsider looking in. He was a man with a front-row seat to the things of God, a man whose life was organized around worship. And he nearly lost his footing anyway. 

That is important to understand before you read his complaint. Asaph is not a cynic or a skeptic. He is a worshiper who has been staring at something that does not add up, and the honesty it takes to write verses 2 through 14 is itself a form of faithfulness. He does not pretend. He does not tidy up the question. He lays it out plainly: the wicked are comfortable, the righteous are suffering, and he has been keeping his hands clean for what exactly? 

The turn in verse 17 is everything. "Until I went into the sanctuary of God." Asaph does not receive a logical argument. He receives a perspective shift. From inside the sanctuary, the prosperity of the wicked looks exactly like what it is: temporary. The horizon changes. What looked permanent from the outside looked fleeting from where God stands. 

The central truth of this psalm is not that the righteous always prosper in the end. It is that nearness to God is itself the reward. Verse 28 is the destination the whole psalm has been moving toward: "It is good for me to be near God." Not the benefits of God. Not the outcomes of faithfulness. God Himself. 

HEAR about it:

Explain:
In your own words, summarize what Psalm 73 meant to its original audience. What is the central truth? What does it reveal about the character of God?

Prayer and Reflection:

Take a few minutes to sit quietly and reflect on the passage you read today. Let the Holy Spirit bring to mind what stood out to you and why. Then spend some time in prayer. Pray for the people around you, for your outlook on this day, and for the needs you are carrying in your own life.

Father, give me the mind of a student today. Asaph went into the sanctuary and saw what he could not see from the outside. I want that kind of clarity. Keep me from reading my own frustrations into this text and help me to hear what You were actually saying through a worshiper who was honest enough to almost say the wrong thing. Let that honesty meet me where I actually am today. In Jesus' name, Amen. 

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