Psalm 37:7-20 “Their Day Is Coming”

Translation & Sermon By Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 29 Apr 2018

INTRO:

In my last sermon, I got into the first six verses of Psalm 37 about trusting God when bad guys are doing well and good guys are having a hard time, and I noted that God commanded three times not to fret – or literally “don’t heat yourself up” about it; Don’t be jealous; Trust God and obey Him; Settle down on the land; Associate with faithfulness; Delight yourself in the LORD; Commit your way to the LORD, and He will answer your request for salvation.
In the section of the psalm I want to cover today, there are five proverbs which teach us to be at peace even when evil threatens to harm us, because we have a God who is powerful enough to save us from evil and to bring an end to evil.
Remember, this psalm is an alphabet acrostic with a series of proverbs spanning 1 or 2 verses each, and the first word of each proverb corresponds to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
We start back in now with verse seven, which is the fourth proverb in the psalm, so we start with a “D,” the fourth letter of our alphabet (as well as of the Hebrew alphabet), and v.7 is one of the few one-verse proverbs in this psalm:

V.7 Don’t heat yourself up when a man is operating wicked schemes, when his way is making progress; keep cool before Yahweh and labor on for Him.

1. We looked at the fretting/heating yourself up/getting agitated about other people getting away with doing wrong, so we’ll move on to the next command in this verse, which is a command to be quiet in the presence of God [דּוֹם לַיהוָה]

The NIV translates it “be still,” and the KJV and NAS translate it “rest,” which I think is a little more passive than what David actually wrote. I think what David meant is not to give yourself over to shrill pronouncements of gloom and doom and “woe is me” when evil is growing strong
When you pray, don’t act like an overanxious mother trying to talk her husband into rescuing her poor child from some normal hardship that everybody has to go through. “Oh no! His head went under the water! Look, he’s going to drown! Honey, do something. I can’t stand watching swim lessons. I wish you’d just pull him out of the water. Oh why does he have to go through this? Quick, he’s gasping for air! Yes, I know the swim instructor is right there, but he’s not keeping a close enough eye on our child. Oh look at him splash, it’s just dreadful!” God doesn’t want to hear your anxious fretting. That is just expressing distrust in Him.
If we trust Him, we will be able to keep our cool and hold back the worries with the calm assurance that He’s got it under control and will do the right thing at the right time.
“Two of Aaron's sons, being ministers of the sanctuary, were for their sins by God's judgment terribly destroyed. And Aaron held his peace [same verb there]. The sins forbidden in this clause are murmuring, complaining, and charging God foolishly. Men may be silent through sulkiness and stubbornness. But what is here required is in the Lord, in Jehovah, by reason of faith and trust in him and from love to him.” ~William Plumer, Studies in the Book of Psalms

2. The next command gives the flip side of holding peace and keeping calm and quiet, and that is וְהִתְחוֹלֵל

It is translated “wait patiently” in most English versions, but the problem is, no where else do those versions translate this word “wait patiently;” pretty much everywhere else, this word is translated “shake,” “dance,” “writhe in pain,” “labor in birth,” and the like. So, if this is “waiting,” the verb would picture the kind of waiting that a three year old does when he’s got to go, but the rest area is still a few miles away.
I suggest that this word be translated “labor” (as in birth), to match the way it is translated in its previous occurrence in the Psalms (29:9) and in the subsequent occurrence of this word in the Psalms (51:5). The picture that emerges when you translate this verb as “labour” is that of someone who is suffering from evil, but is trusting God in the midst of it and therefore is not fretting and complaining about it, but is steadfastly obeying God, “laboring on” and asking God to save him.
The NIV Application Commentary on the Psalms had a very good application that I’d like to share: The author Gerald Wilson wrote, “The realization of… darkness without and within can tempt us to view God as the ‘big fix,’ which can take us out of our suffering and pain. During one particularly difficult period, I was earnestly seeking God’s presence in my life through prayer, meditation, Scripture – certainly not bad things in themselves. Yet God continued to seem distant and absent. One day, however, I realized what I was doing. I was making God into a ‘big fix’ to take me out of my misery. I wanted an ecstatic experience with God that would so fill me with His spiritual presence that I would no longer be aware of the suffering that surrounded me and filled me. I was shocked by the realization of how similar my desire for God was to the need of the addict for a narcotic high or an alcoholic haze that obliterated – even for a moment – the pain of the real world. When I set aside this unrealistic view of relationship with God, I began, little by little, to experience the presence of God within the distorted world in which we live.”
When so-called “progressive” politicians increase inflation, raise taxes, over-regulate businesses and create hardship for honest working people, don’t try to outdo Jay Seculow with alarmist statements about the state we’re in, keep calmly trusting your sovereign Lord and Savior and labor on in doing what’s right.

v.8-9 Ease off of anger and forsake fury; don’t heat yourself up only to cause harm, 9 because evil men will be cut off, but those who wait on Yahweh, they will possess the land.

3. The commands in this fifth proverb had to start with an “E” הֶרֶף מֵאַף “Ease off of anger,” and the final imperative is parallel to it: עֲזֹב חֵמָה “forsake wrath/fury”

Ceasing/Refraining/Easing off anger and forsaking wrath is the same thing as not fretting/not getting heated up and anxious over evil. It is tempting to get angry when we see evil going on and the authorities aren’t stopping it[1].
Now, there is a form of anger which is Biblical:

Psalm 5:5 says that God “hates all workers of iniquity.” So if God can hate, then there must be a kind of hatred that is not sin.
David expresses that kind of righteous hatred in Psalm 26:5 “I have hated the congregation of evil men, and with wicked men I will not sit.” (NAW) When we have it within our authority to intervene and stop sin, we should do so. David said he would not sit with wicked men – he could control who he sat around with.
Righteous anger takes offense at what offends God and acts to glorify God.

When Jesus saw the moneychangers in the temple robbing people and preventing the gentiles from worshipping God, He got angry and chased the moneychangers out.
When His own disciples tried to prevent babies from being brought to Him for blessing, Jesus got angry and commanded His disciples to let the children come. This should be the case for anything that is in our power to correct.

But when the evil is something that is not in your power to correct, and you are just angry because you were inconvenienced, or you are angry because you think God is not being fair, or you are angry because you aren’t God and therefore don’t have the power to stop it (anger is usually a reaction to a situation you want to control but can’t control. That kind of anger is what the Bible is telling us to step away from. That kind of anger is the opposite of trusting God. It is the opposite of waiting on God. That kind of anger is about wishing you could control evil when God has not given you the authority to do that.
V.9 gives us a reason not to get angry/furious/heated up over evil: “for/because evil men will be cut off but those who wait on the Lord will possess the land.” In other words, when you can’t control the outcome to bring about justice, don’t get mad, just trust God to do it.
“Cut off” is related to God’s covenant making and keeping.

He “cuts” covenants, drawing lines in the sand, as it were, as to who is in His people and who is outside His people and what the contractual obligations are.
And then when people broke His covenant, He declared them “cut off” – in some cases put to death, and, I think, in some cases, merely excommunicated or kicked out of the Israelite community, but it is the covenantal curse of being made an outsider to God’s blessed people.

Possession of the promised land, on the other hand was one of the covenantal blessings.

God promised Abraham a certain area of the Middle East for his descendants to start a country on,
at Mt. Sinai, God made a covenant with those descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, promising them that same tract of land,
but that piece of land was not the ultimate point; it was just a type and shadow of heavenly realities yet to be revealed. We heard in our New Testament reading from Ephesians 1, that God uses the language of covenant blessings from the Old Testament to describe the blessings of the New Testament, possession of an inheritance of what? Not land, but community with Jesus and the Holy Spirit and God the Father, the ultimate anti-type of all the Old Testament types and symbols.

Possession of the land comes to those who “wait on the LORD” (cf. Ps. 25:3)

The Hebrew word for “wait” qavah pictures holding something together – just keeping on holding it together.
What is that force that enables us to “keep it together” in the face of evil that we can’t control or defend ourselves against? It is hope. Hope that there is a Savior big enough to bring that evil to justice and strong enough to save us from that evil.
Hope gives us the ability to wait on God’s timing to punish evil and God’s timing to save those who are trusting in Him.

Knowing the future that the wicked will die and be excluded from heaven and that those who wait with hope in Jesus to save them will come into possession of “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1) gives us the ability to ease off of anger and stop fretting.
The next proverb in Verses 10-11 expands on the future of the wicked vs. those who wait humbly on the Lord:

v.10-11 For again a short time and a wicked man won’t be around, and you will see for yourself that he is not at his place, but the lowly ones will inherit the land, and will delight themselves over abundance of peace.

· At this point in the Psalm, the rapid-fire commands cease, and a series of about 12 comparisons between the righteous and the wicked begins: the word for “wicked” rasha’ appears for the first time in v.10 and again a dozen times before the end of the psalm.

o In the first comparison, in vs. 10-11, the wicked are contrasted with the ‘anavim/lowly/meek/humble, (also in v.14)

o in vs.12, 16, 17, 21, 32, 38, 39-40, the wicked are contrasted with the tsadiq/righteous,

o in vs. 18-20 the wicked are contrasted with the tamim/perfect/blameless/upright (also vs. 35-37)

o and in v. 28 the wicked are contrasted with chesedim/saints/godly/faithful ones

· Remember Psalm 2 that ended with “Pay homage [to the son] without hindrance, otherwise He will become angry and y’all will perish in the way, for His anger rages like a short [fuse]”? When I was a boy, my brother and I would light firecrackers while holding them in our hands and then throw them before they blew up. But sometimes those firecrackers would have a short fuse on them, and fzzt – pow! It would blow up in your hand before you could throw it, and that smarts! Well, here, David uses the same word for “short” or “little,” saying that this is all the waiting which is necessary before we see the downfall of the wicked.

· The Hebrew phrase that opens v.10 וְעוֹד מְעַט [2], which literally means “and again a little” paints the picture to me that if you take the little bit of time it took between the time you saw a bad person do something wrong and the time you got impatient that God did not punish them, and wait again that same length of time, as a general rule, that bad person won’t still be doing bad things and getting away with it. God often takes care of these things when you’re not looking.

o Remember when the Syrians besieged Samaria and, after a while, King Joram got so angry that his people were dying of starvation without food inside the city that he said, “God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on him today… why should I wait for the LORD any longer?” Then God told Elisha, “Tomorrow about this time [you’re going to see flour and barley for sale at reasonable prices] at the gate...” Sure enough, in the middle of the night, God made the Syrian army hear the sound of armies approaching from both the north and the south, and so the Syrians fled, leaving all their food behind, thinking they were being chased by the Hittite and Egyptian armies! The next day the Jews in Samaria looked around and saw for themselves that there was no more Syrian army there anymore; they were gone! (2 Kings 6:31ff, NKJV).

o The same thing happened in Jerusalem later on. The Assyrian army laid siege to the city, but Hezekiah, the King of Judah, waited on the Lord and prayed for deliverance, so God sent him a message from the prophet Isaiah, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the boys of the king of Assyria have reviled me… He shall not come into this city... By the way that he came, by the same he shall return… For I will shield over this city to save it, for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.” And the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when they arose in the morning, “Look at all these dead bodies!” Then Sennacherib king of Assyria pulled out and… returned home… to Nineveh. (Isa. 37:6 & 33ff, NAW) The most powerful army in the world simply no longer there.

o Did that only happen in Bible times? No. A modern writer compiled the following chronicle: “In 1923, eight of the most powerful men of the world met at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago: the president of the largest independent steel company, the president of the world’s largest utility company, the greatest wheat speculator in the United States, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, a member of the President’s Cabinet, the greatest ﬁnancier in the history of Wall Street, the president of the Bank of International Settlements, and the head of the world’s largest monopoly. Collectively, these men controlled more money, more wealth, than there was in the [entire] United States. Twenty-ﬁve years later, the president of the world’s largest independent steel company, Charles Schwab, lived on borrowed money for the last ﬁve years of his life. He died penniless. The head of the world’s largest utility company, Samuel Insull, died in obscurity. The greatest wheat speculator in the United States, Arthur Cutten, died abroad insolvent. The president of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney, served a term in Sing Sing. A member of the President’s Cabinet, Albert Fall, was released from prison so he might die at home. The greatest ﬁnancier on Wall Street, Jesse Livermore, committed suicide. The presi- dent of the Bank of International Settlements, Leon Fraser, committed suicide. The head of the world’s largest monopoly, Ivar Kreuger—the so-called ‘match king’ —leaped from a plane crossing the English Channel, and committed suicide...[3] ”

· In contrast with the wicked who will be no more, the lowly/meek/humble are profiled in v.11; they will inherit the land, and will delight themselves over abundance of peace

o Inheriting the land was not just a promise for Old Testament Jews; Jesus extended this promise to Christians in Matthew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, because it is they who will inherit the earth.” (NAW) And I already talked a little bit about what that meant in the last sermon.

Their delighting in peace is similar to v.4 “delight yourself over Yahweh. Then He will give you what your heart asks for.” (NAW)

· There are only a couple of other places where this rov shalom phrase occurs: great/abundant peace/prosperity:

o Psalm 72:2-17 Solomon prophecies of Jesus: “He will judge Your people with righteousness, And Your poor with justice. The mountains will bring peace to the people, And the little hills, by righteousness. He will bring justice to the poor of the people; He will save the children of the needy, And will break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear You As long as the sun and moon endure, Throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the grass before mowing, Like showers that water the earth. In His days the righteous shall flourish, And abundance of peace, Until the moon is no more. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth... all kings shall fall down before Him; All nations shall serve Him. For He will deliver the needy when he cries, The poor also, and him who has no helper. He will spare the poor and needy, And will save the souls of the needy... His name shall continue as long as the sun. And men shall be blessed in Him; All nations shall call Him blessed.” (NKJV)

Isaiah 54:13 also prophesied of the New Covenant when “all your children will be disciples of Yahweh, and great will be the peace of your children!”[4]

Jesus continues this theme in the New Testament:

John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (NKJV)
John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (NKJV)
Romans 5:1-2 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (NKJV)

Those who humble themselves by repenting and trusting in Jesus will have staying power in this world and in the world to come because God is building His kingdom out of such people who worship Him.
The next two proverbs starting in v. 12 do not mention the righteous, they just profile the ungodly, but they still show why we should not fret about or be jealous about the ungodly:

v.12-13 Gnashing his teeth over him, a wicked man also makes plans concerning the righteous man. The Master will laugh at him because he sees that his day will come.

Those who trust God are able to turn away from anger and forsake wrath, but frustration and angry grinding of the teeth is characteristic of sinners.

The Gospel of Matthew mentions four times when wicked men plotted to stop Jesus and kill him (12:14, 22:15, 26:4, & 27:1).
Then the Pharisees in Jerusalem “gnashed their teeth” over Steven when he told them they had done wrong to crucify Jesus the Messiah, so they killed Steven too (Acts 7:54).
The Jews of Damascus were confounded when the Apostle Paul started preaching the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah in their town, so they “plotted” to kill him too, but failed (Acts 9:22-23).
I’ve heard it said that dentists can tell if you have a lot of anxiety by the way you wear your teeth. Perhaps in hell there will be a lot of work for dentists because Jesus said the people there would be characterized by weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mat. 8:12; 13:42,50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28).
In the here-and-now, the anger and frustration of the ungodly is often directed at godly people of whom the mere sight reminds the wicked that not everybody is in bondage to sin and that there are people who consider what they are doing to be sinful. They make plans to intimidate, silence, and even imprison and kill the godly.

Many times, God delivers the godly, like He did with the Apostle Paul and the Jews or with Daniel in the lion’s den,
but other times God delivers His people by letting them die and come on to glory with Him like He did with Stephen the evangelist.

But the future of the ungodly is gnashing of teeth in dissatisfaction, frustration, and dismay when their day comes and they collide with God’s unstoppable justice.

V.13 says that the Lord – you’ll notice the word “Lord” uses lowercase because this is the Hebrew word for a master or an owner who holds authority over others – this Lord and Master “laughs” at the wicked,

This an echo of Psalm 2: “Kings of the earth set themselves up, and distinguished men establish unity against Yahweh and against His Anointed One. ‘Let us burst their chains and let us throw their bindings from us.’ The One sitting in the heavens laughs, the Master mocks at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger…” (Ps. 2:2-5, NAW, cf. Ps. 59:8, Prov. 1:26).
God’s laughter indicates that God does not feel threatened by the powerful coalitions of corrupt men. In fact, the puny-ness of their defiance in the face of the greatness of God is ironically funny.

He has more firepower than the U.S. Army,
more social connections than the Internet,
more brainpower than every think-tank in history put together,
and He holds the future in His hands. He will have the last laugh.

The reason the Lord laughs is because He can see into the future and witness the day[5] of the demise of the ungodly before it happens and see the futility of their rebellion.

This can be a comfort to those who are trusting this same Lord to save them and to bring evil to justice.
It was for David. He used this very phrase when he and Ahithophel came upon King Saul fast asleep in his army camp. Saul had come to kill David, so Ahithophel said, “Let’s kill Saul while we can now!” But David said, "As the LORD lives, the LORD shall strike him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall go out to battle and perish.” (1 Sam. 26:10, NKJV) It’s not right for me to murder the King, I will trust God to bring him to justice. And God did.

God’s reassurance to us that He will bring justice against the ungodly continues in the next Proverb which starts with the Hebrew letter Chet and the English letter H:

v.14-15 Have wicked men unsheathed a sword and bent their bow in order to fell someone who is lowly and needy – in order to butcher those whose way is right? It will be their own sword which enters into their heart, and their bows will be broken.

There are bad guys out there who are very dangerous. They are armed with weapons and looking for people to kill.

Psalm 11:2 described the same thing: “…look, the wicked men bend a bow, they set upon string their arrow to shoot through gloom toward those who are upright of heart.” (NAW)
Nowadays we use guns instead of bows, so you might modernize the translation by saying that the wicked have loaded their guns and are looking for easy victims.

By all appearances, the wicked will get rid of all the godly people and gain full control of the nation, but they don’t take into account God’s justice. God never allows the wicked to go completely unchecked. When the wicked reach the limits of God’s patience and general graces, great reversals happen.

Joseph goes from being a slave-prisoner to being Prime Minister of Egypt.
Haman is hanged on the gallows he made for the humble and godly Mordecai, and Mordecai is put in power.
Saul of Tarsus goes to Damascus to persecute Christians and ends up doing Christian evangelism in that town instead.
A vision during a battle leads the Roman Emperor Constantine to stop killing Christians and instead sponsor a church council to help the Christian faith.

One of the questions I’d like to ask David when I get to heaven is whether he wrote this psalm before or after Saul killed himself by his own sword, and whether this proverb is a prophecy or an observation.

All the same, it was probably written after David had finished off Goliath with the giant’s own sword.
The fate of being killed by the sword is also one of the curses God listed for breaking His covenant in Leviticus 26:25, and punishing the wicked who are oppressing the poor and needy is recognized as God “having respect/regard for the covenant” in Psalm 74:20[6].
That’s when David’s earlier words from Psalm 35:10 come in: “All my bones will say, ‘Yahweh, who is like you, delivering the lowly one from the one who is stronger than him, even the lowly and needy one from the one who robbed him?!’” (NAW, cf. Psalm 74:20-21)

The broken bow is a Biblical symbol of peace (they can’t go to war without a firearm!). And while we see peace here-and-there for a time, the fullness of this prophecy is yet to come – and it will not come by the agency of ungodly leaders in the United Nations; it will come through Jesus alone.

This is prophesied by Hosea in terms of marriage to Him in the New Covenant: “In that day I will make a covenant for them... Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth, To make them lie down safely. I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the LORD.” (Hosea 2:18-20 NKJV)

Even if the wrong things done by ungodly people become a threat to you, you can peacefully trust God to preserve you and to stop the wicked.

Conclusion

To summarize the five proverbs in verses 7-15, when evil threatens you,

· Keep calm and labor on before the Lord, even in the face of adversity

· Forsake anger and wait on the Lord, stop trying to play God

· Persevere in humility and delight yourself in the Lord,

· And, to combine the last two: Don’t fret about the wicked’s threats, because you have a sovereign God who will end injustice and who will save those who humbly trust Him.

Psalm 37:1-15[A]

Septuagint (Psalm 35)	Brenton’s translation of LXX	Douay-Rheims Vulgate	King James Authorized Version	Nathan A Wilson’s Version	Masoretic Text
1 Τοῦ Δαυιδ. Μὴ παραζήλου[B] ἐν πονηρευομένοις μηδὲ ζήλου τοὺς ποιοῦντας τὴν ἀνομίαν·	1 A Psalm of David. Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be envious of them that do iniquity.	1 Be not emulous of evildoers; nor envy them that work iniquity.	1 A Psalm of David. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.	1 By David. About evil men don’t heat yourself up; don’t be jealous about those who commit injustice,	א לְדָוִד אַל תִּתְחַר בַּמְּרֵעִים אַל תְּקַנֵּא בְּעֹשֵׂי עַוְלָה.
2 ὅτι ὡσεὶ χόρτος ταχὺ ἀποξηρανθήσονται καὶ ὡσεὶ λάχανα χλόης [ταχὺ] ἀποπεσοῦνται.	2 For they shall soon be withered as the grass, and shall [soon] fall away as the green herbs.	2 For they shall shortly wither away as grass, and as the green herbs shall [quickly] fall.	2 For they shall soon be cut down[C] like the grass, and wither as the green herb.	2 because, quick as grass, they will wither, and like sprouts of greenery they will wilt.	ב כִּי כֶחָצִיר מְהֵרָה יִמָּלוּ וּכְיֶרֶק דֶּשֶׁא יִבּוֹלוּן.
3 ἔλπισον ἐπὶ κύριον καὶ ποίει χρηστότητα [καὶ] κατασκήνου τὴν γῆν, καὶ ποιμαν~~θήσῃ~~[D] [ἐπὶ] τῷ ~~πλούτῳ~~ [αὐτῆς]·	3 Hope in the Lord, and do good; [and] dwell on the land, and thou shalt be fed [with] the ~~wealth~~ [of it].	3 Trust in the Lord, and do good, [and] dwell in the land, and thou shalt be fed [with its] ~~riches~~.	3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed[E].	3 Believe Yahweh and do what is good. Settle down on the land and associate with faithfulness,	ג בְּטַח בַּיהוָה וַעֲשֵׂה טוֹב שְׁכָן אֶרֶץ וּרְעֵה אֱמוּנָה.
4 κατατρύφησον X τοῦ κυρίου, καὶ δώσει σοι τὰ αἰτήματα τῆς καρδίας σου.	4 Delight thyself X in the Lord; and he shall grant thee the requests of thine heart.	4 Delight X in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart.	4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.	4 and delight yourself over Yahweh. Then He will give to you the things your heart asks for.	ד וְהִתְעַנַּג עַל יְהוָה וְיִתֶּן לְךָ מִשְׁאֲלֹת לִבֶּךָ.
5 ἀποκάλυψον[F] πρὸς κύριον τὴν ὁδόν σου καὶ ἔλπισον ἐπ᾿ αὐτόν, καὶ αὐτὸς ποιήσει	5 Disclose thy way to the Lord, and hope in him; and he shall bring [it] to pass.	5 Commit thy way to the Lord, and trust in him, and he will do [it].	5 Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass[G].	5 Commit your way to Yahweh and believe on him, so it is He who will operate,	ה גּוֹל [H]עַל יְהוָה דַּרְכֶּךָ וּבְטַח עָלָיו וְהוּא יַעֲשֶׂה.
6 καὶ ἐξοίσει ὡς φῶς τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου καὶ τὸ κρίμα σου ὡς μεσημβρίαν.	6 And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon-day.	6 And he will bring forth thy justice as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.	6 And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.	6 and He will bring forth your righteousness like the daylight and your justice like the noonday.	ו וְהוֹצִיא כָאוֹר צִדְקֶךָ וּמִשְׁפָּטֶךָ כַּצָּהֳרָיִם.
7 ὑποτάγηθι[I] τῷ κυρίῳ καὶ ἱκέτευσον[J] αὐτόν· μὴ παραζήλου ἐν τῷ κατευοδουμένῳ [ἐν] τῇ ὁδῷ αὐτοῦ, ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ ποιοῦντι παρανομίας .	7 Submit thyself to the Lord, and supplicate him: fret not thyself because of him that prospers [in] his way, at the man that does unlawful deeds.	7 Be subject to the Lord and pray to him. Envy not the man who prospereth [in] his way; the man who doth unjust things.	7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth [in] his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices[K] to pass.	7 Don’t heat yourself up when a man is operating wicked schemes, when his way is making progress; keep cool before Yahweh and labor on for Him.	ז דּוֹם לַיהוָה וְהִתְחוֹלֵל לוֹ אַל תִּתְחַר בְּמַצְלִיחַ דַּרְכּוֹ בְּאִישׁ עֹשֶׂה מְזִמּוֹת.
8 παῦσαι ἀπὸ ὀργῆς καὶ ἐγκατάλιπε θυμόν, μὴ παραζήλου ὥστε πονηρεύεσθαι·	8 ease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself so as to do evil.	8 Cease from anger, and leave rage; have no emulation X to do evil.	8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise[L] to do evil.	8 Ease off of anger and forsake fury; don’t heat yourself up only to cause harm,	ח הֶרֶף מֵאַף וַעֲזֹב חֵמָה אַל תִּתְחַר אַךְ לְהָרֵעַ.
9 ὅτι οἱ πονηρευόμενοι ἐξολεθρευθήσονται, οἱ δὲ ὑπομένοντες τὸν κύριον αὐτοὶ κληρονομήσουσιν γῆν.	9 For evil-doers shall be destroyed: but they that wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the land.	9 For evildoers shall be cut off: but they that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the land.	9 For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.	9 because evil men will be cut off, but those who wait on Yahweh, they will inherit the land.	ט כִּי מְרֵעִים יִכָּרֵתוּן וְקֹוֵי יְהוָה הֵמָּה יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ.
10 καὶ ἔτι ὀλίγον καὶ οὐ μὴ ὑπάρξῃ ὁ ἁμαρτωλός, καὶ ζητήσεις X τὸν τόπον αὐτοῦ καὶ οὐ μὴ ~~εὕρῃς~~·	10 And yet a little while, and the sinner shall not be, and thou shalt seek ~~for~~ his place, and shalt not ~~find~~ it.	10 For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: and thou shalt seek X his place, and shalt not ~~find~~ it.	10 For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider X his place, and it shall not be[M].	10 For again a short time and a wicked man won’t be around, and you will see for yourself that he is not at his place,	י וְעוֹד מְעַט וְאֵין רָשָׁע וְהִתְבּוֹנַנְתָּ עַל מְקוֹמוֹ וְאֵינֶנּוּ.
11 οἱ δὲ πραεῖς κληρονομήσουσιν γῆν καὶ κατατρυφήσουσιν ἐπὶ πλήθει εἰρήνης.	11 But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.	11 But the meek shall inherit the land, and shall delight in abundance of peace.	11 But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.	11 but the lowly ones will inherit the land, and will delight themselves over abundance of peace.	יא וַעֲנָוִים יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ וְהִתְעַנְּגוּ עַל רֹב שָׁלוֹם.
12 παρατηρήσεται ὁ ἁμαρτωλὸς τὸν δίκαιον καὶ βρύξει ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν τοὺς ὀδόντας αὐτοῦ·	12 The sinner will watch for the righteous, and gnash his teeth upon him.	12 The sinner shall watch the just man: and shall gnash upon him with his teeth.	12 The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.	12 Gnashing his teeth over him, a wicked man also makes plans concerning the righteous man.	יב זֹמֵם[N] רָשָׁע לַצַּדִּיק וְחֹרֵק עָלָיו שִׁנָּיו.
13 ὁ [δὲ] κύριος ἐκγελάσεται αὐτόν, ὅτι προβλέπει ὅτι ἥξει ἡ ἡμέρα αὐτοῦ.	13 [But] the Lord shall laugh at him: for he foresees that his day will come.	13 But the Lord shall laugh at him: for he foreseeth that his day shall come.	13 The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.	13 The Master will laugh at him because he sees that his day will come.	יג אֲדֹנָי יִשְׂחַק לוֹ כִּי רָאָה כִּי יָבֹא יוֹמוֹ.
14 ῥομφαίαν ἐσπάσαντο οἱ ἁμαρτωλοί, ἐνέτειναν τόξον αὐτῶν τοῦ καταβαλεῖν πτωχὸν καὶ πένητα, τοῦ σφάξαι τοὺς εὐθεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ·	14 Sinners have drawn their swords, they have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy one, and to slay the upright in heart.	14 The wicked have drawn out the sword: they have bent their bow. To cast down the poor and needy, to kill the upright of heart.	14 The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.	14 Have wicked men unsheathed a sword and bent their bow in order to fell someone who is lowly and needy – in order to butcher those whose way is right?	יד חֶרֶב פָּתְחוּ רְשָׁעִים וְדָרְכוּ קַשְׁתָּם לְהַפִּיל עָנִי וְאֶבְיוֹן[O] לִטְבוֹחַ יִשְׁרֵי דָרֶךְ.
15 ἡ ῥομφαία αὐτῶν εἰσέλθοι εἰς τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῶν, καὶ τὰ τόξα αὐτῶν συντριβείησαν.	15 Let their sword enter into their own heart, and their bows be broken.	15 Let their sword enter into their own hearts, and let their bow be broken.	15 Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.	15 It will be their own sword which enters into their heart, and their bows will be broken.	טו חַרְבָּם תָּבוֹא בְלִבָּם וְקַשְּׁתוֹתָם תִּשָּׁבַרְנָה.

[1] When you survey the words for “anger” and “wrath” in the Hebrew Bible, most of the time it is speaking of God’s hatred of sin, so perhaps this is saying that taking refuge in God’s salvation and patiently awaiting His justice will make you safe from God’s anger and wrath, but the above interpretation seems more likely.

[2] The NASB and NIV had to move the first word out of its phrase in Hebrew and into the next phrase in order to get “the wicked will be no more” but this does not make a significant change in meaning.

[3] As quoted by Frank Barker in Psalms That Give Perspective: A Series of Sermons, pp.137-8.

[4] cf. Jer.33:6 which also speaks of the blessings of the new covenant, substituting the synonym עֲתֶרֶת for רֹב , and Psalm 119:165 which reverses the order of the two words: “Great peace have those who love Your law.”

[5] Other instances of “his day” indicating the wicked’s day of demise listed in K&D: (Ps. 137:7, Ob. 1:12, Jer. 50:27&31). There is also a “day of the Lord” which is the day He judges all mankind and brings all evil to justice (Job 18:20, Luke 17:24, Isa. 2:12, 1 Cor. 5:5, 2 Pet 3:10, etc.).

[6] and notably 14 times in Ezekiel, beginning with 5:17, as God carries out the threatened curse upon the Israelites who had broken His covenant.