This is another long, repetitious psalm that keeps saying bad people will be punished and good people will be protected here on earth. We’re supposed to be patient, though, if “the man who brings wicked schemes to pass” appears to be getting ahead. Don’t get mad, the psalmist says; don’t be bad; and don’t worry about the evil schemer. Why not? Because “it only causes harm.”
Now, I did learn one other thing from reading this psalm. I’ve noticed familiar references in other psalms, but when I read the line, “the meek shall inherit the earth,” in this 37th iteration, I said to myself, “Aha! I’ve seen that line somewhere else!” That phrase — repeated ten verses later — is the most famous blessing in the most famous sermon by the most famous preacher in the world.
Before some apologist says, “Ah, but this reference is merely prophetic,” just like all those other things that appear in the Old Testament hundreds of years before Jesus of Nazareth says them or does them in the Gospels of the New Testament, I submit that a defender of the faith like that isn’t giving smart little Yeshua ben Yosef credit for being the A+ student of Hebrew that he was.
What’s that saying about the simplest explanation usually being the correct one? Occum’s razor, it’s called, or the principle of parsimony — in other words, the best explanation is usually the one requiring the fewest assumptions. So, don’t ask me to assume that the supernatural explanation involving prophecy is better than the natural one involving a well-read guy with a good memory.