Today’s Passage: Psalm 92
This is the one psalm in the book that carries the Sabbath in its title, and it opens the way a good day ought to open, by declaring that it is good to praise the LORD. From there it sets two lives side by side. The wicked come up quickly, like grass across a field, and just as quickly they are gone. But the righteous grow like a palm tree, planted in the house of God, and they are still bearing fruit when their hair has gone white.
As you read, hold this: The wicked sprout like grass. The righteous still bear fruit.
Context A song for the Sabbath day
The heading over this psalm is one of a kind. No other song in the whole book is named for the Sabbath the way this one is. It teaches us to remember God through a full day, His loving devotion in the morning and His faithfulness through the night, so that from the first light to the last the heart stays turned toward Him. And when you look for the center of the psalm, you do not find a lesson about the day itself. You find two sprouts, two ways of growing, set side by side for you to consider.
Psalm 92:1-4 (BSB)
A Psalm. A song for the Sabbath day. ¹ It is good to praise the LORD, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High, ² to proclaim Your loving devotion in the morning and Your faithfulness at night ³ with the ten-stringed harp and the melody of the lyre. ⁴ For You, O LORD, have made me glad by Your deeds; I sing for joy at the works of Your hands.
It is good to praise Him, and so the psalm reaches for every hour and every instrument. His loving devotion is sung in the morning and His faithfulness at night, the ten-stringed harp and the lyre lending their music, and the one who sings is simply glad, made glad by what God has done and by the works of His hands.
Psalm 92:5-7 (BSB)
⁵ How great are Your works, O LORD, how deep are Your thoughts! ⁶ A senseless man does not know, and a fool does not understand, ⁷ that though the wicked sprout like grass, and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.
How great are His works, and how deep are His thoughts. The senseless man and the fool cannot see it. They cannot grasp that the grass springing up so green today is already appointed to be destroyed.
Psalm 92:8-11 (BSB)
⁸ But You, O LORD, are exalted forever! ⁹ For surely Your enemies, O LORD, surely Your enemies will perish; all evildoers will be scattered. ¹⁰ But You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox; with fine oil I have been anointed. ¹¹ My eyes see the downfall of my enemies; my ears hear the wailing of my wicked foes.
But the LORD is exalted forever, and His enemies will surely perish and be scattered. He has lifted the singer’s horn high, like the horn of a wild ox, and anointed him with fine oil, and He has given him to see and to hear for himself how the story of the grass finally ends.
Psalm 92:12-15 (BSB)
¹² The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. ¹³ Planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. ¹⁴ In old age they will still bear fruit; healthy and green they will remain, ¹⁵ to proclaim, “The LORD is upright; He is my Rock, and in Him there is no unrighteousness.”
Study notes Planted
The palm and the cedar are named, but the point is not their height. The point is where they stand. They are planted in the house of the LORD. Grass will sprout in any ditch and be gone by evening, but a tree rooted in one good place is still bearing fruit long after the years have grown long. Jesus speaks of that same rootedness.
"I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing." John 15:5 (BSB)
To remain in Him is to bear much fruit, and apart from Him we can do nothing. It is the same good news the psalm has been singing all along. The wicked sprout like grass. The righteous still bear fruit.
The wicked parach, pronounced pah-RAKH. Strong's H6524, to bud, sprout, break into bloom. In verse 7 the wicked sprout like grass, and in verse 12 the righteous flourish like a palm: the very same verb both times. Both kinds of growth are real, and both truly happen. What sets them apart is not the sprouting but the root beneath it and the long years that follow. like grass. The righteous still bear fruit.