The most common Hebrew word for ‘bless’ is baruch, which has a broad semantic field. Roughly, it means to ‘have a positive regard for’ someone.
In the usage of Scripture, God blesses humans, humans bless God, and humans bless each other. Sometimes it means to speak well of someone; other times it means to speak well to someone. In some situations, it is not about speaking, but rather about giving gifts or assistance.
Several other words are rendered as ‘bless’ in English. Psalm One commences, not with baruch, but rather with ashre.
The verb ashre denotes the subjective experience of being blessed. The Psalmist uses a noun form, ‘blessedness,’ to indicate the emotional and psychological state of one to whom God has given the Torah: the happiness of one who receives God’s instruction.
For this reason, several common German translations begin with Wohl dem! and not with the expected Gesegnet sei! The Geneva translation uses the word glücklich.
Psalm One starts, then, not with the objective event of blessing, but rather with the subjective experience of being blessed. Of course, the two often coincide.
The text continues with a systematic listing of iconographic postures. In Scripture, walking, standing, and sitting each have certain patterns of usage. Sitting, e.g., can be used to show that one has issued a verdict, or more broadly, that one considers a matter to be settled or a task to be completed.
The exhaustive and comprehensive listing of these postures indicates the thoroughness with which God’s Torah – God’s instructions – blesses various aspects of human life.
Unlike human civil laws, which are reactive and punitive, God’s Torah is guidance, proactive and nurturing.
For this reason, the rendering of ‘law’ or Gesetz in the second couplet of the Psalm is ambiguous.
That the reader should consider ‘law’ here as guidance and instruction, and not as regulation and statute, is clear from the ‘joy’ and ‘meditation’ associated with this ‘law.’
Indeed, Hebrew has a separate noun which more narrowly means ‘regulation’ or ‘statute’ and has a series of nouns for bylaws, legislations, and decrees. The use of Torah is saved for kindly counsel, given generously by God to people for their benefit.
When God gives his guidance, the result is growth. The image of the fruit tree is introduced by the Psalmist for this purpose. Water is also a common image for God’s instruction.
God’s affectionate instruction is like water to a tree. Trees cannot grow without water, and generally do grow when someone waters them.
Paul picks up this image in his letter to the Galatians, when he speaks of the ‘fruit’ of the Spirit. Receiving Torah from God and receiving the Holy Spirit are closely related.
It is the Spirit which enables us to read, hear, and understand the written Word. The written Word, and the preaching of it, contains the Torah. The Word is a means by which the Spirit comes to us.
There is a continuous and, in the best cases, an accelerating cycle at work here. The Spirt empowers us to learn the Word; by learning the Word, we receive the Spirit.
For this reason, Paul’s encouragement, in his letter to the Ephesians, to ‘be filled with the Spirit,’ uses a progressive verb form: “be continuously in the state of being filled” or “continuously receive an ongoing filling.”
Among the ‘fruit’ of the Spirit is joy: if one is continuously receiving the Holy Spirit, then joy will be a result.
Life, as Scripture tells us, contains moments of mourning and weeping. Therefore, ‘happiness’ is not a fruit of the Spirit. By using ‘joy’ instead of ‘happiness,’ Paul is indicating something deeper, something steadier. One cannot have happiness while grieving. One can have joy even while grieving. This is the power of the Holy Spirit.
This, then, is the joy indicated by the first word of Psalm One: the joy of one onto whom God has poured His Torah and thereby poured His Holy Spirit:
Oh, the joy of the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;but his delight is in the instruction of Yahweh,
and on his guidance he meditates day and night.He is like a tree planted
by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.In all that he does, he prospers.
The scansion of these lines is somewhat ambiguous, but the divisions as shown above are at least plausible. The Psalmist has maintained the usual Hebrew pattern of couplets for the first ten lines. The first and second couplets have been arranged into a quatrain, as have the fourth and fifth couplets. By allowing the eleventh line to stand alone, the Psalmist has introduced a stop into the flow of the verse.
The text resumes in the next line, clearly introducing a different tone. The standalone line is the final line of the first part of the Psalm. The demarcation is clear.
