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Psalm 112:1-10
Excerpted from: Psalm Genres (Part Eight): Wisdom PsalmsVery interesting psalm; hope you followed the pronouns here. Let us go into it here. We could say that Psalm 111 presents theology—it is what God does, what He promises, what He is doing—while Psalm 112 presents humanity, what humans do, what humans should do as a result of what God has done. So we are looking at 111, all about God; 112, all about how men respond to God. So God's deeds and man's deeds.
And if men do what God instructs, as a response to what God has done, then they are in sync, they are walking on the same path. We could also say, this is not mentioned here, except I think there is the word covenant in here somewhere, but they are both performing their duties under the covenant. God does what He does in these great, big, awesome ways that He does, and then we respond by doing these things, which is mostly following His instructions.
Let us look at this in little sections here. Verse 1: I hope you noticed how much it was like chapter 128. "Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who delights greatly in His commandments." This psalmist does the same thing as the psalmist in 128. He says that the fear of the Lord, rightly practiced, brings the blessing of God, and he also decides that he is going to define it. And he defines it in his own way, that is, the fear of the Lord, and he says, very much like the one in 128, that the man who fears the Lord delights greatly in His commandments.
Do you remember what he said there in 128? 128 is, "One who fears the Lord walks in His ways." There is not much difference between delights greatly in His commandments and walks in His ways. If someone delights in God's commandments, what does he do? He observes them, he keeps them, he walks in His ways. And so they are basically saying the same thing, that a person who truly fears the Lord responds by doing what God has instructed him to do, keeping the covenant, keeping the commandments, doing what is right and good.
Let us go on to verses 2 through 4.
This is a list of the rewards for fearing God. This is what comes to the person who fears God. His descendants will be mighty, they will be upright, they will be blessed, they will be wealthy, they will possess enduring, or eternal, righteousness. That is wonderful. He is saying, if you apply the principles of God's law in your everyday activities, you are starting something that is going to amount to just wonderful blessings.
Now, do not think of these things in physical terms. I mean, He will give you wealth in proportion to what He wants for you at the time, and those sorts of things, but look further than just the physical here, especially in terms of the last one, "His righteousness endures forever." The pronoun here is talking about the man who fears God, or the person who fears God. His righteousness will go on and on and on, and on, forever. Now, verses 3 through 4 harkens back to Psalm 111:3-4. I want you to catch this—this is very important. Let us read Psalm 111:3-4. What is the pronoun referring to, His? In 111, it is God. Remember, it is God on this one, the next one is man.
Who is light? Jesus Christ, right? He is the One who shone out of darkness and gave us this marvelous light. "He is gracious"; not Christ, he is not talking about Christ here, or God, he is talking about the man—the man, the one who fears God, is gracious and full of compassion, and righteous. Do you see what the psalmist is doing here? It is almost, you shall be God. He is saying that if you follow the instruction and fear the Lord in the proper way, you are going to grow up in the character image of God, and you will start doing godly things, like being gracious, and full of compassion, and everything you do is righteous. This Psalm 112 takes Psalm 128 and turns it up to 11, in terms of the blessings of fearing the Lord and doing what He says.
Let us go to 5 through 9. This is a long description of the actions and disposition of this righteous person.
So … . . .
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