112 1 Praise the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
who greatly delights in his commandments!
2 His offspring will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house,
and his righteousness endures forever.
4 Light dawns in the darkness for the upright;
he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.
5 It is well with the man who deals generously and lends;
who conducts his affairs with justice.
6 For the righteous will never be moved;
he will be remembered forever.
7 He is not afraid of bad news;
his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.
8 His heart is steady;2 he will not be afraid,
until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.
9 He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever;
his horn is exalted in honor.
10 The wicked man sees it and is angry;
he gnashes his teeth and melts away;
the desire of the wicked will perish!
Section Overview
This wisdom psalm joins Psalms 1; 37; 49; 73; 127; 128 (with 34:11–14) in making themes from the Wisdom Literature the topic of prayer, praise, and instruction in worship. As shown in the Section Overview of Psalm 111, Psalm 112 is also a companion to Psalm 111, both in the acrostic pattern they both follow and in the links between their wording. This psalm focuses on the moral character of the faithful and on the benefits such people bring to themselves and others.
Similarly to Psalm 111, the flow of thought follows the acrostic pattern. Thus the discussion will go verse by verse rather than imposing an outline on the psalm.
Response
We have noted that the Psalms 111–112 provide evidence that they were meant to be used together—perhaps with Psalm 111 as the opening psalm of praise, reminding the people of the Lord’s great deeds, and Psalm 112 as drawing out more fully the fruit of meditating on these great deeds from 111:10. Although Psalm 111 speaks of the Lord’s works, it does not specify many of them—although its flow probably fits well with the exodus (111:4), the wilderness (111:5), and the conquest (111:6). The psalm focuses more on the general stance toward those great deeds, namely, awe and trusting obedience (111:10).
As a wisdom poem, Psalm 112 aims to shape the inner selves of the audience to help them to like the wise person, so that they will aim to be such a person and willingly do the hard work that it takes to become such a person. We see someone who experiences the blessings of God, such as “offspring” (112:2), “wealth and riches” (112:3), light in the darkness (112:4), security (112:6–7), triumph over his adversaries (112:8–9)—in other words, he finds in his own life the blessedness of the covenant. He makes a contribution to the community—the same community that is at the center of the big story of redemption (Psalm 111)—and thus the community flourishes, and he and his family as well.
This person also sees aspects of God’s own character reproduced in himself. Some would place this under the category of imitation of God, in which the faithful person imitates God’s actions. Certainly this line of explanation fits with Jewish and Christian admonitions to imitate God’s character, but there seems to be something further than this involved. Here, the likeness to God seems to be the result of conscientious attention to, and delight in, the divine commandments, as suggested in Hosea 4:1–2 (where the absence of “faithfulness [and] steadfast love,” also evoking Ex. 34:6, is due to the lack of “knowledge of God” and to the accompanying sins that violate the community). This would correlate with the NT idea of humans’ transformation, or renewal, toward the image of God as the goal of God’s work in the world (2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10).
This is the goal of redemption: to renew the image of God in human beings. Psalm 111, in stressing God’s mighty deeds of redemption for his people, focuses on the big story for the whole people. Psalm 112, in stressing “wisdom,” encourages each member of God’s people in a day-to-day walk, a little story that contributes to the big story of the whole people.
How might a Christian lay hold of these psalms? When Christians recite the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed, they confess that the events of Jesus’ arrival, death, and resurrection, together with the spread of the church, continue the great works of God, ushering in a new stage of the big story—a stage in which, now that Jesus has begun his Davidic rule, the Gentiles are receiving God’s light after many years of preparation (cf. Matt. 28:18–20; Rom. 1:1–6). Indeed, the songs in the opening of Luke’s Gospel tie the arrival of Jesus to this unfolding big story of God’s great works (Luke 1:46–55, 68–79; 2:29–32). So when Christians appropriate the words of these psalms, they adapt them to this new phase of the story.Psalm 112
Psalm 113