I. (36:1–4) The Wicked Acts without Fear of God. This stanza describes the “wicked” person, who has “no fear of God before his eyes” but pursues evil courses, particularly schemes to bring trouble to others (esp. the godly). The term “wicked” here, as generally in the Psalms, does not describe faithful people who have moral flaws; it is a name for those given over to doing evil (whether they are nominally within the covenant people or among the Gentiles), as these verses make clear.

Verse 1 begins by describing how “transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart.”310 This is ironic, since the Hebrew (lit., “declaration of transgression to the wicked”) is most commonly used for an oracular speech from a deity (rendered “declares the Lord” in the ESV; e.g., Gen. 22:16; Num. 14:28) or from an inspired person (usually rendered “oracle of so-and-so”; e.g., Num. 24:3, 4, 16; 2 Sam. 23:1). Thus for the “wicked,” “transgression” is treated as if it were delivering oracles that must be obeyed.311

The word “fear” in Psalm 36:1 (Hb. pakhad) is not the common term for the reverential stance that is the proper response to God’s gracious covenant (yirʼa). Here the focus is on the fear of God’s judgment that would prevent a person from doing evil (cf. v. 2). A further irony comes from the way verse 2 picks up words from verse 1: rather than holding the fear of God before his eyes, the wicked “flatters himself in his own eyes,” with “eyes” being used to picture how the inner person perceives things.

Verses 3–4 describe what the wicked person is up to: he uses deceitful words to incite people to make trouble; he even “plots” this “trouble” while he is on his bed! To say that a “way” is “not good” (v. 4) is to use a poetic understatement, which is then followed by another understatement: “he does not reject evil.” Indeed, his way is positively bad and he actually embraces the evil. “Trouble,” “not good,” and “evil” especially designate activities that are harmful to others.

It might appear that Paul uses verse 1 in Romans 3:18 as part of his charge that both Jews and Gentiles are under sin, but the Greek version of Psalm 14:3 includes this statement as well, and, since Paul has already quoted from Psalm 14:1–3 (Rom. 3:10–12) and his citation actually matches Psalm 14:3 LXX better,312 that is likely Paul’s source.

II. (36:5–9) God’s Precious Steadfast Love. This stanza includes two descriptions of God’s “steadfast love”: it “extends to the heavens,” so that God can save “man and beast” (vv. 5–6), and it is “precious” to those of the “children of mankind” who know it (vv. 7–9).

The pairing of “steadfast love” and “faithfulness” in verse 5 evokes Exodus 34:6, describing God’s enduring and indefatigable benevolence.313 In view of this the terms “righteousness” and “judgments” (Ps. 35:6) also express God’s enduring commitment to act kindly toward all his creatures (“man and beast”) and to “save” them. God’s righteousness is “like the mountains of God,” which is probably an image of a grandeur that humans cannot scale (cf. Ps. 68:15–16; Ezek. 28:14, 16). In the same way, God’s judgments are “like the great deep,” that is, impossible for a human fully to understand or ever to exhaust (Isa. 51:10; Amos 7:4).

This is why people can “take refuge in the shadow of [God’s] “wings” (the place of safety; cf. comment on 17:6–9) and find themselves as welcome guests at his table to “feast” (36:8). Although the psalm is a hymn for Israel, it looks beyond Israel to the rest of mankind (vv. 6, 7); Israel’s calling was to live a life in their land that displayed the true image of God, with a view toward bringing its blessing to the whole world.

In verse 9 the “fountain of life” is a source for all that refreshes and sustains life (cf. Prov. 10:11; 13:14; 14:27; 16:22); the psalm confesses that this source is “with” God—perhaps thereby insisting that it is with no other deity. To “see light” is an idiom for “experience life” (Job 33:28; Ps. 49:19; Isa. 9:2 [in which it is light that shines into darkness]), and this depends on God’s “light,” which illuminates the world for his people.

III. (36:10–12) Show Your Steadfast Love by Protecting Us from the Wicked. The final stanza is a prayer in response to the reflections of the first two stanzas. It follows the topics in reverse order: God’s “steadfast love” and “righteousness” (Ps. 35:10; cf. vv. 5–6) and the “wicked” (v. 11; cf. v. 1). These verses appeal to God’s reliable love for his faithful ones (“those who know you,” “the upright of heart”; v. 10) in the face of the scheming of those who would harm them.

Verse 12 has the congregation imagining the scene (“there,” in the mental picture) in which God has protected his people from the “wicked.” It is realistic: commonly, the protection of the weak against the predatory strong requires the predators to suffer defeat. The term “evildoers” is a conventional rendering of a Hebrew term that could also be translated “workers of trouble” (cf. vv. 3–4).