Psalms 37
Psalms 37 — Commentary and Meaning
The short answer
Psalm 37 opens with a command that sets the tone for everything that follows: "Don't fret because of evildoers." The psalmist, writing as an old man looking back on a long life, addresses a real and painful question — why do dishonest, violent people so often seem to thrive while the faithful struggle? His answer is patience. The wicked, he says, will wither like grass in the sun. Their apparent success is temporary. Meanwhile, those who trust the Lord, do good, and wait quietly will find that "the humble shall inherit the land."
Structurally, this is not a prayer or a song of praise so much as a lesson. As Beth Tanner points out, Psalm 37 sounds more like Proverbs than a typical psalm — it is an instructional poem, offering advice on how to live and repeatedly contrasting the way of the Lord with the way of the wicked. It is also an acrostic: its lines march through the Hebrew alphabet from aleph to tav, a poetic way of saying it covers the subject from A to Z. The aim is comfort — steadying people who look around and see the wrong side winning.
But is the psalm's confidence naive? Walter Brueggemann takes that question seriously. Psalm 37 assumes a firm link between what people do and what happens to them — good conduct leads to blessing, wickedness to ruin. Yet Israel knew perfectly well that life does not always work that way; bad things happen to good people. Brueggemann describes the psalm's teaching as a baseline — the first lesson a community gives its young — from which more honest, critical reflection can later grow. Psalm 37 is true the way foundational teaching is true: not the last word, but the necessary first one.
What scholars say
Beth Tanner answers the question of what kind of poem Psalm 37 is — a Proverbs-like instructional acrostic meant to comfort the faithful — while Walter Brueggemann asks the harder question of how its confident link between deed and consequence holds up against the plain fact that good people sometimes suffer.
“Psalm 37 stands in the wisdom tradition and sounds more like the book of Proverbs than the book of Psalms. Craigie notes, "The psalm stands firmly within the tradition of Wisdom and should be interpreted as an instructional poem." This psalm offers advice for the way one is to live, often contrasting the Lord's way with the way of the wicked. Like other wisdom literature, it offers comfort, stressing that the ways of the wicked do not lead to happiness and prosperity, but to death and destruction. It reminds those hearing it to hold fast even in the face of a world where the wicked seem to do better than the faithful. The psalm is also of the acrostic type with all of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order, usually every other line, and literally covers everything from ʾālep to tāw.”
“These two psalms, Psalms 37 and 49, go in very different directions. On the one hand, Psalm 37 has complete confidence in the guaranteed connection of deed and consequence. But of course, flying in the face of that confident claim is the easily observed fact that bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Israel knew that, even if it is not what it taught its young in the first instance. The confident conviction of a connection between deed and consequence, even in the face of such undeniable reality, is nevertheless the baseline of socialization from which more honestly critical teaching can derive. Israel knows full well that the tight linkage of deed and consequence is not invariably the case.”
What it means for you
Psalm 37 speaks to a very modern frustration: watching people cut corners, exploit others, and seem to come out ahead. Its counsel is not to look away but to refuse to let their success set your agenda. Fretting, the psalm suggests, quietly pulls you toward imitating what you resent. The alternative is steady, unglamorous faithfulness — trust, do good, wait.
At the same time, Brueggemann's caution gives readers permission to be honest. If your experience does not match the psalm's tidy promises, that is not a failure of faith. Scripture itself holds this teaching alongside harder questions, and so can you.
Psalms 37 in context
Psalm 37 sits in Book I of the Psalter, among psalms attributed to David, but it stands apart in tone. Where its neighbors cry out to God in distress or praise, Psalm 37 addresses the reader directly, teacher to student. It belongs to a small family of wisdom psalms — alongside Psalms 1, 49, and 73 — that wrestle with the prosperity of the wicked. Its alphabetic acrostic form, running through the whole Hebrew alphabet, marks it as a carefully composed teaching poem meant to be learned and remembered.
Passages we cover in this chapter