Psalm 37:1

Psalm 37:1, in plain English

Stop letting yourself get worked up about people who do evil things, and don't waste energy wishing you had what they have. That kind of comparison and worry will eat you alive from the inside.

Why it's here

David is writing to people who are watching wickedness seem to win—corrupt people getting rich, getting ahead, getting away with things. It's the ancient version of scrolling through social media and feeling bitter about someone else's success. He knows this feeling intimately because he lived in a royal court full of schemes and jealousy.

Who's speaking

David, the psalmist, drawing from hard-won personal experience with envy and the temptation to match wickedness with wickedness.

Where it sits in the story

This fits into the biblical pattern of choosing trust over anxiety. Throughout Scripture, God's people struggle with wanting to 'fix' things themselves when wickedness seems to prosper—Abraham trying to help God's promise along with Hagar, or later, Peter trying to defend Jesus with a sword. David is inviting you into a better way.

The scholarly reading

The psalmist opens with a prohibition against anxious preoccupation with evildoers and their apparent success—what we might call the problem of theodicy in its most visceral, emotional form.

Language and setting

This psalm emerges from a community experiencing real persecution: the righteous are suffering while the wicked prosper, a condition that threatens faith itself. The repeated imperative 'al-titchar' (do not fret) suggests this was an actual temptation the audience faced, not merely a theoretical concern. The context is likely post-exilic Jewish community navigating displacement and foreign rule.

Voice

A wisdom teacher or liturgical voice—the psalmist functions as a guide through spiritual crisis, addressing a congregation wrestling with theodicy's emotional weight.

Significance

This inaugurates the wisdom tradition's sustained engagement with suffering and divine justice, echoing Job's friends yet ultimately offering a different resolution. It positions the reader within Israel's longer meditation on why the covenant community endures affliction.

1Do not fret over those who do evil; do not envy those who do wrong.

2For they wither quickly like grass and wilt like tender plants.

3Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.

Read all of Psalm 37 — The temptation to resent the success of evil people is ancient. David's counsel: be still, wait, and trust. The wicked are grass.