Psalm 1

How a human is "like a tree"

Read/pray the psalm. (Full text at bottom.)

See the introduction to “Practicing Symbolism: The Psalms” here.

• The verse above would just be a metaphor (simile) if…

  • … the Bible did not make so many comparisons of humans to trees.¹

  • … the tree of “the cross” did not stand for Jesus Christ.

  • … Jeremiah 17:7-8 didn’t repeat these verses almost verbatim.²

  • … humans didn’t look like trees—head, uplifted arms, and fingers in “heaven,” feet and toes as roots in “earth,” trunk and trunk between the two.

  • … Genesis didn’t use “seed” as common to plants and humans.

  • … “tribes” in Hebrew didn’t mean “branches,” stumps didn’t stand for cut-off dynasties, there was no “shoot” from Jesse, Jesus didn’t describe himself as a particular kind of tree—a vine—and on and on.

• But they all do. And so it’s a symbol, not just a metaphor—a consistent pattern and stand-in, “fractal”: from the cosmic to the personal in scope.

• (And “chaff” is the opposite symbol, also a repeated stand-in across the Bible.)

So…

• Find a healthy tree to look at. (Or a sickly tree!)

• Pray: “May I delight in your law, becoming as a tree planted by the waterside, that will bring forth fruit in due season!”

Psalm 1
Beatus vir qui non abiit

1	Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, *
		nor stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the seat of the scornful;
2	But his delight is in the law of the Lord, *
		and on his law will he meditate day and night.
3	And he shall be like a tree planted by the waterside, * 
		that will bring forth his fruit in due season.
4	His leaf also shall not wither; *
		and look, whatever he does, it shall prosper.
5	As for the ungodly, it is not so with them; *
		but they are like the chaff, which the wind scatters away from the face of the earth.
6	Therefore the ungodly shall not be able to stand in the judgment, *
		neither the sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
7	For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, *
		but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

New Coverdale Psalter

1

• Psalm 92:12-13 - "The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God."

• Isaiah 61:3 - "... They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor."

• Ezekiel 17:24 - "All the trees of the forest will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish."

• Daniel 4:10-12 - "I saw a tree in the middle of the earth... Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and on it was food for all... But let the stump and its roots, bound with iron and bronze, remain in the ground."

• Hosea 14:5-6 - "I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots; his young shoots will grow."

2. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord... He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.” Jeremiah 17:7-8