Senseless Men and Wicked Grass

Psalm 92:4-7 For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your hands. How great are your works, O LORD, how profound your thoughts! The senseless man does not know, fools do not understand, that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed.

The Bible speaks many times about how things will end up for the wicked, and the Psalms are no exception. Here the author states that you would have to be a senseless, foolish person not to understand that concept. Those statements become even stronger when I remember that at the time the psalms were written that the amount of available scripture was very small. I can refer to many Bible texts talking about the final demise of the wicked, but many of those texts come from the New Testament. Even those texts in the Old Testament were centuries away from being written and publicized. So what I get from this is that one simply has to use common sense to figure this out.

Another layer is added when I consider the fact that, according to the subtitle, this psalm was written "For the Sabbath day." What better time to talk about evildoers flourishing than on the Sabbath day. Those who keep the Sabbath, especially those who grew up learning about the Sabbath, undoubtedly heard stories about how people were blessed financially, etc. by keeping that day holy. Observation of the world around us tends to run counter to that thought. The world is full of people who do not keep the Sabbath, yet are doing quite well financially. So quite possibly, the author wanted those who read and hear this psalm to remember that despite all this temporal prosperity, that in the end, the wicked will be "forever destroyed."

So as we go about our days, and especially the Sabbath day, let us remember that the prosperity of the wicked is temporary, and that their destruction is forever.