Psalm 1 explained

The first verse and the last share one Hebrew word: "the path of sinners" (1:1) and "the way of the wicked" (1:6) are both derekh. And the stand the blessed man won't take (1:1) isn't the stand the wicked can't make in the judgment (1:5): the WEB has one word, the Hebrew two verbs.

The book of Psalms opens with this psalm, and the psalm opens with one word: "Blessed" (1:1) (tap Blessed). In Hebrew it is ashrei. Its dictionary form is esher, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "happiness, blessedness". Then the psalm says who is blessed, first by what he doesn't do. He "doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers" (1:1). Three verbs: walk, stand, sit. Three places: counsel, path, seat. Three kinds of people: the wicked, sinners, scoffers. Then by what he does: "but his delight is in the LORD’s law. On his law he meditates day and night" (1:2) (tap delight, law, meditates). The psalm has no title and gives no command. It describes a person and calls him blessed.

The blessed man doesn't "stand on the path of sinners" (1:1), and "the wicked shall not stand in the judgment" (1:5). The WEB has stand in both, but in Hebrew they are two verbs: amad in 1:1, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "take one's stand, stand", and qum in 1:5, "arise, stand up, stand" (tap stand in each verse).

Psalm 1:1 · Psalm 1:5

Psalms 1:6→leads toMatthew 7:13-14

Psalm 1 ends with two ways: "For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish" (Psalm 1:6). In the teaching he gave on the mountain (Matthew 5:1-2, 7:28), Jesus said, "Enter in by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter in by it" (Matthew 7:13), and "How narrow is the gate and the way is restricted that leads to life! There are few who find it" (Matthew 7:14). Jesus doesn't cite Psalm 1, and no link between the Hebrew and Greek words is claimed, so setting them together is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, two ways and what becomes of them, not on a shared English word. One reading hears Jesus speaking of the two ways the psalm sets out, with his own words for where they lead. Another reads the two as sharing a shape found across Scripture, as in "Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil" (Deuteronomy 30:15), without pointing to this psalm.

אֶשֶׁרeshersay EH-sher

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "happiness, blessedness". Strong's: "happiness; only in masculine plural construction as interjection, how happy!". Here it is ashrei, that plural form: "Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked" (1:1). It is the psalm's first word in Hebrew, and the first word of the book of Psalms. The Psalms have it 26 times in Hebrew, and the last verse of the next psalm has it: "Blessed are all those who take refuge in him" (Psalm 2:12). The WEB doesn't always give it as Blessed: "Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them" (Psalm 127:5) is the same word. And it isn't the word of "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel" (Psalm 41:13), which is barukh.

The blessed man "doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked" (1:1). Whose voices do you find yourself listening to most during an ordinary week?