Sermon Bible Commentary
Psalms 37:3
Our text contains three precepts and a promise.
I. The first precept is "Put thou thy trust in the Lord." Here comes in a most important question: Who is the Lord, that I may trust Him? The word here rendered "the Lord" is in Hebrew "Jehovah," which was God's covenant name to His people Israel. In this name, "Jehovah," was bound up the promise made to Abraham that in his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed. So that when it was said to the Jew of old, "Put thou thy trust in Jehovah," it was said, Trust in thy covenant God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of His people Israel. The covenant has been now enlarged from the members of one human family to the whole family in heaven and earth. What the Jew saw in shadow, and type, and prophecy we see in its blessed fulfilment. The Desire of all nations is come. Whatever reason there may have been for the Jew to put his trust in the Lord, that reason is now for us very much stronger and more urgent. God, who appeared to them but in the dim and gradual dawn of His merciful purposes to mankind, has risen on us with His full life-giving and cheering power, the Sun of righteousness, with healing on His wings.
II. The second precept has reference to the kind of life which he who puts his trust in the Lord must lead. He is not to be an idle member of society, a burden to the land, but active and useful in the relations of life. "Be doing good." Christian activity is a necessary conditionof the fulfilment of the promise with which the text concludes.
III. Our next precept is of a different kind, and regards that quietness and conformableness to the laws and usages of human society in which, provided they be not contradictory to the express commands of God, the Christian man should always be found. "Dwell in the land." As the Christian is on the Lord's Day, so must he be in the week: a God-fearing citizen as well as a God-fearing Christian, consistent, and at unity with himself.
IV. "Verily thou shalt be fed." Words cannot be plainer than these. The Psalmist himself evidently understood them literally. And to confirm us in this view, we have even a more express command and promise of our Lord Himself: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things" (meat, drink, and raiment) "shall be added to you."
H. Alford, Sermons,p. 213.
I. There is something very significant in the order of thought in the text. It is, "Trust in the Lord, and do good," not Do good, and trust in the Lord. The Psalmist had his eye on the living root out of which all living goodness springs. Good deeds will have a living greenness and a boundless fertility when the root out of which they spring is planted by the river of the grace and the love of God.
II. But what is good? What are good deeds? The Churches are ready enough with their "Do this and live." But God goes at once to the root of the matter: Be good if you would do good. Good, beautiful, Christlike deeds are the effluence of a good, beautiful, Christlike life.
III. The promise, "So shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." The Psalmist has no ideal meanings here; he means home and bread. Let a man live out fearlessly the Divine rule, and daily his life will grow richer in love, in honour, and in the supply of all his needs.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon,p. 344.
Reference: Psalms 37:3. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvii., p. 93.