If you do not delight in and meditate upon God’s Word, you are planting yourself in a parched, desert land. You are depriving yourself of the stream of living water granted to you by our triune God. Plant yourself, therefore, beside this stream, and drink deeply each day.

planted by streams of water

Psalm 1:3 ESV

Verse 3, as noted previously, is the psalmist’s continued description of the blessed man. Through the metaphorical imagery of a tree, he is able to give us vivid conception of the stable and steady growth of him in whom the LORD delights. This verse then builds upon that figure of speech with three modifying descriptions: 1) planted by streams of water, 2) that yields its fruit in its season, and 3) and its leaf does not wither. Let us meditate here upon the first one.

What is the significance of a tree being planted by streams of water? Last week we read in Jeremiah 17’s parallel text that the cursed man “is like a shrub in the desert… he shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited land” (v. 6). The desert is an uninhabited place precisely because it is without water. We rightly find it remarkable that any plants survive in the desert at all, but they are certainly not what we turn to for pictures of joy and prosperity. Indeed, Egypt is a splendid example, for its large stretches of desert are barren also of many people, while civilizations have existed along the banks of the Nile for millennia.

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