Do you walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of scoffers? Do you take no delight in the Scriptures and never meditate upon them? If so, then you certainly cannot claim to be rooted like a tree in God’s Word as the blessed are. You, therefore, meet the criteria of the wicked. Thankfully, there is hope in this life, even for the wicked. 

The wicked are not so,

Psalm 1:4 ESV

As we set our gaze upon verse 4, the psalmist presents us with the great contrast of this psalm. You see, for the first three verses, the focus has been upon the blessed man, the one who is favored by God. Verse 1 revealed the company that he avoids (the wicked, sinners, and scoffers). Verse 2 then gave us what company he keeps, namely, the LORD via meditating upon His law. Finally, in verse 3, the psalmist illustrated the steadfast prosperity of the blessed man by comparing him to a fruitful and ever-green tree. All of this must necessarily be understood in order to grasp at the depths of meaning within the simple statement of this verse: the wicked are not so.

Although the psalmist has already introduced us to the wicked, he now presents the wicked as a category opposite to the blessed. As we already discussed, the overall teaching of this psalm is to contrast these two groups of people and then to ask ourselves to which we belong.

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