Psalm 92

The text below is the King James Version, which is public domain, fetched verse by verse from bible-api.com. That service leaves out the psalm's title. Bible Hub prints it at the head of verse 1, and it reads: "A Psalm or Song for the sabbath day." In a Hebrew Bible the title counts as verse 1, so every verse number there runs one higher than the English.

1 It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High: 2 To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night, 3 Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.

4 For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands. 5 O LORD, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep. 6 A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.

7 When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever: 8 But thou, LORD, art most high for evermore. 9 For, lo, thine enemies, O LORD, for, lo, thine enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.

10 But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil. 11 Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me.

12 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 13 Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. 14 They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; 15 To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

On the sense of most lines, the World English Bible and the American Standard agree with the King James. They part company in verses 10, 11 and 14, and the section on translation further down goes through each of those.

The title says what the psalm was for and stops there. In Hebrew it is mizmor shir leyom hashabbat, a psalm, a song, for the Sabbath day. The American Standard Version prints it as "A Psalm, a Song for the sabbath day." Barnes states the situation plainly: the author is not indicated in the title, and the occasion of writing cannot be determined.

The strangest answer comes from Jewish tradition. The Aramaic Targum paraphrases the title as a psalm of praise that the first man spoke for the Sabbath day, and both Cambridge and Barnes report that reading. Genesis Rabbah 22:13 tells the story behind it. Adam meets Cain after the murder, hears that Cain repented and came to terms with God, and stands up and begins this psalm. In the same passage Rabbi Levi says Adam composed it, his generation forgot it, and Moses brought it back under his own name.

The Christian commentaries on Bible Hub mostly set that aside. Barnes calls a genuine poem by Adam an interesting idea with no proof behind it. Gill objects that Adam had no harps and no crowd of enemies, rules out Moses as well, and leans toward David, noting that the Arabic version ascribes the psalm to him. Cambridge moves the other way in time and connects it with the fall of Babylon and the return from exile. Ellicott says it is hard to tell whether it reflects Israel after the restoration in general or one particular event.

There is one fixed point. Ellicott and Cambridge both hear verse 7 echoed in 1 Maccabees 9:23, which describes the lawless flourishing after the death of Judas. Ellicott says the echo is of the Greek translation. That makes the psalm older than 1 Maccabees. It sets no earlier limit, so the date of composition stays open.

Mishnah Tamid 7:4 lists the psalm the Levites sang in the Temple on each day of the week: Psalm 24 on the first day, then 48, 82, 94, 81 and 93, and on Shabbat, Psalm 92. The Mishnah then reads the title forward in time. It takes the Sabbath here to mean the age to come, a day that will be entirely Sabbath and rest for everlasting life.

Ellicott and Cambridge both report from the Talmud that the psalm was sung at the drink offering that went with the first lamb of the Sabbath burnt offering, the sacrifice set out in Numbers 28:9-10. Cambridge guesses it was chosen because verse 4 was taken to be about creation. Then it says the context points to God's dealings in history. The Pulpit Commentary agrees with that second reading and names Hengstenberg, Kay and Cheyne on the same side.

The Sabbath use never stopped. Psalm 92 belongs to Kabbalat Shabbat on Friday evening, which in most communities is the moment Shabbat officially begins. It comes back in the morning psalms and again as the song of the day.

Catholic parishes in the United States heard verses of it as the responsorial psalm on the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time in June 2024, right after Ezekiel 17:22-24, where God plants a tender cedar shoot on a high mountain. The lectionary cites it as Psalm 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16, one number higher than the King James, because it counts the title as verse 1.

The form is thanksgiving. Verse 1 says so outright, and verse 4 gives the reason: "For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work." Cambridge calls it jubilant thanksgiving and argues that the singer speaks for the community of Israel. That is why, on its reading, the "me" of verses 10 and 11 sounds like a nation.

What the psalm gives thanks for is a wisdom problem. Verse 6 says the brutish man and the fool do not understand "this," and verse 7 says what "this" is: the wicked spring up like grass in order to be destroyed. Cambridge ties the psalm to Psalms 37 and 73, where the same problem fills whole chapters. Psalm 73:3 in the King James Version reads: "For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked."

The Pulpit Commentary sets Job 21 beside Psalm 73 and notes a change in temperature. Both of those chapters are troubled by prosperous wickedness. The writer of Psalm 92 is calm about it and treats it as the prelude to a fall.

Look at the shape on the page. In English the psalm has fifteen verses, and verse 8 sits in the exact middle as one short line: "But thou, LORD, art most high for evermore." Cambridge calls it the central thought. Count the divine name in the Hebrew and it appears seven times, in a psalm titled for the seventh day. None of the commentaries cited here draws a conclusion from that count, so this page leaves it as a count.

English hides an echo. In verse 7 the King James says the wicked "spring as the grass." In verse 12 it says the righteous "shall flourish like the palm tree." The Hebrew verb in both places is parach, to sprout or bud, and it returns in verse 13 for those planted in the house of the LORD. The Pulpit Commentary's note on verse 7 points the reader to verse 12.

So the psalm concedes that wicked people flourish, and it uses the same word for them as for the righteous. The difference is what they flourish like. Grass comes up fast and is gone. Cambridge and Ellicott both put the contrast in duration: the palm keeps its leaves and goes on bearing for years, and the cedar's age is measured in centuries.

Verse 13 adds a second link. Planted is shatul, the same word Psalm 1:3 uses for the tree by the rivers of water. Cambridge suggests trees may have grown in the Temple courts, then allows that the phrase may be a figure, with the land itself as the LORD's house.

A third echo runs between verses 10 and 14. The fresh oil of verse 10 and the flourishing of verse 14 render one Hebrew adjective, ra'anan, which describes something green and full of life. The oil poured on the speaker in verse 10 and the old trees of verse 14 are described with the same word.

Verses 1 and 2 turn up in morning and evening prayer for an obvious reason. The King James pairs lovingkindness with the morning and faithfulness with every night. Cambridge says the split between the clauses is a matter of poetic rhythm, then grants that the pairing fits, citing Lamentations 3:23. In the King James that verse reads: "They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness."

Verse 4 carries the reason for the whole psalm: "For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work." Which work is disputed. Cambridge and the Pulpit Commentary read it as God's dealings in history. Ellicott notes that Dante quoted the Latin of this verse about delight in the natural world, and says the psalm itself means what God did for Israel.

Verses 12 and 14 are natural choices for a retirement or a ninetieth birthday. Ellicott renders verse 14 literally as still sprouting in hoary age, sappy and green, and connects it with the date palm, which keeps bearing to the end. Cambridge cites a traveller who reported palms two hundred years old at the oasis of Teyma.

Verse 15 explains why the trees keep bearing: "To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him." Cambridge says the verse is built on Deuteronomy 32:4, which in the King James reads: "He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he." The fruitful old age of verse 14 is offered as evidence about God, and the psalm ends on that claim.

Verse 10 is where the King James and the World English Bible look least alike. The King James has: "But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil." The World English Bible has: "But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. I am anointed with fresh oil."

Two things changed. The animal is the Hebrew re'em. Brown Driver Briggs glosses it wild ox and calls the Greek rendering monokeros, one horned, erroneous. Cambridge traces the unicorn from the Septuagint through the Vulgate into English and identifies the animal as the extinct aurochs. Job 39:9-10 uses the same animal as the picture of strength no farmer can yoke. The tense changed too. The Hebrew verbs describe something already done, the American Standard and World English versions translate them that way, and the King James turned them into promises.

Cambridge also flags the oil clause as uncertain. The Septuagint and Symmachus read the same consonants with different vowels, which gives something like my failing strength restored with fresh oil, and Cheyne pictured Israel as an old man whose strength comes back through the oil.

Verse 11 in the King James reads: "Mine eye also shall see my desire on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked that rise up against me." In printed King James Bibles "my desire" stands in italics both times, the translators' mark for words they supplied. The World English Bible leaves them out: "My eye has also seen my enemies. My ears have heard of the wicked enemies who rise up against me."

The word behind "mine enemies" is uncertain as well. Brown Driver Briggs lists it as a dubious word found only here and records a proposed emendation to a similar word. Strong's glosses it as a foe lying in wait.

Verse 14 is a smaller difference. The King James says the old trees "shall be fat and flourishing." The American Standard has "full of sap and green," and so does the World English Bible. The Hebrew pairs deshenim, fat, with ra'anannim. Ellicott's literal rendering, sappy and green, is close to theirs. The divine name follows each version's own policy throughout: the LORD, Jehovah, Yahweh.

The easy thing to do with verse 11 is skip it. The verse is still there. In the King James the speaker expects to see and hear what he wants done to the people rising against him. Read in the past tense, as Cambridge reads it, he already has.

Cambridge asks openly whether the line is a jarring note and gives two answers. The harshness softens if the triumph is national and the enemies are the enemies of God's cause. And it points to Revelation 18:20, where Christians are also told to rejoice at a judgement. The Pulpit Commentary takes the plain sense, triumph over enemies perceived by eye and ear, and links the desire to Psalm 91:13.

Ellicott reads it another way. On his rendering the eye looked on the speaker's foes without fear, and the ears heard of their rising without alarm. That is a calmer verse, and it rests on a word Brown Driver Briggs calls dubious. The Hebrew of verse 11 can carry either reading.

Verse 7 sets no timetable for the fall of the wicked. Psalm 37:35-36 describes the waiting: "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not." Psalm 92 claims the same outcome and gives no date for it.

Verse 14 promises fruit in old age to the righteous as a group, which Cambridge, from verse 10 on, reads as Israel restored. It does not promise any one person a long life or a healthy one. Verse 12 says nothing about money, and the trees it names are valued for their age and their fruit.

Psalm 92 has a fixed place on Friday night, inside the prayers that welcome Shabbat. Outside that setting people tend to reach for it at two kinds of moments.

One is age. A daughter might read verse 14 at her mother's ninetieth birthday. A widow might copy verses 1 and 2 onto an index card for the nightstand, one line for the morning and one for the night.

The other is injustice. Someone watches a former partner who cheated them buy a lake house. Someone sees the person who hurt them get promoted. Verses 6 through 9 were written for that. They give no explanation for the delay. They say the grass will not last and the LORD is on high for evermore, and they leave the waiting to the reader.

If old age has turned into isolation, there are people to call. The Eldercare Locator, a public service of the federal Administration for Community Living, connects older adults and families anywhere in the United States to local help at 1-800-677-1116. In California, the Institute on Aging's Friendship Line answers at any hour for adults 60 and older and adults with disabilities at 888-670-1360. If you are thinking about suicide, phone or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and call 911 if the danger is immediate.

If the injustice is a legal or pastoral matter, take it to someone with a name and a phone number, a lawyer or your own pastor or priest. This page was produced by a software company without any church's approval, and your own church's reading of Psalm 92 outranks this one.