Righteous
1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
— Psalm 1:1–3
Several attributes of a righteous man are described in Psalm 1. A righteous man does not listen to the advice of a wicked man, and he does not socialize with them. A righteous man does not set himself up to mock and scoff at others. According to the Book of Proverbs, the mocker does not seek wise advice, and God’s response is to mock them in return; in contrast, he gives grace to the humble.
The righteous man is not even sharing the same road as the wicked. In Psalm 23, David likens God’s guidance in the paths of righteousness to a shepherd’s guidance of his sheep and in Psalm 25, he asks for further understanding of God’s path. In Psalm 119, David writes emphatically “I hate every wrong path,” that is, ways that deviate from the ways of God. Not only will a righteous man ignore the advice of the wicked, he studies the law of the Lord every day for guidance and understanding. In Psalm 119, David refers to the word of the Lord as a light revealing the path of life. He is happy studying the law.
The righteous man is compared to a tree planted by a stream. His harvest is plentiful, and whatever he does flourishes. The prophet Jeremiah wrote a similar passage: “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.” He elaborated: “It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah implied that an advantage of trusting in the LORD was the ability to withstand difficult times. Some commentators have also interpreted this to mean that the actions of the righteous man (the fruit) are a consistent representation of his professed faith.
Read more about this topic: Psalm 1
Famous quotes containing the word righteous:
“All anger feels like righteous anger; sorrow does not care whether it is righteous or not.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto—God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
“God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and raiment, but the unrighteous man found a facsimile of the same in God’s coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting that the world has seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)