Alastair's Adversaria - A Portal to the Psalter

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

The following was first published on the Anchored Argosy: https://argosy.substack.com/i/178813135/a-portal-to-the-psalter Follow my Substack, the Anchored Argosy at https://argosy.substack.com/. See my latest podcasts at https://adversariapodcast.com/. If you have enjoyed my videos and podcasts, please tell your friends. If you are interested in supporting my videos and podcasts and my research more generally, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?business=4WX77P4F8S7WL), or by buying books for my research on Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/3…3O?ref_=wl_share). You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035.

The following reflection is entitled A Portal to the Salter, it was first published on the Anchored Argosy. Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, in all that he does he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. The book of Psalms opens with two Psalms that frame the content of the entire book, introduce us to

some of the book's central themes and give us keys that will help us to interpret the whole. Psalm 1 especially is more than merely one Psalm among many, being a doorway to the book more generally. It has a series of contrasts at its heart. The most important contrast is between the righteous and the wicked. That central contrast is filled out in several others. For instance, there is a contrast between the council of the wicked and meditating on the law of the Lord, two opposing sources of guidance, the one forming those within it in folly and sin, and the other in wisdom and holiness. There is a contrast between the rooted and enduring character of the tree and the lightness and temporariness of chaff on the threshing floor, the one stands strong and flourishes in difficult

circumstances, while the other is easily blown away and lost. The contrast between the tree and the chaff is also a contrast between the fruitfulness and well-watered character of the tree by the streams of water, and the barrenness and the dry character of the chaff, which is blown away as waste when the grain is gathered and prepared on the threshing floor. The psalm especially focuses upon contrasting ends, the righteous man stands while the wicked man falls and is removed. At several points in Holy Scripture we are presented with the contrast between blessing and cursing. We might think about the end of Deuteronomy, where Moses lists the blessings that Israel will experience if they heed the voice of the Lord and trust in him,

and the curses that they will suffer if they reject his way. Proverbs also has such a contrast. Those who follow the Council of Lady Wisdom will prosper and be blessed, whereas those who follow the woman folly will be led down to death and ruin. Proverbs chapter 9. Our Lord also draws such contrasts in the Sermon on the Mount, which begins by declaring the blessedness of those who trust in the Lord in the beatitudes, and ends by contrasting the foolish man who builds his house upon the sand,

and the wise man who builds his house upon the solid rock of Jesus' words. The wise man's house will survive the storm, while the foolish man's house will be destroyed. Someone illustrates its message with some powerful images. The first of these is the image of the way or the path. The pathway is a route that you walk, an image employed on several occasions in the Salter to illustrate a committed course of life, most especially the faithful observer of the law, for instance in Psalm 119 verse 105. Along the way, you enjoy the company and conversation of others walking the same path.

It is an apt image of pattern of behaviour that directs those who follow it. And the path has an end, a destination to which it is leading you. Walking the way of the wicked, you find yourself in the company of evil people, of people who break God's law, and of scoffers, people who laugh at and must. marked the word of God and despise his people. The way of the wicked ultimately ends in destruction, as we see in the final verse of the Psalm. The second great image of the Psalm is that of the tree by streams of water. If we are familiar with our Bibles, our minds should go back to the Garden of Eden, where the tree of life was in the center of the garden, and waters of life flowed out

from it. It is an image that reminds us of the way things were before sin entered the world, an image of the way things really ought to be, and an image of what things will look like when God sets them right. At the end of the Book of Revelation, and at the end of Ezekiel, we find the same imagery. Ezekiel chapter 47 verse 12, and on the banks on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing. Revelation chapter 22 verses 1 and 2.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Elsewhere the tree is an image of kings and nations. an image of power and rootedness, of fruitfulness and expansion, of shelter and security. In Nebuchadnezzar's second dream, he is like a tall tree reaching up to heaven.

In Ezekiel chapter 31, the Lord likens Assyria to a towering and well-watered cedar in Lebanon. It's top in the clouds and with large branches stretching out. In prophecy, the tree is also an image of the expected king. In Isaiah chapter 53, the Messiah is described as growing, like a root out of dry ground. Israel may have been reduced to a stump by God's judgment, but the root of Jesse will grow and become strong. The Messiah is also spoken of as the branch, in places like the Book of Zachariah. In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven to a great tree that grows from a humble and unexpected seed. Israel itself is

likened to a tree or a great vine in various parts of scripture. God brought Israel out of of Egypt and planted it in the soil of the land, preparing the soil for it like a gardener and watering it with his word. You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. Exodus chapter 15, verse 17. And then in Psalm 80, verses 8 to 11, you brought a vine out of Egypt, you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the river. In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is compared to the tree of life as are righteous and wise persons and the fruit that they produce. Proverbs chapter 3 verse 18. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her. Those who hold her fast are called blessed. chapter 11 verse 30, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise. A third image in the psalm is that of the threshing floor. The threshing floor is where during the grain harvest the wheat was threshed and then winnowed, separating the edible grain from the waste straw

and the husk or chaff. In scripture, the harvest is a symbol of the time of judgment. The wheat has grown to its full height and is harvested. The threshing floor is a place of division, where the valuable grain is gathered and the waste removed from it. As such, it is a powerful image of the Day of Judgment as a day of division between the righteous and the wicked. The Threshing floor was also associated with the temple in Jerusalem. Solomon built the temple upon the site of the threshing floor of Orna and the Jebusite, as we see in First Chronicles chapter 21. Considering Psalm 1 in light of this fact, we might regard the temple of the Lord as a place of testing and separation, where the Lord prepares his people like grain, the breath of his judgment

blowing away the wicked as the wind the husks of the wheat. The mountain of the Lord is the place of judgment and division. The Psalm opens by describing a progression from walking to standing to sitting. Association with the wicked does not happen all at once, but occurs in stages. The foolish man starts by falling in with the company of the wicked on the way and listening to their advice. Soon he is standing with sinners on their way. Before long he is seated with the scoffers, fully identified with them. You might imagine young men from a town or village gathering by the corner of a street, cat-calling women and threatening men who walk by. They are not just passing through, this is a street where they hang out. Finally, they are sitting in the seat of scoffers like drunken

and foul old men in the gutter of the street, mocking and shouting insults that passes by. the psalmist wants us to recognize how people descend to that gutter. We might see this as a direct contrast to the manner of life Moses teaches in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 6 to 7, a form of life focused upon meditating upon the words and the council of the law, which produces the blessedness of the man the Psalm describes. Deuteronomy chapter 6 versus 6 to 7 reads, And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house,

and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Psalm 2. Why do the nations rage, and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart, and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heaven's life. the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, as for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree,

the Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Psalm 2 opens with opposing kings and conspiring rulers, all standing against the Lord's anointed king. This Psalm, one of the Psalms that is the most quoted in the New Testament, needs to be read against the backdrop of the covenant the Lord made

with David, and ultimately, as anticipating the establishment of the promised Messiah. In 2 Samuel chapter 7, when the Lord established a covenant with David, he declared that David's son would be as a son to him. Of course, in Jesus Christ, we see the great fulfillment of this. God's own son, the second person of the Trinity, comes in human flesh as the seed of David. We can often read Psalms in isolation from each other, but frequently Psalms reveal further depths when read in conversation with their neighbours. Psalms 1 and 2 are good examples here. Psalm 3 verse 1 also very naturally follows from Psalm 2 verse 1.

When we read them alongside each other, several similarities and connections can jump out at us. Psalm 1 begins with a statement about blessing. Psalm 2 ends with such a statement. They both end with similar distinctive expression. not found elsewhere. Psalm 1 verse 6 declares that the way of the wicked will perish. And Psalm 2, verse 12, warns that those who do not submit to the Lord's established king and son will perish in the way. Both Psalms explore the image of the wicked assembling and taking counsel together. In Psalm 1 we see the scoffing of the seated wicked. In Psalm 2 we see the Lord, seated in heaven, scoffing at those

who rise against him and his anointed king. Psalm 1 literally, literally, speaks of the man who mutters or murmurs the law of the law day and night. Psalm 2 describes the people's muttering in vain. The first is meditating upon the law of God. The second is foolishly attempting to plot against him. The first Psalm focuses on the distinctive behaviour of the righteous, while the second focuses more upon God's actions. The first sets out contrasting ways, while the second presents us with opposing camps. In Acts chapter 4, the apostles used Psalm 2's image of the wicked rulers assembled against the anointed king to describe the way the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities united in killing Jesus and opposing their message.

In Jeremiah chapter 17 to chapter 20, the prophet explores the images of Psalms 1 and 2 in his prophecy, strengthening our sense of the unity between the two. In Jeremiah chapter 17 verses 5 and 6, the comparison of the righteous man with the tree is inverted, with the unrighteous man being compared to a shrub in a dry desert. Then in verses 7 and 8, Jeremiah presents the positive comparison of Psalm 1, clearly alluding to the first Psalm as he presents the man who trusts in the Lord as a tree planted by water. In the verses and chapters that follow Jeremiah chapter 17, the images of the first two Psalms are further explored. For instance, in Chapter 18, God compares Judah and other such nations to potter's

vessels. And then, in chapter 19, Jeremiah is instructed to break a potter's vessel, the image of Psalm 2 verse 9, as a symbol of God's judgment upon his people. Reflecting more upon the imagery of the Psalms, we might start to recognize some sparks of meaning flying between them. I noted the royal connotations of the image of the tree earlier. The king is compared to a tree on various occasions in Holy Scripture. In Deuteronomy chapter 17, the king is instructed. to write out a copy of the law for himself and to meditate upon it all his days. In doing this, the king would be a perfect illustration of the wise man depicted in the first Psalm. Likewise, the righteous man who meditates upon the law of the Lord daily

becomes kinglike, being established, blessed, and made effective in what he does. I suggest that after studying each Psalm by itself, we might benefit from reading the first two Psalms in parallel and conversation with each other. read together they might reveal further levels of truth as a composite picture emerges from them. When we fuse the images of the two Psalms, what do we see? The image of the tree, as I have observed, is one associated with the king. The tree that stands firm and flourishes in Psalm 1 is comparable to the image of the king who is established securely on Mount Zion in Psalm 2.

It might be worth considering the righteous man who meditates upon the law of God day and night and the king that the Lord establishes as two images of the same person. There might be an implicit contrast between the image of the law as the source of life, like streams of water in Psalm 1, and the cords and bonds that the wicked nations seek to cast off in Psalm 2. To some, the teaching of God is like life-giving water, while for others it is harsh shackles and fetters, preventing them from living as they want.

I noted that the image of the tree and the rivers of water in Psalm 1, recall the Garden of Eden, with the tree of life and the waters that flowed out from it into the lands beyond. Psalm 2 recalls Eden in other ways. It is the holy hill where God dwells and where he has established his rule, which will spread out into all the earth. Zion is a new Eden, from which God's healing rule will flow out like the waters from the garden in Genesis 2. Within the garden, the righteous king is like Adam, planted by the Lord as a great tree in the centre of a well-watered garden and secure. Within the New Testament, the Psalms are frequently read with reference to Christ. Christ is the one who fulfills the Psalms, as Jesus himself teaches in Luke chapter 24, verse 44.

This should be a key to our reading of Psalms 1 and 2. Who is the true righteous man who delights in the law of the Lord? Jesus is that righteous man. Who is the true king that God has set on his holy hill? Jesus is that king in Zion. I started by describing Psalms 1 and 2 as the doorway to the entire book and a summary of its core themes. How does a recognition of Christ as the one in whom their central images are fulfilled help us to read the Psalms more generally? Christ is the man in whom we see the law of the Lord revealed in its truest form. Not in the grudging and resentful obedience for slave, but the loving and joyful faithful faithfulness of the Son, who delights to do the will of God,

who lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God, as we see in Matthew chapter 4 verse 4. Christ is the one in whom God's kingdom and rule are established. Righteousness and rule go together. As we joyfully trust in and submit to God's word, we will be lifted up, and seated in heavenly places with Christ. Blessedness is known as we feed upon the word of the Lord, and as we submit to and take refuge in his son. The nations may, like the drunken sat in the ditch of the wicked way, scoff at us, murmuring dark plots against God and his anointed.

However, we murmur the word of the Lord, upon which we reflect day and night as we walk the way of the righteous. We can be confident that God, seated in heaven itself, scoffs at the scoffers. The singing of the Psalms is, among other things, something that manifests, expresses, and constitutes the Word of God dwelling within us. As the Apostle Paul declares in Colossians 3, verse 16, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Delighting in the law or word of God may be most clear,

seen when that word becomes not merely something that we think about, but something that we sing about. The book of Psalms is given to us in part that we might become people who constantly sing about the greatness of God and the goodness of His Word. When we sing the Psalms in such a way, Paul speaks of it as a way that Christ is speaking through us, as a way that His word is taking up residence inside us, both as individuals and as a body of Christians. He is the one who fulfills the will of God in its fullness, the true righteous man described in Psalm 1. As we are shaped by singing the Psalms, we are being shaped by the pattern of Christ. The Psalms are also, as we see in Psalm 2, a celebration of the Lord's establishment of his kingdom and rule within the world, bringing all nations under

his righteous king. Once again, we sing the Psalms in recognition that they are expressions of delight in and longing for and anticipations of the kingdom of God. In the opening two Psalms, we have images that stretch back to the beginning of the story, to God's planting of a garden in Eden, and forward to its end, to God's establishment of Christ's rule over all the nations in the heavenly Jerusalem. At the heart of both, we find none other than the figure of Christ himself, the one who fulfills and delights in the law of the Lord perfectly, and the one who establishes God's universal rule. In the New Testament, the image of the tree by the stream and the king, surrounded by raging and conspiring rulers, installed by God on the hill in Zion, coalesce. On the hill of Calvary, Jesus is lifted up on the tree by his enemies,

in a mock coronation, while passes by sneer and ridicule him. Piersed, streams of life-giving water and blood flow from his side. Planted in Zion, Jesus is the true vine, the fruitful tree set over the rulers of the earth, the unwithering tree of life of whom those who eat will live forever. These two Psalms are the doorway to the whole book of the Psalms. Paying attention to them should help us to see Christ at the beginning, end and heart of the whole book. When we sing the Psalms, we are ultimately singing about Christ and His Kingdom, being conformed to him and lifted up and established with him. If you would like to read this and other reflections like it, you can do so on the anchored Argosy, the substack that I share with my wife Susanna.

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