World English Bible
- A Psalm by Asaph. Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
- But as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had nearly slipped.
- For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
- For there are no struggles in their death, but their strength is firm.
- They are free from burdens of men, neither are they plagued like other men.
- Therefore pride is like a chain around their neck. Violence covers them like a garment.
- Their eyes bulge with fat. Their minds pass the limits of conceit.
- They scoff and speak with malice. In arrogance, they threaten oppression.
- They have set their mouth in the heavens. Their tongue walks through the earth.
- Therefore their people return to them, and they drink up waters of abundance.
- They say, “How does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
- Behold, these are the wicked. Being always at ease, they increase in riches.
- Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence,
- For all day long I have been plagued, and punished every morning.
- If I had said, “I will speak thus”, behold, I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
- When I tried to understand this, it was too painful for me—
- until I entered God’s sanctuary, and considered their latter end.
- Surely you set them in slippery places. You throw them down to destruction.
- How they are suddenly destroyed! They are completely swept away with terrors.
- As a dream when one wakes up, so, Lord, when you awake, you will despise their fantasies.
- For my soul was grieved. I was embittered in my heart.
- I was so senseless and ignorant. I was a brute beast before you.
- Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You have held my right hand.
- You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
- Whom do I have in heaven? There is no one on earth whom I desire besides you.
- My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
- For, behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to you.
- But it is good for me to come close to God. I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.
Psalm 73 opens Book III of the Psalter with a holy shock. After Psalm 72’s vision of a king whose justice renews the world, Asaph looks up and sees the opposite: the arrogant shining, the violent at ease, the faithful worn thin. This is not a minor irritation. It is a theological wound.
The psalm turns on a small Hebrew word, ’akh — truly, surely, only. Truly God is good. Surely I have kept my heart clean for nothing. Surely You set them in slippery places. Faith, here, is not bland certainty. It is a struggle over which “surely” will rule your life.
What Asaph envies is not merely wealth, but the shalom of the wicked — their wholeness, ease, untouchable-looking completeness. Western readers often miss that when he says their bodies are “fat,” this is not mockery. In an ancient world of famine, plumpness could signal security and abundance. The wicked seem to wear covenant blessing without covenant loyalty. That is the scandal.
And notice Asaph’s restraint in verse 15: he will not speak his bitterness carelessly, lest he betray the generation of God’s children. Mature faith does not confuse honesty with broadcasting unripe cynicism. There is a difference between confession and contagion.
Then comes the hinge: he enters the sanctuaries of God. The Hebrew is plural, likely pointing to the holy precincts of the temple. For an Israelite, the temple was not just a building for private comfort. It was a world in miniature — courts, altar, lampstand, bread, carved garden imagery, cherubim — a place where all creation was re-centered around the presence of God. Worship became a school of sight.
There Asaph does not merely learn that the wicked will fall. He learns that he himself has been living by a distorted vision. The great irony of the psalm is this: the man who feared his own feet were slipping discovers that pride is the truly slippery place. Evil always looks solid before it collapses.
Yet the deepest wonder is not the judgment of the wicked, but the tenderness of God toward a bitter saint. Asaph confesses that envy made him beast-like, but God still held his right hand. Calvin saw here the mercy of providence correcting our short vision. Augustine heard the cure of envy in delighting in God Himself. That is the psalm’s summit: not “now I understand everything,” but “God is my portion forever.” The answer to envy is not having less desire, but holier desire.
There is also a quiet resurrection note in verse 24: God will receive him afterward into glory. The verb echoes places like Psalm 49:15, where fellowship with God proves stronger than death.
So the final gift of Psalm 73 is not an explanation, but a relocation. Nearness to God is the good.
Suggested cross-references: Psalm 49:15; Jeremiah 12:1; Malachi 3:14–18; Philippians 3:7–8; Hebrews 10:19–23.
Hymn suggestion: Be Thou My Vision — especially the lines about riches not being our treasure, and God being our inheritance.
Lord, when envy clouds my sight and the world seems badly arranged, bring me again into Your presence. Cleanse my heart of secret bitterness. Hold my hand when I am near to slipping, and teach me to desire You above every lesser good. Be my portion, my wisdom, and my joy. Amen.