As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
Praise
the LORD.
1Blessings
of a man – he fears the LORD.
In His commands he delights greatly.
2Mighty
in the land his descendants will be.
A generation of upright ones will be very
blessed.
I’ve been pondering verse 2 for a while. I find it spawns a
lot of seemingly random thoughts in my head. I’ll note of few of them in hopes they’ll
gel into something useful.
To promise to bless my children (and grandchildren) I
consider to be one of the Lord’s greatest kindnesses. I certainly enjoy His
blessings of my sweet wife, my good job, beautiful house, reasonable health,
etc., but, no matter all of that, when I think of blessing, my mind always goes
to my children. I presume it is a normal parent thing, but, in a sense, it is
like “blessing” is an empty thing if it doesn’t extend to them. I want to be
blessed. I want to spend eternity in Heaven; but even as I am assured of those
things for myself, my mind again wanders to them. I want to be assured they’ll
be there too. Even as I enjoy knowing God, even as I live in awe of His
goodness and kindness to me, I want to know they’ll get to enjoy all of this
too. If it’s just for me, there is a sense in which it’s not enough. “Blessing”
must include them.
I’ve thought before that if I could just be assured all my
children and grandchildren would know the Lord, love Him, and spend eternity
with Him, it’s like I could just lay down and die. I could say with old Simeon,
“Lord, lettest now Thy servant depart in peace, for mines eyes have seen Thy
salvation.” It’s like my work would be done.
And so, I run into passages like Psalm 112:2 and I think
what a kindness it is. In verse 1, we are introduced to the man who “fears the
Lord and delights greatly in His commands.” Beginning in verse 2, this psalm
enumerates the blessings such a man enjoys and what do we find at the top of
the list? His children.
Isn’t that an amazing kindness of the Lord? What He is
basically saying to me is that, if I seek to follow Him, to make the choices I
must make to live my life for Him, in one way or another He promises to bless
my children! He promises to me the one thing that makes all other blessings
complete.
I say all of this fully realizing this is a dangerous place
to make 100% claims. Whenever the Lord makes seeming promises regarding our children,
there is always the element of their own wills. And there is also the element
of my own imperfect obedience. No matter what I choose, I certainly won’t do it
perfectly, and no matter what I may do, my children and grandchildren will
always have to make their own choices. So I’m painfully having to accept in my
mind that this is not a 100% promise. Just because I love the Lord doesn’t
automatically guarantee that all of my descendants will. I wish it could. I
wish there was anything I could do to insure their blessing.
But I think we can enjoy this even as a general promise and
I will take it that way – that, if I choose to love the Lord, then, in general,
I can be assured it will benefit my descendants. My family will be blessed just
for the sake of me.
It would be interesting to know if the blessings I enjoy are
flowing from some ancestor’s lives and prayers. Maybe some godly old
great-great grandfather or grandmother read this same verse and had the same
thoughts as I sit having today. I remember reading a book written in the 15 or
1600’s and it started with a prayer where the author said something like, “Lord,
if years from now, someone finds this book …” and I thought to myself, “Here I
sit, an answer to that man’s prayer! He prayed the Lord’s blessing on me over
400 years ago and now I sit with that very book in my hands!”
And what particular blessings are mentioned in this psalm?
It says “His descendants will be mighty in the land.” It is literally “his
seed,” so it can be translated “his children” or “his descendants.” It can
specifically refer to his immediate descendants, his children and
grandchildren, or it can include his descendants in general for many
generations. And it says they will be “mighty.” The word itself is a warrior
word and, I suppose today it could be translated something like “they will be
heroes in the land.” I think the basic idea is that they’ll be people who do a
lot of good. They won’t be the criminals and low-lifes who make everyone else
miserable; but they also won’t just be survivors. They won’t just “occupy air
space.” They’ll be people who make a difference. That again is a cool promise
to me. I want to make a difference. I don’t want to be just a survivor. I want
the world to be a better place because I was here. But, again, I want that
blessing to extend to my children and their children after them. I want them
all to be blessed. I want them to be happy. But I want them to be people who
make other people’s lives better too. And I believe that is what the Lord is
here saying -- The children of the godly will go on being a blessing to others
for many generations.
I don’t know if the second half of the verse is referring to
the godly man or to his descendants. It says, “A generation of upright ones
will be very blessed.” Either way, the same truth is being expressed. The fact
is that truly godly people are a blessing to their world. They will be the people
who can be trusted, people who are gracious and forgiving and kind, people who
work hard and who work hard to care for others. I personally strongly suspect
that many of the scientific discoveries and advances that have blessed the
human race were made by godly people. We’ll only know the truth of that in
Heaven, but I suspect it’s true. And this psalm is assuring me that, if I
really fear the Lord, I will be a blessing in my generation, and then that
blessing will extend to my children and my descendants. They too will be a
blessing.
I’ve always liked Psalm 84:5,6, “Blessed are those whose
strength is in You … As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a
place of springs …” The Valley of Baca is literally “the valley of tears,”
which is a fitting name for this world. But that psalm assures us, as godly
people pass through this troubled world, they make it a better place. They don’t
just survive. They make it a better place for others passing through. They leave
it a little better, perhaps a little softer. That is what I want to be and that
is what I hope will be true of my descendants. Of Jesus Himself it is said, “He
was a man ordained by God who went about doing good.” That’s what I want to be
and that is what I want my descendants to be.
Once again, the Lord in His great kindness assures me those
very wishes will be fulfilled.
His kindness is not only bountiful; it is also very targeted
– at the very things our hearts want most.
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