Asaph sings, “I envied the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.”
If you are as wanting in biblical knowledge as I am, you’ll probably ask as I did, “Who in the name of Yosemite Sam is Asaph, and, Jumping Jehoshaphat, what did he sing? Can I find a performance on YouTube?”
There is a group of psalms variously ascribed to a person named Asaph or to a group of temple singers known as Asaphites. Depending on whether you read the Masoretic Text or the Septuagint, those psalms are numbered 49 and 73-83 or 50 and 72-82. Among them is the line I quote. It’s a line that could easily fit into the lyrics of a Blues song.
Essentially, in Psalm 72 (or 73), Asaph says with a troubled spirit that bad guys don’t seem to suffer. Rather they seem to increase their wealth and power. And he continues the psalm by saying he has tried hard to be good, only to find that he has not received any rewards for his good behavior. He notes also that the wicked “mock and speak maliciously,” that “iniquity comes forth from a coarse heart,” and that “pride encircles them like a chain.” Sound familiar? Hmmm. Where have you heard prosperous people mocking and speaking maliciously? Hmmm. Could it be in electronic media?
And in what context have your heard complaints similar to Asaph’s about the prosperous prospering even more and the downtrodden suffering more? Could it have been in a Blues concert? So, he sings the Blues.
Asaph sings that he has suffered “scourging” and “chastisement,” but he knows that if he adopts the ways and language of the wicked, he then abandons the ways of God. Asaph finds consolation in the thought that the bad guys stand on a slippery slope and that such people will eventually be “cast down to ruin.” But are they standing on a slippery slope, and will they be cast down to ruin? Is this just wishful thinking by an ancient downtrodden Blues singer?
And what, do you suppose, Asaph uses for his criteria to define “the wicked”?
Asaph’s contention that “bad people” will eventually suffer “bad things” might actually be wishful thinking born of envy. Where’s the evidence that “bad guys” fall into ruin and good guys don’t? Remember good guy Job who did everything according to the book, or should I say, according to The Book? Well, Job had to suffer much before getting any rewards; one might say he even suffered total ruin.
One need only look briefly through electronic media to see prospering “bad guys” maliciously mocking with seeming impunity. Isn’t that the way of the world? Isn’t that not just today’s way, but the past’s, also? And will it not be the way of the future? Times really haven’t changed much. There are those who prosper outside the spheres of codified ethics and morality and within spheres of widely different personal ethics and moral codes.
So, each of us and all our descendants have a choice: To envy and imitate those with malicious intentions in the hope of some reward or to follow what to the best of our understanding is a personal path of peace, moral harmony, and material prosperity. We can sing the Blues if we choose, but since the time of Asaph, what has that accomplished? Understanding why some “bad” people prosper and some “good” people fail is as easy as catching the Leviathan with a fishhook. That, by the way, is the only answer Job receives to the question about why good people suffer.
The only advice that “good” Asaph suggests is to remain morally steadfast. He and the other Asaphites might never have acquired the prosperity they saw in the “wicked,” and the “wicked” might never have experienced the “scourging” and “chastisement” the psalmist says he suffered. But Asaph seems to have missed a reality: That some people, even “bad” people prosper does not limit the potential prosperity of “good” people and as a corollary, that “bad” people mocking others maliciously limits their own potential because they turn potential sources of wealth into uncooperative enemies.
Is Psalm 72 (73) one of the first Blues songs? Asaph might just as easily have sung Albert King’s “Born under a Bad Sign”:
Born under a bad sign
I’ve been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck,
I wouldn’t have no luck at all.
That’s the way of the world. Singing the blues solves nothing and raises no one from a downtrodden life.
If you are as wanting in biblical knowledge as I am, you’ll probably ask as I did, “Who in the name of Yosemite Sam is Asaph, and, Jumping Jehoshaphat, what did he sing? Can I find a performance on YouTube?”
There is a group of psalms variously ascribed to a person named Asaph or to a group of temple singers known as Asaphites. Depending on whether you read the Masoretic Text or the Septuagint, those psalms are numbered 49 and 73-83 or 50 and 72-82. Among them is the line I quote. It’s a line that could easily fit into the lyrics of a Blues song.
Essentially, in Psalm 72 (or 73), Asaph says with a troubled spirit that bad guys don’t seem to suffer. Rather they seem to increase their wealth and power. And he continues the psalm by saying he has tried hard to be good, only to find that he has not received any rewards for his good behavior. He notes also that the wicked “mock and speak maliciously,” that “iniquity comes forth from a coarse heart,” and that “pride encircles them like a chain.” Sound familiar? Hmmm. Where have you heard prosperous people mocking and speaking maliciously? Hmmm. Could it be in electronic media?
And in what context have your heard complaints similar to Asaph’s about the prosperous prospering even more and the downtrodden suffering more? Could it have been in a Blues concert? So, he sings the Blues.
Asaph sings that he has suffered “scourging” and “chastisement,” but he knows that if he adopts the ways and language of the wicked, he then abandons the ways of God. Asaph finds consolation in the thought that the bad guys stand on a slippery slope and that such people will eventually be “cast down to ruin.” But are they standing on a slippery slope, and will they be cast down to ruin? Is this just wishful thinking by an ancient downtrodden Blues singer?
And what, do you suppose, Asaph uses for his criteria to define “the wicked”?
Asaph’s contention that “bad people” will eventually suffer “bad things” might actually be wishful thinking born of envy. Where’s the evidence that “bad guys” fall into ruin and good guys don’t? Remember good guy Job who did everything according to the book, or should I say, according to The Book? Well, Job had to suffer much before getting any rewards; one might say he even suffered total ruin.
One need only look briefly through electronic media to see prospering “bad guys” maliciously mocking with seeming impunity. Isn’t that the way of the world? Isn’t that not just today’s way, but the past’s, also? And will it not be the way of the future? Times really haven’t changed much. There are those who prosper outside the spheres of codified ethics and morality and within spheres of widely different personal ethics and moral codes.
So, each of us and all our descendants have a choice: To envy and imitate those with malicious intentions in the hope of some reward or to follow what to the best of our understanding is a personal path of peace, moral harmony, and material prosperity. We can sing the Blues if we choose, but since the time of Asaph, what has that accomplished? Understanding why some “bad” people prosper and some “good” people fail is as easy as catching the Leviathan with a fishhook. That, by the way, is the only answer Job receives to the question about why good people suffer.
The only advice that “good” Asaph suggests is to remain morally steadfast. He and the other Asaphites might never have acquired the prosperity they saw in the “wicked,” and the “wicked” might never have experienced the “scourging” and “chastisement” the psalmist says he suffered. But Asaph seems to have missed a reality: That some people, even “bad” people prosper does not limit the potential prosperity of “good” people and as a corollary, that “bad” people mocking others maliciously limits their own potential because they turn potential sources of wealth into uncooperative enemies.
Is Psalm 72 (73) one of the first Blues songs? Asaph might just as easily have sung Albert King’s “Born under a Bad Sign”:
Born under a bad sign
I’ve been down since I began to crawl
If it wasn’t for bad luck,
I wouldn’t have no luck at all.
That’s the way of the world. Singing the blues solves nothing and raises no one from a downtrodden life.
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