to be soft or pliable · conjunction + verb, hithpael imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
LORD
יְהוָ֑הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
give
וְיִֽתֶּןve.yi.ten-
H5414
to give · conjunction + verb, qal, 3rd person masculine singular
desires
מִשְׁאֲלֹ֥תmish.'a.Lot
H4862
a request · noun, common feminine plural construct
heart
לִבֶּֽךָli.Be.kha
H3820
the heart · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
John 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Psalms 145:19 He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.
John 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain:…
Isaiah 58:14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritag…
1 John 5:14-15 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
Psalms 21:1-2 The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!
Job 22:26 For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God.
1 Peter 1:8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 37:1-6
The instructions here given are very plain; much need not be said for the exposition of them, but there is a great deal to be done for the reducing of them to practice, and there they will look best.
I. We are here cautioned against discontent at the prosperity and success of evil-doers (Psa 37:1, Psa 37:2): Fret not thyself, neither be thou envious. We may suppose that David speaks this to himself first, and preaches it to his own heart (in his communing with that upon his bed), for the suppressing of those corrupt passions which he found working there, and then leaves it in writing for instruction to others that might be in similar temptation. That is preached best, and with most probabili…
desires-- (Psa 20:5; Psa 21:2), what is lawful and right, really good (Psa 84:11).
John Gill on Psalms 37:4
Delight thyself also in the Lord,.... In the persons in God, Father, Son, and Spirit; in the perfections of God, his power, goodness, faithfulness, wisdom, love, grace, and mercy; in his works of creation, providence, and redemption; in his word, his Gospel, the truths and ordinances of it; in his house, and the worship of it; and in his people, the excellent in the earth, in whom was all the delight of the psalmist; and each of these afford a field of delight and pleasure, to attend unto, contemplate, and meditate upon;
and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart; such as are according to the will of God, and for the good of his people; such as relate to communion with him, and to th…
Psalm 37:1-6
1. Fret not thyself because of the wicked, and be not envious at the workers of iniquity: 2. For they shall soon be cut down like grass; and they shall wither as the green and tender herb. 3. Put thy trust in Jehovah, and do good; dwell in the land, and be fed in truth, [or faithfully. [14] ] 4. And delight thyself in Jehovah, and he will give thee the desires of thy heart. 5. Roll [or devolve] thy ways on Jehovah, and trust in him, and he will bring it to pass. 6. And he will bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgments [15] as the noon day.
1. Fret not thyself because of the wicked. David lays down this as a general principle, that the prosperity of the wick…
The Church Fathers
In everything he taught the benefit of hope in God: the person hoping in God, he says, and fed by him will enjoy the goods supplied by him while those who find delightful constant converse with him will most of all attain them.
(Verse 4.) Therefore, he says: Delight in the Lord, and he will grant you the desires of your heart. Why did he not say 'your desires' but 'the desires of your heart'? For the desires of the external and internal man are not the same and not all of them are approved by Christ; because the law of the flesh often opposes to the rules of the spirit. But those desires that belong to the interior man, who is renewed by the Spirit, the Lord grants them to the petitioner with effect. Hence, he says elsewhere: May the Lord grant you according to your heart, and may he confirm all your desires (Psalm 19:5). He says to follow the heart, not the desire of the flesh; and he says that he should strengthen those desires which come from the deepest part of the heart, not those which are directed by the enticement and pleasures of the flesh.
The expression "we have need" is applied to those things that are necessary for life. Consequently, applied to material things, it means that one does not need most things but only those of which Paul says, "but having food and clothing, we shall be satisfied with these things." Those things, [by contrast], that are accumulated in wealth and luxury are the result of abundance among those who live luxuriously. They are not considered to be necessary and absolutely essential but to be superfluous. So, therefore, there are also things that are necessary for us in the realm of divine matters, which bring us into life and cause us to be in the one who says, "I am the life." But what supersedes these things would be said to supersede need. It is said of such things, "Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the requests of your heart." These include all the things that are considered in relation to the paradise of luxury and in relation to wealth and glory, the things in the left hand of wisdom according to him who said, "For length of life and years of life are in her right hand, but in her left hand are wealth and glory." One would say that these go beyond necessity.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Prayer — Is converse with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to him. Prayer may be oral or mental, occasional or constant, ejaculatory or…
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Delighting In God · Commanded — Commanded
Desire · SPIRITUAL — SPIRITUAL
Happiness · Their worldly prosperity — Their worldly prosperity
Love · OF MAN FOR GO — OF MAN FOR GO
Peace · SPIRITUAL — SPIRITUAL
Resignation · Exhortation to — Exhortation to
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The "land" is throughout this Psalm the promised possession (Heilsgut), viz., the land of Jahve's presence, which has not merely a glorious past, but also a future rich in promises; and will finally, ore perfectly than under Joshua, become the inheritance of the true Israel. It is therefore to be explained: enjoy the quiet sure habitation which God gives thee, and diligently cultivate the virtue of faithfulness. The two imperatives in Psa 37:3, since there are two of them (cf. Psa 37:27) and the first is without any conjunctive Waw, have the appearance of being continued admonitions, not promises; and consequently אמוּנה is not an adverbial accusative as in Psa 119:75 (Ewald), but the object…
To take delight in the Lord means aligning with the Lord’s way in order to enjoy him.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 37:4
Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
There is an ascent in this third precept. He who was first bidden not to fret, was then commanded actively to trust, and now is told with holy desire to delight in God. Delight thyself also in the Lord. Make Jehovah the joy and rejoicing of thy spirit. Bad men delight in carnal objects; do not envy them if they are allowed to take their fill in such vain idols; look thou to thy better delight, and fill thyself to the full with thy more sublime portion. In a certain sense imitate the wicked; they delight in their portion—take care to delight in yours, and so far from envying you will pity them. There is no r…
