Psalms 73 Summary & Study Guide

The seventy-third psalm marks the beginning of Book III with a crisis of faith that is startlingly honest: "But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled... for I was envious of the arrogant." The setting is the internal turmoil of a believer who sees the wicked prospering while he himself is "plagued all the day long." The atmosphere is thick with bitterness; the wicked seem to have no pangs until death, their bodies are fat and sleek, and they speak with malice against heaven. It is a portrait of the "inequity" of providence, where the one who has kept his heart clean seems to have washed his hands in vain. The psalmist is on the brink of betrayal, realizing that to speak his doubts aloud would be to "betray the generation of your children."

Everything pivots on the sudden entry into the sanctuary of God, where the psalmist finally discerned their end. The perspective shifts instantly from the prosperity of the wicked to their precariousness. In the light of God’s presence, the psalmist sees that the wealthy are set in slippery places and are destroyed in a moment. The movement concludes with a significant re-orientation of desire—"Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you." The beast-like ignorance of his envy is replaced by the assurance that "God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

Here we see that perspective is the only true cure for envy. It reveals that the prosperity of the wicked is a dream from which God will one day awake, a temporary illusion with no eternal substance. The sanctuary is not just a building but a vantage point, a place where we see reality through the lens of the final judgment. To allow one's feet to stumble is shown to be the result of looking at the now without the forever. It teaches us to move from the bitterness of comparison to the blessedness of nearness. Contentment is the byproduct of the Communion.

The True Sanctuary who entered into the slippery places of our world to secure our standing is Jesus Christ. While the world offers a prosperity that ends in terrors, Christ offers a portion that survives the failing of the flesh and the heart. This psalm reminds us that because Christ has taken us by the right hand, we are guided with counsel and will afterward be received to glory. We are invited to make the Lord God our refuge, trusting that nearness to Him is the only good that truly matters. Our desire is His Dwelling.