What Does Psalms 37:2 Mean?

Verse 2 gives the ground for verse 1's not-fretting: "For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb." The fading of the wicked like grass (ki kemots yibbalu, for like the grass they will quickly fade/wither: the malal-fading of the quickly-dried grass, the same mots-grass as Psalm 1:4's chaff-that-the-wind-drives-away: the wicked are not only blown away by wind but fade by heat) and the withering like the green herb (udezhe deshe yibbolu, and like the green fresh-grass they will wither: the nadal/navel-wither of the fresh-green that quickly fades in the heat) give the temporal argument for not-fretting: the wicked's prosperity is as brief as grass in the heat.

The grass-metaphor is the Psalter's consistent image for the transience of the wicked's apparent flourishing: Psalm 103:15's "as for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more" and Isaiah 40:6-8's "all flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of YHWH blows on it" both use the same grass-transience imagery as verse 2. The apparent prosperity-of-the-wicked that tempts the righteous to fret and envy (verse 1) is, in verses 2's perspective, like grass: it appears flourishing now, but it fades quickly.

1 Peter 1:24-25's "all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever" quotes Isaiah 40:6-8 (which uses verse 2's grass-imagery) and applies it to the contrast between the transient (flesh-like-grass) and the permanent (the Lord's word that remains). The not-fretting of verse 1 is grounded in verse 2: the grass-wickedness will fade; the Lord's word (1 Peter 1:25) and his plans (Psalm 33:11) stand forever. Matthew 6:30's "but if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven" uses verse 2's grass-transience as a ground for anxiety-reduction, the same function as verse 2 in Psalm 37.