Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

Are scoffers worse than sinners
Psalm 1:1

"Blessed is the man,
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;" (Psalm 1:1, NKJV)

"Walk, stand and sit" sounds like a long journey coming to a relaxing end but is reordered by Paul in Ephesians as the more confusing sit (2:6), walk (4:1-5:15), stand (6:11,13,14) and in Watchman Nee's book Sit, Walk, Stand - how can one walk straight from sitting without standing in between?

The beautifully graphic and perhaps ordered picture of Psalm 1:1 could be taken as a synonymous parallelism of equal phrases with little difference between the postures, actions or classes of people. A similar discussion is held over whether the language of Matthew 5:22 represents increasingly severe insults: anger -> raca -> "you fool" with respectively different punishments: "the judgement" -> "the council" -> Gehenna/hell; or whether these are all parallel terms used loosely for poetic and polemic effect. Certainly calling someone a fool would seem less serious than anger and yet it alone merits hellfire, although in Hebrew the fool was not merely foolish but a stupid atheist denying the very existence of God (Psalm 14:1).

Many commentators, however, like to sermonize about the increasing progression: walk -> stand -> sit, from mere accompaniment of the ungodly through to "sitting" and siding with, the ultimate no-turning back agreement with scoffing scorners.

For example:

"The verbs describe the 'successive steps in a career of evil and form a climax…' … [scornful/scoffers] The worst type of all." (Cohen, The Psalms, Soncino, p.1, incorporating a quote from Kirkpatrick, The Psalms, The Cambridge Bible, p.3)

"Nor sitteth. This implies still greater deliberation and determination of character than either of the other words employed … Of the scornful … denotes a higher and more determined grade of wickedness than either of the other words employed … the last stage of wickedness … We have here, then, a beautiful double gradation or climax, in the nouns and verbs of this verse, indicating successive stages of character." (Barnes, Book of Psalms, Vol I, p.3)

"The three terms used of evil-doers, following their usage in the Wisdom literature, are in a rising scale … scorners are the worst type" (Oesterley, The Psalms, p.120)

"The three appellations form a climax" (Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms, Vol I, p.84)

"… three syn[onymous] tetrameters which yet gradually become more intense, reaching a climax in the last line" (Briggs, Psalms, ICC, Vol I, p.5)

"… phrases which are progressively intensified the various possible ways that lead to sin, … finally, the worst sin is that of taking a seat in the meetings of the scoffers" (Weiser, The Psalms, OTL, pp.103-104)

Others acknowledge the laws of Hebrew poetic parallelism and note that we need not be tied to an increasingly severe interpretation.

"Three types of sinners, three forms of expression are now specified. It is true, these three clauses are presented in an ascending climax. But no particular importance is to be attached to this climax." (Leupold, Exposition of Psalms, p.34)

"The three parallel clauses of the verse may or may not be intended to form a climax. They are usually so understood … a progressively closer association with evil of a more pronounced kind. But the laws of parallelism do not require this." (Davison, Psalms Vol I, The Century Bible, p.48)

"It would be reading too much into these verbs to draw a moral from the apparent process of slowing down from walking to sitting, since the journey was in the wrong direction for a start." (Kidner, Psalms 1-72, TOTC, p.49)

Certainly, it is more than possible to argue that scorners are an irreconcilable lot who scoff at God and religion, and are more hardened than either the wicked or sinners. The wicked, however, are not necessarily the least in a threefold climax of terms as whilst the occasional and accidental sinner can easily be restored before God the wicked man is more intent upon his way and Scripture offers sacrifice to cover sins but only repentance will convert a sinner.

If a true sequential climax were the case the progression of terms wicked -> sinners -> scoffers would also be an increasing one, yet this is not absolutely the case. On the whole in Hebrew, the wicked are considered more rebellious than casual sinners, though the two could often be synonymous terms in poetic parallelism.

The sinners and the ungodly wicked are again used synonymously in Psalm 1:5, where just the two types do service for the three mentioned in verse 1:

"Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous."

Whilst we may be able to distinguish between sinners and the ungodly as two degrees of the wicked, ultimately all have sinned and any failure to make the cut on Judgement Day is fatal, there are no grades only pass or fail. Poetically and indeed theologically "the judgement" and "the congregation of the righteous" are both the same place in the big scheme of things.

Our tendency to want programs, bullet points and steps to success, as well as to classify and compartmentalise, leans us towards a stepped climax of terms. Hebrew, on the other hand, tends to offer example terms as generalisations of the whole and uses the repeated language as both a beautiful and memorable form of poetry. On this basis, one should not read too much into the differences between the terms and go around identifying your enemy as either wicked or a scoffer, or falsely reassuring yourself that you are only "walking" with the ungodly and haven't yet "sat down" with them.

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