Who Psalm 1 Says God Is

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My Old Testament Survey professor, whom I have been meeting with to go over the Gospel of John, gave me a good reading plan: going over one psalm per day and asking myself, for each psalm: "What does this psalm teach me about the character of God?" And, by God's grace, it occurred to me today that it would be a good idea to post one of those reflections here, and I think I will post more going forward (emphasis on "think"). So, let's look at Psalm 1 and answer the question: "What does it teach about God's character?"

First, read Psalm 1!

Second, what does Psalm 1 say about who God is? One, God is the Lawgiver, since verse 2 says that the law is the "law of the LORD," which the righteous meditate on day and night. Two, God, in His flawless moral purity, is the antithesis of the wicked, who are called the "ungodly" throughout this psalm. Since the wicked are called "ungodly" in this psalm, we know that, conversely, to be godly is to be righteous. Three, God is the Judge, with verse 5 referring to His judgment. Four, God "knows the way of the righteous" (verse 6) in that He will see to it that the righteous will live, because God's "knowledge" of the way of the righteous is antithetical to the way of the ungodly perishing. These are some characteristics of God that we can glean from Psalm 1!