¹How blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways. ²When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you.

This is a happy psalm. It is a wisdom psalm. These two descriptions go hand in hand. We read here that living a life blessed by God comes by living in the fear of the Lord. This psalm coincides with the foundational teaching of Proverbs: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Prov. 9:10).

By using the term ‘fear,’ Scripture does not suggest that we should live in dread or terror of God, as though He were capricious and susceptible to uncontrollable rage. To fear God, in the biblical sense, is to take Him and His word seriously. He is a good, kind, and gracious God, but He also means what He says and says what He means. A person is a fool to dismiss this foundational reality: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7, see also Psalm 1).

There are tremendous positives to building our lives on the wisdom of taking God seriously. The overall descriptor is “blessed.” Blessedness is not a spiritual aura descending on the super-spiritual individual or an ethereal state popularly attributed to monks or overly religious people. The word carries a sense of deep happiness, a contentment with joy. The NASB translates the underlying Hebrew word (ashri) in verse 1 as “blessed” and in verse 2 as “happy.” Most other modern translations translate both occurrences as “blessed” (often with a footnote reference to happiness). Blessed happiness does not happen by following a specific formula but from an overall orientation of life and behavior. We acknowledge the truth of God’s ways and “walk in His ways.” That means our behavior is concomitant with our fear of the Lord; they go hand in hand.

The blessings of walking in the fear of the Lord include seeing good and beneficial results from our efforts (vs. 2). A blessed-life-person experiences productivity and success. In the agrarian context of the psalm, “the fruit of your hands” refers to a successful harvest which is able sustain a person and their community. It speaks of farming labor that produces good results. We can generalize this principle of fruitfulness to apply to all God-fearing people: they will be contributing members of society and will add value to others through their work. This will give them dignity and the satisfaction that they matter in the world, their community, and their family. This sense of personal significance and purpose brings happiness and holistic wellness to them and to those around them.

Further, the family life of God-fearing people will be a blessing, beginning with their spouses (vs. 3). Key to a successful marriage is when both spouses are fully centered on the Lord. We must understand this wisdom psalm as being true as a general principle. We know of godly couples who remain childless, and this can be emotionally painful. Yet the fruitfulness promised in this psalm can apply not just to childbearing but also to the couple’s spiritual influence and self-replication. They can meaningfully impact both their extended family connections and the broader spiritual family of God. A godly couple that lives in the fear of the Lord will have productive lives for the spiritual benefit of others. Having said this, we must not minimize the benefit that the fear of the Lord generally brings to people, namely a family with children who are doing well. As we noted in other psalms, large families in the ancient world could defend and provide for themselves better than small families.

This short psalm is clearly not intended to be a comprehensive description of the blessed life; its simplicity helps focus our sights on the blessedness of fearing God. It calls us to a life-orientation of blessedness. This blessedness is not so much about an accumulation of individual blessings as it is a state of existence (vs. 4). The specifics are merely the evidence of the greater reality.

The practical blessings in life experienced by a god-fearing person are simply the frosting on the cake. The real blessing is being in right relationship with God, taking Him and His word seriously. This carries a person through those times when he or she can’t see or isn’t experiencing specific, personal blessings. As the righteous man Job said, “Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him” (Job 13:15). He was a blessed person who eventually did see the return of specific blessings in the form of a large family and incredible wealth.

The psalm ends with a prayer of blessing (vss. 4-5) that the reader would have the joy of grandchildren and peace as part of the community of faith (vss. 5-6). This blessing is to be enjoyed by each god-fearing person, whether they have natural children and grandchildren or not. Our prosperity and legacy as part of the spiritual family of faith is in view here. Imagine meeting someone who came to faith or was encouraged by one of your own spiritual children, someone you encouraged or led to the Lord. That would be the fulfillment of the prayer of this psalm. What a blessing that would be!

Lord, give me the joy of meeting my spiritual grandchildren and rejoicing to see others living with the righteous fear of the Lord. And, Lord, thank You for my spiritual grandparents and parents, those who influenced me to join them in living a blessed life.