3. The Person Who Needs a Blessing (vv. 4-6). The first half of the psalm describes the godly person, while the last half focuses on the ungodly, the people the godly must seek to reach with the gospel. How desperately these people need to know God and receive His blessings in Christ! The wicked are pictured in many ways in Scripture, but the image here is chaff. In contrast to the righteous, who are like trees, the ungodly are dead, rootless, blown about, and destined for the fire. Chaff is worth nothing. When the grain is winnowed, the wind blows the chaff away, and what chaff remains is thrown into the fire. John the Baptist used these same images of the tree, fruit, and chaff to warn sinners to repent (Matt. 3:7-12). The wicked of this world seem rich and substantial, but from God’s point of view, they are cheap, unsubstantial, and destined for judgment. (See Ps. 73.) No wonder Jesus used the garbage dump outside Jerusalem (gehenna) as a picture of hell, because that’s where the cheap waste ends up in the fire (Mark 9:43-48). The chaff is so near the grain, but in the end, the two are separated, and the chaff is blown away or burned. But until that happens, we have the opportunity to witness to them and seek to bring them to Christ.

There is a coming day of judgment, and the Lord, the Righteous Judge, will separate the wheat from the tares, the sheep from the goats, and the trees from the chaff; and no unbeliever will be able to stand in the assembly of the righteous. The verb knows in verse 6 doesn’t mean that God is aware of them intellectually and has the godly in his mind. Rather, it means that God has chosen them and providentially watched over them and brought them finally to His glory. The word know is used, as in Amos 3:2, to mean “to choose, to enter into covenant relationship with, to be personally acquainted with.” The Jewish Publication Society translation of Amos 3:2 is “You alone have I singled out of all the families of the earth.” That same translation gives verse 6 as “For the Lord cherishes the way of the righteous.…” At the last judgment, Jesus says to the wicked, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23 nkjv).

This psalm begins with “blessed” and ends with “perish.” True believers are blessed in Christ (Eph. 1:3ff.). They have received God’s blessing, and they ought to be a blessing to others, especially to the chaff that will one day be thrown into the fire. Let’s seek to win as many of them as we can.