Psalm 37:25 I was young and now I am old,
yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging bread.
This Psalm is an acrostic poem, starting each stanza with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, so it isn’t exactly the result of a momentary inspiration. That said, it expresses the conviction of David, stating things that he had experienced in his walk of faith. We sometimes forget that the characters in the Bible didn’t have the Bible to guide them! David had the Torah, the five books of Moses, and probably Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and Job, but the rest of it was his own story, or later. We also don’t have an emotional connection to a society in which written things were the exception, and precious. We don’t think about the reality that boys were taught to read the Torah because that was the only thing around to read! That makes David’s poetic gifting all the more important, because poems are far easier to memorize than prose, so his expressing God’s truth in poetic form was a massive gift to mankind, in his own day right down through today. We might take it lightly, since we are awash in words, so we need to check our attitude and give the Bible the attention and appreciation it deserves. This verse explicitly says it was written later in David’s life, so it is a testimony of his personal experience of God’s faithfulness. In those days there was no “safety net” in society, such as we have today and is vigorously debated, so the line about “begging for food” was something everyone had seen. It is ironic that there are so many homeless people in the US today, when America is the wealthiest nation in history. People complain about the cost of living, but virtually no one starves to death. Our expectations are on the level of extreme luxury, compared to how things were not so many years ago. This verse is a declaration of God’s faithfulness, as personally observed by David. This wasn’t theoretical or hearsay for him. It links directly to Jesus’ famous statement in Matthew 6:33, that I quoted just yesterday: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” When our focus is on God and doing what He wants, He takes care of everything else.
At the moment I can certainly identify with “Once I was young, and now I am old!” Also, I can identify with the idea of writing acrostic poetry, because I studied poetry in college, never expecting it to have any “practical” use. (As it turned out, I have done a lot of song translations between English and Japanese, so the Lord knew what He was doing when He directed me that way.) Some of my better work was when I was assigned to write poetry to various rigid forms, requiring specific meter or rhyming patterns. I’m sure this Psalm was much easier to memorize because of its framework (though I don’t have the Hebrew to prove that). The point for me, here and now, is to recognize and agree with the truth that David stated in poetic form, testifying of my own experience of God’s faithfulness and inviting others to love and trust Him as well, for their salvation and His glory.
Father, thank You indeed for Your incredible faithfulness. I can state this verse for myself with total assurance! I ask You to use me more and more to draw people to Yourself, so that they too may know the peace and joy of Your Gospel, for their eternal salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!
