Psalms 125:4 - Meaning and Application

Here is the prayer the psalmist makes for the joy of those who are sincere and steady: “Do good, O Lord, to those who are good” (Psalm 125:4). This teaches us to pray for all God’s people, to ask for the good of all the saints. We can pray for them with confidence, because those who do what is right will surely be treated well by God. Those who live as they should will be blessed as they desire, if they are upright in heart, truly as good as they appear to be.

God will show himself upright with the upright. The psalmist does not say, “Do good, O Lord, to those who are perfect,” as if he meant people who are sinless and without fault. He means those who are sincere and honest. God’s promises should stir us to prayer. It is comforting to wish well to those whom God has promised to deal well with.

The psalmist also looks ahead to the ruin of hypocrites and deserters. He does not pray for that ruin, just as he said elsewhere, “I have not desired the woeful day; you know it.” But he does foretell it. Those who have known the way of righteousness, but turn aside from it because they fear the rod of the wicked, will be led away with the workers of evil. This includes those who use crooked ways to avoid trouble, or those who, instead of repenting, grow worse and more stubborn in their sins. God will send them away and give them the same portion as the worst sinners.

Sinful ways are crooked ways, because sin twists what is right. The end of those who leave the right path for such ways will be the same as the end of those who have always walked in them. In fact, their judgment will be more severe, because the place of hypocrites and apostates, people who turn from the faith, will be worse if any place in hell can be worse than another. God will lead them away like prisoners led out to execution. Then the warning will stand: “Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire.” Their earlier righteousness will not be remembered.

The last words, “peace be upon Israel,” may be taken as a prayer, that God would keep his Israel in peace while he judges evildoers. They may also be read as a promise: peace will be upon Israel. When those who betrayed God’s ways are destroyed, those who keep to them, though troubled for a time, will have peace in the end. The ruin of those who walk in crooked ways will also help the peace and safety of the church. When Herod was struck down, the word of God grew (Acts 12:23-24). And the peace and happiness of God’s Israel will only add to the shame and misery of those who perish in their sin (Luke 13:28; Isaiah 65:13). “My servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed.”