The author of Psalms 73 was a Levite called Asaph whom “David put in charge of the service of song in the house of the LORD” (1 Chr 6:31, 39). David’s appointment of some of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the LORD was “… to invoke, to thank, and to praise the LORD, the God of Israel (1 Chr 16:4-7 ). Asaph was the chief musician during King David’s reign and played the bronze cymbals. (1 Chr 15:19).

Asaph was also recognised as a seer (prophet) whose songs were used for temple worship alongside David’s long after his time: “And Hezekiah the king and the officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to the LORD with the words of David and of Asaph the seer.” (2 Chronicles 29:30). It was this Asaph (and his descendants too) who authored a total of 12 Psalms one of which is Psalm 73.

Psalm 73 headlines with a sure statement of God’s goodness presenting the conclusion Asaph had arrived at in relation to the true nature of God.

Psalm 73:1
Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

It is not an intro – as its position may suggest – but a conclusion to the precarious journey he had just been on and which he recounts in the rest of the psalm. He only arrived at this truth after strenuously attempting to make sense of the world around him. 

As he commences his song, the psalmist makes it very clear that God’s goodness was not in doubt or something he questioned any longer. However, he openly admits that he almost missed this truth; it had almost eluded him because he seemed to witness otherwise with his naked eyes. 

Psalms 73:2 – 3
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

Prior to his assertion of God’s goodness, the psalmist had almost slipped up. He was disillusioned by the prosperity of the wicked and envious of the arrogant because of their prosperity. Envy of the wicked had quietly crept into his heart as he saw their prosperity and continued wellbeing.

Not only had he missed the truth about God but he had also begun to envy the wicked and desired to become like them. He was attracted by what he saw the wicked achieve. Psalm 73:4 – 12 (HCSB) details his reading of the their lives:

They have an easy time until they die,
and their bodies are well fed.
They are not in trouble like others;
they are not afflicted like most people.
Therefore, pride is their necklace,
and violence covers them like a garment.
Their eyes bulge out from fatness;
the imaginations of their hearts run wild.
They mock, and they speak maliciously;
they arrogantly threaten oppression.
They set their mouths against heaven,
and their tongues strut across the earth.
Therefore His people turn to them
and drink in their overflowing words.
The wicked say, “How can God know?
Does the Most High know everything?”
Look at them — the wicked!
They are always at ease,
and they increase their wealth.

As far as the psalmist could see and tell, the wicked got away with murder. Ask her saw was how the malicious, the unscrupulous, the arrogant and aggressive were fearless, reckless, careless and godless – even mocking God. They came across as worry free, carefree and stress free.

This not only irked and disturbed him but shook his worldview and destabilised him. He could not fathom and accept how these openly wicked and arrogant were able to get away with it all. He almost concluded that his striving and effort to live right before God and in fear of Him was also all a waste. 

Psalms 73:12 – 14
Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.

But he catches himself and stops right there as he realises he’d be misleading God’s own people and letting them down big time if he went down that route. Psalms 73:15
If I had said, “I will speak thus,”I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

He understood that his words and actions relating to God based on his lived experience alone had resulted in a flawed understanding of the world he lived in. That then would have negatively influenced and impacted others in their relationship with God. So he caught himself there and stopped in his tracks. 

The psalmist realised that his understanding was coloured by his emotions which were in turn triggered by what he saw and experienced around him. He confesses this to God in verses 21 – 22:

When I became embittered
and my innermost being was wounded,
I was stupid and didn’t understand;
I was an unthinking animal toward You.

His vision and perspective needed addressing and that could only come from the view of The Most High God. Psalms 73:16 – 17

But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.

The psalmist was only able to get a correct view of his world and have his understanding of God corrected when he entered God’s sanctuary – when He viewed God in His glory and the world through God’s eyes. 

It was a vision of God that he needed to correct the view of the world he was experiencing. Only when he saw his world in light of God’s person was he able to truly understand it. 

Once he did, the whole picture changed. He was able to see things for how they truly were from God’s vantage point. He got the full view but only in the presence of God and from His perspective. 

Every and any perspective of life is woefully incomplete and inadequate unless it takes in and incorporates God’s view and His perspective.

Only the perspective of the eternal God completes and corrects all other perspectives and outlooks. 

After seeing God’s perspective, the psalmist saw and understood his lived experience in a totally new light and very differently indeed. His entire take on life and on God changed.

The world around us is not always what it seems to be or projects itself as. Not only is our view of it skewed and imperfect but it also skews our view of God Himself.  Even our self-view is tainted and coloured by our experience of life, personal circumstances and situations making it imperfect, incomplete and very often lacking and erroneous too. 

Our view of self, God and the world we live in is marred and deformed until we see God for who He truly is and the world in His light. A worldview that does not factor God fully, is a severely deficient worldview that will eventually suffer major consequences.

Understanding and discernment eluded Asaph until he stepped into the sanctuary of God. What solved Asaph’s conundrum and dilemma was the sanctuary of God.

Only in God’s presence was he able to get the full picture and a true understanding of his own circumstances, correcting his distorted perspective and outlook on them. Only in God’s light do we truly see light.

Psalms 36:9
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light do we see light.

For Asaph, God’s sanctuary (His presence) offered – and still offers us today – a space to discover who God really is and His true nature. 

Asaph may have headed there albeit reluctantly and in resignation of what he’d seen and experienced. He went nonetheless – seeking to learn, seeking to understand, seeking to discern, seeking to be enlightened and seeking for answers. He got way more than he bargained for – way beyond his wildest expectations. His worldview was turned on its head. He not only got the full picture and understanding of his world but secured an experiential knowledge of God that was invaluable. He was able to anchor his life in the firsthand knowledge of God which became the anthem and main theme of his song – Psalms 73:1
Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

It is the knowledge of God that you’ve built up in the good times, that will keep you in good stead in the challenging seasons of your life – when the storms of life buffet and constrain you. 

Being intentional and consistent are the key elements required in the pursuit of the knowledge of God. Hence the author’s spectacular conclusion to his song – Psalms 73:28

But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

He realised that staying close to God offered him the right perspective and kept him level-headed. It also empowered him to maintain a credible and true witness. 

The psalmist realised that his own security and sanity (mental wellbeing) and the veracity (truthfulness) of his witness and testimony of God to others, depended on his intimacy with God. That was also how he was going to be able to maintain a pure heart – as he stayed near God.

After all, it was his being distanced from God in the first place that had almost caused him to slip.

Embrace Asaph’s conclusion and hasten your steps to the sanctuary of God.