Psalm 37 is an exceptionally helpful and practical psalm, in that it consistently offers clear guidance to us in our spiritual life and our human situations. It has forty verses, each with one or sometimes two direct statements. It gives various things that we are to take care not to do, and various things that we are to do, understanding that they are commanded by the Lord.

These instructions are kept short and to the point. Spiritually, brevity is about our need to receive commands which speak to us directly without elaboration or debate. Our understanding of worldly life is often caught up with complexities and qualifications. Our spiritual understanding needs to be focused fully on the Lord and the Word so that we well understand the absolute nature of divine truth.

The psalm begins as it will continue: “Do not fret because of evildoers…” because the Lord, in good time, will bring things to their rightful end. But we should also not fret because it disturbs and weakens our trust in the Lord, which is there to uphold and strengthen us.

Evil is then likened to the short-lived grass which gets cut down and which withers. ‘Grass’ corresponds to simple facts or scientifics which, while useful, are not to take on undue importance compared to what is spiritual. (See Apocalypse Explained 507)

“Trust in the Lord and do good”, “Delight yourself in the Lord”, and “Commit your way to the Lord” all follow on - one after the other. They point out the value to us of these direct commands and statements. (Refer to Divine Love and Wisdom 237, near the end)

One theme which runs through this psalm is that evil and wickedness will always be short-lived, and brought to an end. Verse 10, for example, says ‘…For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more.’ And verse 20 puts it, ‘…The enemies of the Lord, shall vanish, into smoke they shall vanish away.’ Spiritually this short-lived nature of evil stands for the certainty of its downfall, and, while hell exists, (in which the Lord still governs even those who choose a love of evil), the Lord will end the evil in us, and the evil influencing us, when we live by the Word. (Arcana Caelestia 8939)

Verse 25 mentions the fact that we age: ‘I have been young and now am old’ and continues on to describe seeing the goodness of the Lord. Spiritually, ‘young’ stands for a state in which we are more vigorous in what we assert and believe (Divine Providence 105), whereas to be ‘old’ stands for spiritual maturity in which we have become wiser and humbler from following the Lord. (Arcana Caelestia 3254)

An important point is made in verse 27, that we are to ‘Depart from evil and do good, and dwell for evermore.’ The order here is very significant; we know the importance of loving and doing what is good, but for this to be genuine good rather than conditional good, we need to first examine ourselves and abstain from what is evil. In this way, we will grow in a true love of good, as the Lord’s good and not ours. It is also important for us to see that this is an ongoing process. (Charity 23-25)

Verse 34 commands us to ‘Wait on the Lord, and keep his way’. Waiting is generally a time-based idea but spiritually, time is not a consideration, only state. This then means that to wait on the Lord is to be attentive, mindful, conscious of and ready for the Lord in our life, knowing that as we keep close to the Lord, he can help us feel that he is close to us and directing our steps. In this way, we become expectant. (Arcana Caelestia 5284)

This is an important, spiritually practical psalm that's like a deep well. We've touched on a few of the many statements in it, but there's much more here. Hopefully, these examples will encourage you to explore it further!

678. And an evil and noxious sore formed. This symbolizes interior evils and falsities destructive of every good and truth in the church.

The sore here symbolizes nothing else than evil arising from a life in accordance with this chief point of the doctrine, that faith alone justifies and saves without works of the law. For we are told next that it formed in people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image, which symbolizes that faith and a life in accordance with it. Therefore an evil and noxious sore symbolizes interior evils and falsities destructive of every good and truth in the church. Its being noxious symbolizes its destructiveness, and evil cannot but destroy goodness, and falsity truth.

This is the symbolic meaning of the sore because sores of the body arise from a vitiated condition of the blood or some other internal malignancy. So, too, with sores viewed according to their meaning in the spiritual sense. Those sores arise from lusts and their accompanying delights, which are their internal causes. The evil itself symbolized by the sore, which in its outward expressions seems to be delightful, inwardly conceals in itself lusts, from which it arises and of which it consists.

[2] It should rightly be known, however, that the interior constituents of the human mind in everyone exist in a sequential order and in a concurrent one. They exist in sequential order from its higher or prior constituents to ones lower or subsequent. They exist in concurrent order in their outmost or final expressions, though they range in these from interior elements to outer ones, as from a center to the peripheries. The reality of this is something we showed many times in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, nos. 173-281, in a section on degrees. It is apparent from those numbers that the outmost degree embraces all the prior ones.

It follows, therefore, that all lusts for evil exist inwardly in a concurrent order in the evil itself that a person perceives in himself. Every evil that a person perceives in himself exists in its outmost expressions. Consequently, when a person rejects evil, he at the same time rejects also its lusts, though he still does not do this on his own, but from the Lord. A person can indeed on his own reject evil, but not its lusts. Therefore, when he wishes to reject some evil and is fighting against it, he must look to the Lord, since the Lord operates from inmost elements to outmost ones. For He enters through a person's soul and purifies him.

We have said this much to make known that a sore symbolizes evil appearing in its outmost or final expressions, arising from an internal malignancy. This is the case with all people who persuade themselves that faith alone saves, and for that reason do not reflect upon any evil in themselves or look to the Lord.

[3] Sores and wounds symbolize evils in outmost expressions arising from interior ones, or lusts, also in the following places:

From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness... A wound and a scar, and a fresh blow, have not been expressed, have not been bound up, have not been softened with oil. (Isaiah 1:6-7)

...my iniquities have passed through my head... My wounds have putrefied, have decayed, because of my foolishness. (Psalms 38:4-5)

In the day that Jehovah binds up the fracture of His people... He will heal the blow's wound. (Isaiah 30:26)

...if you do not obey the voice of Jehovah..., being careful to do... His commandments... Jehovah will strike you with the sore of Egypt, with hemorrhoids and scabies, and itching... and with an evil sore upon the knees and upon the legs... from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. (Deuteronomy 28:15, 27, 35)

The sore of the boils that broke out on man and beast in Egypt (Exodus 9:8-11) has just this symbolic meaning; for the miracles done there symbolized the evils and falsities with which the Egyptians were taken up.

Moreover, because the Jewish nation engaged in a profanation of the Word, and this is the symbolic meaning of leprosy, therefore leprosy occurred not only in their flesh, but also in their garments, houses, and vessels. The various kinds of profanation were also symbolized by the various evil consequences of leprosy, namely swellings, the sores of the swellings, white and reddish pimples, abscesses, burning feelings, losses of skin pigmentation, scaly patches of skin, and so on (see Leviticus 13). For the church with that nation was a representational church, in which internal things were represented by external ones that corresponded to them.