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If you’ve ever played baseball or softball, you know how important it is to have your feet planted in the right position. If the batter fails to plant their feet, they don’t have a solid base, so they only have a fraction of the power, and their basic fundamentals are hindered. Now imagine that same concept applied to our relationship with God’s Word. If we aren’t planted and rooted; if we aren’t firmly based on a solid foundation, we won’t be balanced, our power will be lost, and the basic fundamentals of your spiritual walk will be hindered. However, the opposite is true also. If we are solidly planted in God’s Word, we have access to power and prosperity…
The word translated as “planted” in this verse is the Hebrew word shathal, and it means “to plant” or “to transplant.” The proximity of a tree to water is a matter of life or death. If it has a constant flow of water, it will flourish.
If we read the verses before this, we see that this is what God promises to the person who delights in and meditates on, God’s Torah— will flourish. Notice that the verse doesn’t say this person, “will be like a tree growing by the stream” as if the tree grew there by itself or by chance.
No, this tree in Psalm 1:3 was specifically “planted” (or transplanted) there beside the stream. In the same way, if we’re going to flourish in this life and the next, we must “plant ourselves” in God’s Word. Humans can’t think and act in a truly godly manner if we just act out of our own natural impulses and desires. It takes a deliberate effort to be “transformed”, (Rom.12:2) to have a godly heart and mind.
Notice, however, that the Psalmist regards this behavior as the appropriate activity of the righteous without any hint of legalism—it flows from a heart of love and devotion. The focus for this study is to break down the idea shared here, and as we’ll see, this same idea is shared in other places of the Bible. Focusing on Psalm 1:3, the first thing we see here is the phrase “that person”. For our study, we’ll call “that person”- “the guy”. will be like a tree, planted by the water…. So, when I see that “this guy” will be like a tree, I want to know what makes this “the guy?”
So, the first thing I notice that makes “this guy” the guy, in the text is that he shuns evil and does not keep in company with those of the world but delights himself in the law of the Lord.
What makes this so ironic to a worldly mind is to say “his delight is in the law.” Most people get sour faced when you bring up “THE LAW”, and “delight” isn’t a word they’d use to describe it.
Why do some delight in the law of the Lord, but others don’t? Let’s contemplate that question for a bit…
These two opposing mindsets demonstrate how sometimes there’s a disconnect in recognizing the relationship between God and His Word. If we don’t, (or feel that we can’t), delight in God’s Law, that’s a strong indicator that we’ve placed our will above the FATHER’S. Rather than allowing God to transplant us, we run from His Law, as if that will make it void.
We may even try to justify ignoring His law by falling into the “hyper-grace” trap. The thing we must all understand is that stains don’t come out easily. We have been stained by this world with sin, and our very nature is planted and rooted in sin. The law isn’t a punishment but rather a guide to open us up and allow a perfect God to work in and through an imperfect person bringing about our perfection through Christ.
The word we see used in Psa. 1:3 is Shathal, which means to plant. But in a deeper study of this word we see it more specifically means to transplant. To place something in a new, desirable location.
So, when we read Psa. 1:3, we may get excited about “The Guy” being like a tree planted by this beautiful river. The tree is heathy and full of fruit and its leaves are beautiful all year. It makes our spirit leap and our heart smile. But when we study it, we realize that just because we got excited, that doesn’t qualify us to be “The Guy”. Something has to happen first. A change needed to take place before we could be “The Guy”.
The truth is that we were planted and rooted in sin before we made our first bad decision. We were born amongst thorns and briars with pests and diseases. We were sin sick from the day we were born. We needed to be Shathal, (Transplanted).
Here’s where we often time’s go wrong. We expect that God will prepare the soil, carefully uproot us and gently place us into good soil. Wrong! God has prepared the soil and made it good with nutrients and placed streams of His spirit there to feed us, but it is OUR jobs to do the transplanting. We must make the decision to get out of what we were born into and get into what we were saved for.
We can’t save ourselves. That’s why God first gave the law and finally gave us His Son, to first point out our sin and to finally wash away our sin. That was the soil being prepared. That was the Living Water being poured out. But we must be transformed in order to be transplanted. How do we do this?
We meditate on His Word. Every word of His Word. We separate ourselves from the world that we were planted in and plant ourselves in His Word. Rom. 12:1-2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We renew our mind by constantly contemplating God’s Word, which in turn grows our trust and confidence in Him.
Here we have the same message, with the same context and idea: If you delight in the lord and place your confidence in Him and His Word, you are Shathal (Transplanted) by the water and become fruitful.
In these verses the Bible has repeated the same vision found in Psalm 1:3. That raises the question: Since God’s Word has doubled down on this concept, is there an even deeper aspect to what’s being presented, and if so, does the Bible offer any more clarity? Indeed it does…
Now we have a prophetic vision of a river flowing from the temple and upon its riverbanks are fruit trees described like “The Guy” from Psa. 1:3, whose fruit is plenty in his season and the leaves never wither…
God had a plan of salvation before salvation was ever needed. Along the journey until the savior appeared, He was already planning the end from the beginning. If this is the deeper aspect and layer of those verses in Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17, it stands to reason that this too would be repeated in some way in the Bible. Sound a little farfetched? Look at this…
This is the final destination of those that have been transplanted, (shathal) by the river. This is the goal of all of God’s children. So we must ask ourselves, are we planted in the WORD or the world? AMEN