blessedness, and to warn us of the sure destruction of sinners. This then, is the matter of the first psalm, which may be looked upon in some respects, as the text upon which the whole of the psalms make up a divine sermon.”4 In his helpful introduction to the psalms Tremper Longman III, an associate professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, writes, “Psalm 1 deliberately [draws] two portraits in our minds: the portrait of the wicked man and the portrait of the wise man. The