Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 1:3

"And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water, That bringeth forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also doth not wither; And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." — Psalms 1:3 (ASV)

And he. — Better, So is he. For the image is so striking in an Eastern region, where vegetation depends on proximity to a stream (Psalms 92:12; Isaiah 44:4; and its development in Jeremiah 17:7-8). The full moral significance of the image appears in our Lord’s parabolic saying, A good tree cannot bring forth corrupt fruit, nor an evil tree good fruit. The physical growth of a tree has in all poetry served as a ready emblem of success, just as its decay has been an emblem of failure (recall Wolsey’s comment on his fall in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.).

Nor has the moral significance of vegetable life been ignored. “If,” says a German poet, “you would attain to your highest, go look upon a flower, and what that does unconsciously, do consciously.” In Hebrew poetry a moral purpose is given to the grass on the mountain side and the flower in the field, and we are taught that “there is not a virtue within the widest range of human conduct, not a grace set on high for man’s aspiration, which has not its fitting emblem in vegetable life.” — Bible Educator, Vol. II, p. 179.

For the general comparison of a righteous man to a tree, compare Psalm 3:8 (the olive), Psalms 128:3 (vine); Hosea 14:6 (olive and cedar). Naturally, the actual kind of tree in the poet’s thought interests us. The oleander suggested by Dean Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, 146), though answering the description in many ways, fails from its lack of fruit to satisfy the principal condition. For, as Bishop Hall says, “Look where you will in God’s Book, you will never find any lively member of God’s house, any true Christian, compared to any but a fruitful tree.” Probably the palm meets all the conditions best .

The last clause, Whatsoever he doeth, it shall, etc., is obscure in construction. The best rendering is, all that he doeth he maketh to prosper, which may mean either “the righteous man carries out to a successful end all his enterprises,” or “all that he begins he brings to a maturity.”