But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.
Parallel translations
- WEB But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in God’s house. I trust in God’s loving kindness forever and ever.
- BSB But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in the loving devotion of God forever and ever.
- NKJV But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.
- NASB ¶But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God; I trust in the faithfulness of God forever and ever.
- NLT But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust in God’s unfailing love.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David pictures himself as a flourishing olive tree in God's house, secure because he trusts God's love forever. It contrasts the believer's lasting fruitfulness with the wicked's destruction.
Overview
Unlike the uprooted wicked man, David is like a green olive tree planted in God's presence, thriving and enduring. His security rests not in himself but in trusting God's loving kindness forever. This image of rootedness foreshadows the lasting life believers have in Christ, the true vine (John 15).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 92:12–14The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
- Hos 14:6–8His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.
- Ps 1:3And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
- Ps 13:5But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.
- Jer 11:16The LORD called thy name, A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit: with the noise of a great tumult he hath kindled fire upon it, and the branches of it are broken.
- Rom 11:24For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
- Ps 147:11The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.
- Ps 128:3Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
- Ps 33:18Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 52:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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