Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Psalm 37:4 (KJV)
It is a real promise, and the word behind “desires” means requests. The psalm says it to someone worn down by watching wrongdoers do well, and alongside it the psalm promises a place, enough to eat in famine, and peace.
A psalm for the worn down
The psalm opens with the reader’s trouble: “Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.” Near the end the writer remembers a man who seemed to have everything: “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not.”
Many who reach for this verse are watching something else: people they love receiving the very thing they have prayed for, a wedding, a child, a job, while they wait. The psalm has a line for that reader too, three verses on: “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him.”
The commands around it
Verse four does not stand alone. Its first words, “Delight thyself also”, tie it to verse three: “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” Verses 3, 4, 5 and 7 each open with a command: trust, delight, commit, rest. Verse five says, “Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.” Verse seven says, “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him,” and the waiting meets its answer at verse nine: “those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.”
Translations read verse three differently. Where the King James has a promise, “so shalt thou dwell,” the World English Bible reads two more commands: “Dwell in the land, and enjoy safe pasture.” On both readings, the delight in verse four sits inside a whole way of living: trusting, doing good, handing your way to God, waiting.
Desires means requests
Here the popular reading gets real help. The Hebrew noun behind “desires” is the one the King James renders “petitions” in another psalm.
We will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners: the LORD fulfil all thy petitions.
Psalm 20:5 (KJV)
A petition is a definite thing, asked of someone. The verse is a promise about requests, made to a heart that delights in God, rather than a promise that God will quietly change what you want. It also leaves your particular request in his hands. The person, the child, the healing, the job you are praying for is neither named nor ruled out.
Land, bread and peace
The psalm also says, more than once, what else it promises: a floor beneath you while you ask. “Inherit” comes in five verses, 9, 11, 22, 29 and 34, always of the land or the earth, a place to stand. Verse 19 promises that “in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.” In verse 25 an old man adds his witness: “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.” That is one man’s long memory, and it passes no verdict on anyone who has gone hungry. The same psalm pictures the righteous with enough to give, a man who “sheweth mercy, and giveth,” who “lendeth.”
At verse eleven it uses “delight” a second time and names what the delight is filled with: “But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.”
Riches come up once, on the other side. Verse 16 sets a righteous man’s little above the riches of many wicked: “A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.”
Verses that sound like a deal
A few verses elsewhere sound closer to the popular reading. In Job 22, Eliphaz tells Job that if he returns to the Almighty, he will delight in him, God will hear his prayer and whatever he decrees will be established. Eliphaz is the friend God rebukes at the end of the book, and some of what he said is still true, but he is a poor foundation for a guarantee. And when Malachi 3:10 says “prove me now herewith,” it is talking about tithes brought to the storehouse, not about whatever a heart wants.
My own way of reading it
I read Psalm 37:4 for leverage, stopping at the end of the sentence, and would have said I was studying the psalm. That was my failing, and it is not the same thing as praying a request for years. Read to the end, the psalm rests on a Giver who can be trusted, like the Father of ask and you shall receive, who gives good things and puts no blame on the one asking, and it says plainly what he gives.
While you wait
If you have been asking for a long time, the psalm lets you keep asking. Its promise is real: delight in the LORD, and he will give you what your heart asks of him. It does not say when, and it does not name your request or rule it out. In the meantime it tells you to rest in him and wait patiently, and it tells you what holds while you wait: “the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble.”