Psalm 37:4

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Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4 (NKJV)

Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4 (NIV)

Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Psalm 37:4 (KJV)

Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart's desires.

Psalm 37:4 (NLT)

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4 (ESV)

Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4 (NASB)

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires and petitions of your heart.

Psalm 37:4 (AMP)

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart.

Psalm 37:4 (AMPC)

Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMPC), Copyright © 1954, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

Keep company with GOD, get in on the best.

Psalm 37:4 (MSG)

Scripture quotations from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.

New Covenant Meaning

Anag: Delight Is Exquisite Pleasure, Not Dutiful Attention

The Hebrew anag means to take exquisite pleasure in, to find one's delight, to experience the soft and delicate pleasure of something deeply enjoyed. It is not a word for dutiful attention or religious obligation. It describes the posture of a person who genuinely enjoys what they are engaged with. To anag in the LORD is to find genuine, deep pleasure in God himself: in His presence, His word, His character, His ways. This is not the performance of delight for the sake of earning the desires of the heart. It is the authentic orientation of a heart that has found in God what it was made for. The promise of verse 4b follows from genuine delight, not from the performance of it.

The Desires He Gives and the Desires He Forms

There are two ways to understand "He shall give you the desires of your heart." The first: He will grant what you desire. The second: He will place the desires themselves in your heart. Both are true in Psalm 37:4. The one who delights in the LORD finds that their desires are being shaped by the one they delight in. As you spend time genuinely enjoying God, your heart's wants gradually align with His purposes. He gives you new desires by forming your heart. And from that aligned heart, He grants the desires because they have become His desires too. This is the New Covenant promise of Ezekiel 36:26-27: a new heart and a new spirit, with God's laws written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:33). Delight in God produces a reoriented heart, and from that heart, God gives freely.

Psalm 37 is an acrostic psalm on the theme of trusting God in the face of the apparent success of the wicked. David addresses the temptation to "fret because of evildoers" (v. 1) and "be envious of workers of iniquity" (v. 1) by repeatedly calling the believer to trust, delight, commit, rest, and wait on the LORD (vv. 3-7). Verse 4 is the center of this sequence. The context matters: the desires of the heart in Psalm 37:4 are not a general wish-list mechanism. They are the desires of a heart that has stopped envying the wicked and has chosen to find its delight in God. That heart, reoriented by delight, has desires worth granting.

Application for Your Life

Delight First, Desire Second

Many people read Psalm 37:4 as a formula: delight in God so that He will grant your wishes. But the sequence is not transactional. Genuine delight in God is not a means to an end. It is the end itself. When God himself is your delight, the desires of your heart are already being fulfilled in the most fundamental sense. The specific grants that follow are the overflow of a life that has found its center in the right place. If you are finding that God is not granting the desires of your heart, the question worth sitting with is whether the delight is genuine. Not whether your delight is perfect or consistent. Whether it is real.

What You Delight In Shapes What You Desire

The person who delights in God finds that their desires gradually change. What once seemed essential begins to lose its grip. What once seemed unimportant begins to matter deeply. This is the transforming work of delight: it re-orders the heart. Philippians 4:4 says "rejoice in the Lord always." Romans 12:2 says "be transformed by the renewing of your mind." These are the New Covenant version of Psalm 37:4: the mind and heart renewed by ongoing engagement with God begins to want what He wants. That alignment is where the granting of desires becomes a natural overflow rather than a transactional exchange.

Prayer Based on This Verse

Father, I choose to delight in You. Not as a formula. Not to activate a promise. But because You are worth delighting in. You are the source of every good thing. Your presence is better than life (Psalm 63:3). I quiet my anxiety about the wicked and I quiet my fretting about what others have that I do not, and I turn my full attention to You. Form my desires. Shape my heart. Let my wants become aligned with Yours so that what I bring to You is a heart that wants what You want to give. And from that place of genuine delight, I trust You with the desires of my heart. You know them. You formed them. Give them as You see fit. In Jesus name. Amen.