PSALM 37:25. What happened?

In Psalms 37, "the righteous" applies to the believer in Jesus Christ...those who have been made righteous by the blood of God's Son.
Promises from the Lord are a comfort to those of us who are saved, and the Psalms are rich with them:

"But the salvation of the righteous [is] of the Lord: [he is] their strength in the time of trouble.
And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them,
because they trust in him. "

Yes we will suffer...and yes, He will deliver us.

 

Matthew 5:10–12 (NASB 2020)

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in this same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.​

The path before you is hard... harder than most.
It's very difficult to consider yourself blessed.
but God is there.

You quote from one verse of Psalm 37 [verse 25].

Read and follow the advise David gives in the psalm.

[7] Be patient and wait for GOD,

do not be vexed by the one who is prospering--
the opponent who carries out schemes​

[8] Give up anger, abandon fury,

do not be vexed;
it can only do harm.​

[9] For evildoers will be cut off,

but those who look to GOD--
they shall inherit the land.​

[10] A little longer and there will be no wicked;

you will look at where they were--
they will be gone.​

[11] But the lowly shall inherit the land,

and delight in abundant well-being.​

[12] The wicked scheme against the righteous

and gnash their teeth against them​

[13] My Sovereign laughs at them

knowing that their end will come​

Psalm 37:7-13 RJPS​

Rob

 

When we interpret a verse or passage, which is to say come to an understanding of what we think it means, we must be careful to not read too little or too much into the statement.

Here is one version of our verse:

Psalm 37:25
I was once young, now I am old. I have never seen a godly man abandoned, or his seed forced to search for food. ​

Here "the righteous" is rendered "a godly man." The righteous more probably refers to all those, as either an individual or as a group, having God as their steadfast loyal companion.

Sometimes we find "interpretations" based on what is a faint allusion, perhaps never intended. In searching for truth, we can construct patterns and connections based on our own bias, rather than deriving the insight from the logical necessity of the text.

In our verse, there may be an allusion to Lamentations 1:11, where exiled people suffer for want of food. But the people are not "the righteous" rather they are described in Lamentations 1:5 as:

" For the Lord afflicted her
because of her many acts of rebellion.
Her children went away
captive before the enemy. ​

We all know that righteous people can suffer and be trampled by the world. So, at most, we can count on God's strength for our endurance, and the support and compassion of our church community.