Psalms 73:23-24

Nevertheless is the hinge, and everything depends on what it is set against.

Asaph has just described himself in the previous verse as brutish and ignorant, a beast before God. That is his own assessment of how he had been thinking — envious, bitter, close to abandoning the whole thing. He does not withdraw it. He lets it stand and then says nevertheless.

And what follows is not a correction of his behaviour. It is a statement about a fact that was true the whole time he was wrong. I am continually with you. You have held my right hand. The tense is important: while he was in the worst of it, resenting God and envying the wicked, the hand was already holding.

Which means the holding was not a reward for recovering. It was what made recovering possible, and he only found out about it afterwards.

Then the sequence closes: guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Present guidance, future reception. He is now able to look forward, having a moment ago been unable to look at anything except other people's bank accounts.

And the same image runs through both halves — the right hand. He is held by it now, and led by it onwards. The psalm's answer to envy is not an argument. It is a grip that had never let go.