Today’s reading was the beautiful chapter of Psalm 119.
Just thinking of the level of poetry that went into this Psalm is incredible. It’s beautiful in English…but in the Hebrew, each stanza takes the reader through the Hebrew alphabet. In the first stanza, each phrase begins with aleph, then bet, then gimmel, all the way to tav (the equivelent of A, B, and all the way Z). It's masterful work. The writing in itself is an act of worship.
The Psalm is fairly well known thanks to the catchy, 1984 Amy Grant tune that popularized Psalm 119:105, "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Sorry--I'm not sorry--that the song is now stuck in your head. If you haven't heard it, it's actually worth getting lodged forever in your temporal lobe. While I question a little bit of her exegesis and application, the song has undoubtedly ministered, encouraged, and comforted millions. Listen to Amy herself introduce the classic below.
But even over the melody of Amy's raspy voice, what stood out more than anything this time reading through all 176 verses of this Psalm was how much the writer loves the law itself. He truly is delighting in it. More than praise for the Scriptures, his words drip with overwhelming gratitude for the decrees of the Almighty. He’s looking back on his times of struggle and affliction and giving thanks for the part God’s commandments and statutes played in his life.
“Your statues have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.”
What would it look like to love God's Word as the Psalmist loves? What would it mean to actually lift up our hands toward God's commandments that we say we love, and actually meditate on them day and night! Such a lifestyle of studying God's law would have to seep in to our behavior. In verses 98-100, the Psalmist notices that abiding by the law makes him wiser than the world. Can we ask for a better contemporary application? Simply by following the Word of God we avoid endless trouble and heartache. So much so that the world looks at us and thinks, "Why do you have it so good? How have you escaped such trouble?" And here, in this Psalm, is the answer,
“I love your law. Great peace have those who love your law.”
