Psalm 119:117 – Sustain
Sustain me and I shall be saved,
And I will continually meditate on your statutes.
The Message gives a nice feel for this verse:
Stick with me and I’ll be all right;
Psalm 119:117, The Message
I’ll give total allegiance to your definitions of life.
Now this translation has the problem that many do, which is that it’s clearer than the text it translates. One of the features of poetry is expression which evokes meaning and feeling, but does not lay it out blow by blow. Nonetheless, a translation like The Message can sometimes force us to look for the boundaries of a text.
One thing I prefer over The Message on this verse is the idea of meditation. The verb used in Hebrew can cover a lot of ground, such as “gaze at,” “pay attention to,” and yes, “meditate” or “keep/observe.” The precise point in that range of meanings that the author intended is difficult to say for certain. My view is that in poetry, the intent is often to evoke broader meaning. When we narrow such a verse to just one set of precise meanings, we can lose the intention of the verse.
And that’s the thing about meditation. An attorney needs to know more than simply the textual content of the law. In our legal tradition, they need to know the history of interpretation in the form of previous court rulings. Once they know that, they also need to be able to understand the story into which they have been drawn in order to know how they can apply all that material to their particular situation.
It is similar with God’s law. God could have inspired a compendium, carefully cataloged and containing just the specific ordinances. But that’s not what we have. If you’d like to see what that would look like, consider passages such as Exodus 22 & 23 or the Hammurabi Code. These are codes of law, but in the case of those chapters of Exodus, the code is contained in history, and the foundation of that code of law is in the actions of the lawgiver.
Is it any wonder that the psalmist can spend 176 verses expressing his joy in the law? He can see his God in that law, and in the way in which that law was presented. He knows that the reality behind the law is the creator-redeemer God. The word used here for “saved” as I uncreatively translated it, can also be translated with words like “be rescued” or “be victorious.”
The God revealed in the law is the God who saves. When one meditates on the law, one learns about the lawgiver who also rescues, supports, and sustains to the end.
I again find this verse to be an encapsulation in two short lines of the message of the Psalm.
Live today as a child of the Creator who sustains you. Always!
(Featured image credit: Viktor Aheiev. Licensed via iStockPhoto.com.)
