While this is primarily designed to show all the posts in my current series of meditations on Psalm 119 one verse at a time, which started in November, 2024, it also includes any other posts that are tagged Psalm 119.
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Psalm 119:143 – Trouble!
By henry • April 15, 2025Trouble and anguish have found me,
Still I delight in your commands.I’m going to let a Psalm take over commentary for today.
1 In you, LORD, I take refuge.
Psalm 71, World English Bible, slightly modified by me.
Never let me be disappointed.
2 Deliver me in your righteousness, and rescue me.
Turn your ear to me, and save me.
3 Be to me a rock of refuge to which I may always go.
Give the command to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
4 Rescue me, my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.
5 For you are my hope, Lord GOD,
my confidence from my youth.
6 I have relied on you from the womb.
You are he who took me out of my mother’s womb.
I will always praise you.
7 I am a marvel to many,
but you are my strong refuge.
8 My mouth shall be filled with your praise,
with your honor all day long.
9 Don’t reject me in my old age.
Don’t forsake me when my strength fails.
10 For my enemies talk about me.
Those who watch for my soul conspire together,
11 saying, “God has forsaken him.
Pursue and take him, for no one will rescue him.”
12 God, don’t be far from me.
My God, hurry to help me.
13 Let my accusers be disappointed and consumed.
Let those who want to harm me be covered with disgrace and scorn.
14 But I will always hope,
and will add to all of your praise.
15 My mouth will tell about your righteousness,
and of your salvation all day,
though I don’t know its full measure.
16 I will come with the mighty acts of the Lord GOD
I will make mention of your righteousness, even of yours alone.
17 God, you have taught me from my youth.
Until now, I have declared your wondrous works.
18 Yes, even when I am old and gray-haired, God, don’t forsake me,
until I have declared your strength to the next generation,
your might to everyone who is to come.
19 God, your righteousness also reaches to the heavens.
You have done great things.
God, who is like you?
20 You, who have shown us many and bitter troubles,
you will let me live.
You will bring us up again from the depths of the earth.
21 Increase my honor
and comfort me again.
22 I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, my God.
I sing praises to you with the lyre, Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips shall shout for joy!
My soul, which you have redeemed, sings praises to you!
24 My tongue will also talk about your righteousness all day long,
for they are disappointed, and they are confounded,
who want to harm me. -
Psalm 119:142 – Eternal
By henry • April 14, 2025Your righteousness is right forever,
and your instruction is reliable.I commonly use the phrase “God’s eternal law” in discussing the absolute, eternal, immutable law of God. This is what defines who God is and the purpose of the universe, and is not subject to our perspective. That is to say, objective law. God’s law which is forever, in the words of this verse.
Our problem is that we cannot really comprehend eternal things, nor can we truly comprehend things objectively. There is always an element of our own experience in what we do. It is a statement of faith when we claim that God’s law is, in fact eternal.
Each individual law contained in scripture, or expressed in any other way is a derivative of God’s eternal law. A particular expression of God’s law is never the same as God’s eternal law, though it derives its authority from that eternal law. Just as I understand God as without beginning or end, and as trinity, things which are not empirically observable, so I understand God’s law as eternal, again something which cannot be objectively demonstrated.
Growing up, I regularly heard the ten commandments described as God’s eternal law. This was to be distinguished from various other laws, largely ceremonial, in Torah, which are temporary. (Note that this is growing up in a Christian, Seventh-day Adventist home. This is not the understanding of Judaism.)
The problem here is that Torah itself does not make this particular distinction. All of the laws given by God are binding. They may be binding at different times, on different people, and under different circumstances, but they remain divine law.
I maintain that all expressions of law that we can receive an understand relate to particular times and circumstances. Some are much more eternal and broadly applicable than others. All derive from God’s eternal law. None are, themselves, eternal in form and expression.
I’m going to embed two videos here that come from my series on Paul from some years ago. The first begins a discussion of reading about law in scripture.
The second follows up with more detail.
Now there are a few sessions between these two, so if you are very determined, you can view the playlist.
But now we jump to the second half of the verse. “Eternal” is daunting and impossible to reach. Sometimes we have a tendency to dismiss the things we cannot fully understand. But with this statement we get the other side. We can rely on God’s instruction. We may not be able to fully comprehend the source, but we can rely on what we have.
In real life we learn to accept what works. We get on airplanes and travel without having a full conception of how that aircraft works. We don’t often think about it, but that aircraft is also not perfectly made. It would be hard to even conceive of what perfect means. Every part is tested, not to some absolute perfection, but rather to certain tolerances. We live with this sort of thing every day.
One way to discover that you can rely on certain things as a way to live is simply to try them. Taste and see that God is good. Try it. Don’t get shaken by what you can’t understand. You can understand enough.
Take the challenge to adventure with an incomprehensibly great God!
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Psalm 119:141 – Despised
By henry • April 13, 2025Though I am small and despised,
I do not forget your precepts.There are two times when it is difficult to stay on the right track: When things are going well and people are praising you, and when things are going badly, and people look down on you. Either of these can make you turn away from the right path.
Well, then there’s the third option, which is that things are going moderately well. Well enough for you to be comfortable, but not so well that people are coming and praising you. Then there’s a major temptation to apathy, to contentment with things being not so bad.
In real life, we may be confronted with any of these situations. We can find that ridicule prevents us from doing what is right or speaking of what is right. Or when things are going well, we find pride taking over, and we start to think too well of ourselves, and often speaking too highly of ourselves to others.
Then there is the way that is simple, but very hard. That is to think of ourselves as we ought to. Paul speaks about this in Romans 12:3 —
I tell all among you through the grace that has been given to me that you shouldn’t think of yourselves as better than you are, but you should think of yourselves properly {or wisely}, each according to the wisdom God has measured out to them.
This verse doesn’t tell you that you should always think of yourself poorly. You don’t have to say that you are small and despised as did the psalmist. It’s likely you’ll feel that way sometimes, but that’s not some type of “holy” goal. Nor should you consider yourself more important than others. Rather, you’re supposed to think of yourself as you really are, as God sees you.
This invites a change of vision, a change of perspective. And the psalmist tells us where we need to be. We need to be looking at what is right. He speaks of God’s precepts, as he has elsewhere spoken of God’s word, God’s testimonies, God’s statues, God’s judgments, and God’s commands.
That’s all the long version of saying, “What’s right.”
That is often our problem. We aren’t concerned with what’s right, but rather with what other people think of us. That is never a good place to be. Sometimes the person whose opinion matters to you is himself out of sync with what is right, and may be despising you for the things you won’t do in order to get ahead.
How are you going to look at yourself today?
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Psalm 119:140
By henry • April 12, 2025You’re word is thoroughly tested.
Your servant loves it.Several translations use “promise” rather than “word” here. There is some reason to do that, but in this case I like “word” as having a broader meaning that includes “promise.”
In what way is God’s word thoroughly tested? We talk about being sure of God’s word, of it being true, of God being faithful, but what drives us to believe that?
This is a case where experience is very important. Many people play down experience as less reliable than scripture, and in one important way it is. The reason your experience is less reliable than scripture is that it has not had the same testing that God’s word given in scripture has.
Scripture is a recounting of the experience of lots of people with God. Even when scripture records a specific statement with “the Lord says this,” that is an experience of God. If you don’t think hearing from God is an experience, then I hope you’ll have a chance to experience it. If you don’t remember such an experience, read that of some of the prophets, such as Ezekiel 1 or Isaiah 6.
So if you have an experience of hearing from God, what’s the difference? The difference is testing. God’s word in scripture has been testing over the centuries over and over again and we have found it secure. We’re not questioning this any more. It has become the experience against which you can test your everyday experience for validity.
I personally believe that God can still speak today. How will you know if that happens? There are many things I could mention, but the key one is this: Read that tested word in scripture and become so familiar with with it that you know God’s voice beyond doubt.
Try listening for God’s voice today. Remember to check out the tested word as well!
(Featured image generated by Adobe Firefly using a prompt created by Gemini AI. Yes, I’m experimenting.)
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Psalm 119:139 – Zeal
By henry • April 11, 2025I am overcome by my zeal,
because my enemies have forgotten your word.What exactly makes you angry about another person?
Few of us can claim that we have not been provoked to anger by something about another person. The question is whether or not the cause of our anger is valid. But, you say, we’re talking about zeal. True, but more precisely we’re talking about an emotion regarding other people that is overwhelming.
So let’s use “zeal,” as I did in the translation. What gets you feeling zealous? What gets you to take action about something?
And that’s where we can join the Psalmist. For him, what gets him going is that there are people out there who have forgotten God’s word. I wonder what he did about it.
Often we speak against anger (or sometimes any emotion) as though the emotion itself is bad. I don’t think this is right. I’ll note that when Jesus spoke against anger, it was against anger at your brother that could lead you to doing harm.
I can get very angry, but my most common approach to interaction is reconciliation. I want to get people talking to one another, or having a dialogue with me, with the hope that we’ll work out some good solution to our problems. I may want to convince them of the (obviously excellent!!!) approaches that I absolutely know are right. Even so, I generally want a solution reached through dialog. One of the things that bothers me most is that so many times people just won’t talk. Either they’ve talked too long already, or the other person is too far off the map for them to engage with.
And I admit that there are times when these people are right. I have the experience of wasting time talking with people and trying to create meetings and discussions to bring reconciliation when the parties simply weren’t sincerely interested in a peaceful or friendly solution.
I don’t entirely like the word “balance,” but there is a balance needed here. Or perhaps an integration. Strong emotions exist for a reason. We need to get angry in order to bring ourselves to action. When there is injustice, when people are being hurt, when people’s lives are destroyed, we need to be angry. And if we consider the law as I discussed it a few days ago, as summed up by loving one another, then when we see people hurting others, our zeal should overcome us, because they have forgotten God’s word.
On the other hand, we find it much easier to get angry at the other people because they annoy us and not because they have forgotten God’s law. Then we like to pretend tat we’re angry about their failure to serve God properly, while it’s really just that they rub us the wrong way.
What should you be angry about today?
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Psalm 119:138 – Righteous and True
By henry • April 10, 2025You have sent forth your testimonies righteously,
And very truthfully.I have been treating the word I translate here as “testimonies” as focusing on the stories contained overall in Torah, and also throughout scripture and our experience. The other day I saw a question posted on Facebook regarding a certain aspect of Christian ministry. The person asking the question said specifically that he wanted an answer based both on scripture and experience.
The story is important. We often look at stories and wonder if they are factually true. We wonder if they are absolutely accurate in every detail. The idea here is that the key message to get is what precisely happened. On the other hand, we can look at stories as metaphorical, always carrying some message, but with the actual details totally irrelevant.
Most stories, however, are true in multiple ways. They can also be false in multiple was as well. When you see a meme posted on social media, you should always ask the question: Is this based on actual events or data? Beyond that you should also ask whether that information is being used to convey a true result, or to produce valid, effective, and morally good results.
In all cases, I’m ignoring details. Details are the playground of critics. Stories we like will be excused for minor, inconsequential errors. Stories we don’t like will be picked apart for every possible error of detail in order to diminish the message.
The stories in the Bible are frequently important in multiple ways. Rarely are stories present in scripture in order to satisfy curiosity. They are there to present a narrative of God’s actions. This means we can study them from multiple angles. We can try to understand God’s intent in the stories. We can learn about God’s laws and how they might apply by meditating on the stories of how those laws came to be.
We live as part of a story of faith that extends back into prehistory and looks forward to the consummation of all things. God is still sending out–commanding, if you will–righteous testimonies.
He is sending them out with you today. What message are you sent forth to convey?
(Featured image generated by Adobe Fireflly from a prompt created by Gemini based on my input.)
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Psalm 119:137 – Right
By henry • April 9, 2025You are righteous, Oh LORD,
and your judgments are correct.Have you ever noticed all the things we say about God that might sound like value judgments?
Everything from God is love or God is good to God is just or God is righteous. Just how did we make that determination and is it ours to make? Come to think of it, what would we do about it if we happened to be wrong? If we quit worshiping or praising God, speaking of all these wonderful attributes, God would still be God and would still do precisely what God wants. Who could stop God?
Of course we don’t mean that we have evaluated God and decided that God passes all the God-tests. We really don’t! But at the same time, we’re right ready to complain if God doesn’t pass some of the God tests. In our superior opinion, of course.
So is there anything worthwhile going on here or are we just repeating stuff because other people have repeated it for how long we don’t know?
I’d suggest that these kinds of affirmations do serve a very real purpose. They help us remember that we are going somewhere, that there are options for things to be better, and that we do actually matter. If God is good, then there is goodness at the other end of our activities, our lives, and even our universe. It’s not all just a jumbled mess.
In fact, I have known people who don’t believe in God to make similar affirmations about the world we live in. Like various religious believers, they make these affirmations with various levels of assurance. Sometimes it’s a faint hope that things can get better. At other times it’s a determination.
Over may years I’ve seen this note after various national elections. I always say that God is in control. As affirmed in Daniel 4, God rules in the kingdoms of men. Sometimes God sets over them the basest of men. In the dialect of English I used there, “basest” is not a compliment.
Inevitably someone then asks me why I bother to vote if I think God rules it all. I think that gets it absolutely backwards. Because God rules, I believe there is a good goal to work toward. Because God rules, I feel I owe the situation the best that I can do. With Dr. Martin Luther King I affirm that ?the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I immediately want to bend it faster!
We really have our own choice of hope or despair, and it is a choice. If we choose despair, it will follow us all our days. If we choose hope, we will pursue that all our days.
Will you choose hope, and righteousness, today?
(Featured image generated by Adobe Express, which uses Adobe Firefly based on a prompt produced in a discussion with Gemini AI.)
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Psalm 119:136 – Crying
By henry • April 8, 2025Streams of water flow from my eyes,
Because people don’t follow your instructions.What makes you cry?
We are often driven to tears by sad events in our lives or in the lives of our loved ones. We can be driven to tears through anger about what someone else does to us. We can be driven to tears by weariness, when life just won’t stop driving us.
The Psalmist is crying because people are not keeping God’s law or instructions. The word here is Torah, which I have chosen to translate throughout these meditations with the word instruction/instructions. It covers the many categories of instruction that God has provided.
When Rabbi Hillel the Elder was asked if he could summarize Torah while standing on one foot, he said, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary.” That is one of many statements of what we call the golden rule. Jesus gave something very similar, though more than half a century later in Matthew 7:12.
Jesus also summarized the law in another way. He said that we are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart soul and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:40). I hear this taught frequently, but I wonder how often we really take it seriously. Jesus continued by saying that on these two commands “hang” all the law and the prophets. This sounds very important. I’m looking right now at the NLT, which says, “The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” That might clarify things in case we’re having trouble with the word “hang.”
And please note that the two commands go back to Leviticus and Deuteronomy. They were not a new revelation when Jesus mentioned them. Jesus was quoting scripture.
One of my practical hermeneutical principles is simply this: If you are interpreting scripture, test your interpretation by seeing if you can make it hang from one of these two laws. In 1 John we get an extension of this when John tells us we should love one another because love is from God (4:7a), everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God (4:7b), the one who does not love does not know God (4:8). Then in verse 20 he asks how someone can say they love God but don’t love their brother. How can you love God, whom you have not seen, but not love your brother, whom you have seen.
I have drawn in all these verses in order ask this: When we see an absence of love, does that make us cry? Can we say, “Streams of water flow from my eyes, because the people in your church don’t really love one another?” What about “Streams of water flow from my eyes, because the people in the church don’t love the whole world, those who are near and far, those who belong to the church and those who don’t?”
It’s really nice of me (I pause to pat myself on the back) to state these questions in that polite, unchallenging manner. Here’s the real question: “Do streams of waters flow from my eyes because I am not showing love to everyone God has put in my path?”
Did I care enough about the elderly man I saw sitting in front of Walmart this afternoon? Sadly, no. I thought about him for a moment or two, and a fleeting thought suggested maybe I should say or do something, but my focus on my own problems took over and I walked right past him. Was that the love of Christ motivating all my actions?
Jody and I were discussing this and connecting it to the great commission. If we are to make disciples, what will characterize those disciples? Well, Jesus said, “In this way will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). And if you’re wondering about what love is or how Jesus understood love, practiced love, remember that he was on the way to the cross.
Nope, I can’t say I cared as much for that man in front of Walmart as Jesus has cared for me. And that should make me sad.
What will make you sad today? More importantly, what can you do to live that great commission to make disciples, disciples characterized by love?
Let’s turn that around! What act of sharing God’s love will allow you to rejoice at the end of the day?
(Featured image was generated by Adobe Firefly in Adobe Express using a prompt generated by Gemini AI. Yes, I’m experimenting.)
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Psalm 119:134 – Ransom
By henry • April 6, 2025Ransom me from human oppression,
and I will keep your precepts.Are you oppressed? Do other people have a hold on you that keeps you from being the person God wants you to be?
This is another verse that I have heard presented as a bargain with God. “Save me from whatever my problem is and in turn I’ll do what you tell me to do.” But I think that’s not the right way to read it. I think the question is whether one can, in fact, do those precepts.
We tend to think of oppression as a sort of physical restraint or application of force to make us do thinks we don’t want to do, or not do the things we do want to do. Slaves have experienced this over the years. We should always stand for liberating people from that sort of oppression.
But there are other forms of constraint. For example, there is economic oppression. It connects to the same sort of force, but applied in a more subtle way. A person is forced into an endless, losing struggle by circumstances that prevent them from ever escaping, no matter how hard they try.
Someone with more freedom will ask why don’t they just break free. But that is not always as easy as it may appear. In fact, we fairly often fail to recognize the kinds of oppression that someone else is suffering due to circumstances beyond their control. In real life, a single mistake can lead to a life of very limited choices.
There is also psychological oppression. I know someone who became a nurse rather than a doctor, largely because so many people either simply assumed that, as a woman, she would be a nurse, or told her she lacked the academic skills to be a doctor. Now as it was, she became a very good nurse, giving extraordinary service. Her life was by no means wasted. I also don’t consider being a doctor better than being a nurse. It depends on what you are gifted and called to do. But her choice was constrained by a mob of voices telling her, “woman -> nurse.”
When teaching about spiritual gifts in various churches, I frequently carry out an exercise in which I ask people to name their own gifts. There will inevitably be one or more people who can’t identify any gift that they have. I then ask the members of the group to identify gifts they see in others in the room. Inevitably again, someone will point out a gift that person has that is recognized by others.
That is a moment of liberation from oppression. A person realizes that they are gifted and called, and they are of value to God and to their community.
I then call on people to search for and recognize gifts in the people around them and to let people know. Simply thanking a person in a way that lets them know that their gift is of value, and that they themselves are valuable, can go a long way toward liberating someone to carry out the calling God has on their life.
I work in two areas that people think of as requiring serious brain power: Information Technology and Biblical Languages. It’s amazing what people will think you’re capable of understanding if they know you read Greek. Many times I have gotten on my soapbox and lectured people when they say, “I’m not as smart as you. I don’t read Greek.” It’s probably not helpful when I get irate, but I do. Why? I can’t remember a time when someone spoke to me like that who didn’t have gifts and skills that I can’t imagine doing.
There’s probably something you do that will amaze other people if they just become aware of it.
Now I’ve gone far afield. Or have I? There’s another form of oppression, and it’s related. It’s the more generalized chorus of people telling each one of us that we’re less than other people for whatever reason. We’re told that we’re worthless, or useful only for minor, menial occupations. Often those occupations, as we practice them, are part of what keeps us away from God–from all that God has for us in this life. (And note that I don’t believe any occupation is menial by nature. It is only menial if we don’t value it as we should.)
So how can we be ransomed from a life of failures and regrets? If that “human oppression” is keeping you from getting to the purpose God has for you, God’s precepts as applied in your life, then it is ransoming you need. You need to take your new identify as a child of God, and realize that your horizons are not limited by the thoughts of others, or the limits of your own vision, but by God’s purpose.
Yes, you can apply the concept of ransom to salvation, and that is appropriate. But I’m talking about God ransoming you from the day to day oppression of an identity as a failure, as someone worth less than you are. You are a child of God. Let that be what sets your goals, and sets, or shatters. your limits.
What oppression are you going to break today?
(Featured image credit: chaiyapruek2520 on iStockPhoto.com.)
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Psalm 119:133 – Mastery
By henry • April 5, 2025Establish my steps in your word.
Don’t let any evil have mastery over me.I like the rendering of the REB for this one, and in fact used the word “mastery” as they do.
Make my step firm according to your promise,
Psalm 119:133 (REB)
and let no wrong have the mastery over me.Note that this translation is very different in what it prioritizes to convey than the translation I took from Seeing the Psalter in yesterday’s post. In that book, the emphasis is on the connections in word usage and in Psalm 119 on the acrostic. The REB emphasis is on conveying meaning to a modern audience. This is a legitimate difference in translations, but it is useful to be aware of the translators’ intent when reading.
I’m very interested in this text, because it relates to a couple of theological concepts I use personally. One of these is the idea of mastery. You will be mastered by something. I’ll look first at a New Testament passage for this:
When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness…. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification.
Romans 6:20,22 (NRSV)This relates also to the two ways concept which is presented in Deuteronomy: “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity” (30:15). You’re going to have one or the other.
In Paul’s case he carries on with this subject in Romans 7 discussing this slavery and the liberation which he then expounds in Romans 8.
Jesus says something similar in the Sermon on the Mount.
No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
Matthew 6:24 (NRSV)I’d also add Galatians 5:16-26 were we have the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit contrasted.
Each of these text shows a binary choice as to where our loyalties will be, or whom we will serve.
I wrote a note on these textual relationships earlier today. Here I’m bringing together concepts that were not originally intended to work together, nor is there a textual relationship between Deuteronomy 30:15 and Galatians 5:16-26. Yet I would bring them together in talking about this idea of a core approach to life which controls who we are. If you reference my note above regarding textual relationships, these are all in #6 and #7, things I have brought together, and not necessarily relationships I believe the authors would actually have noted.
All this leads to a basic question: What drives you?
(Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)