Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Psalm 119 Verse-by-Verse

Meditations on the verses of Psalm 119 (yes, all 176 of them) one at a time. These are meditations, not exercises in exegesis, so I feel free to let the text roam through spaces it suggests, but may not directly teach.

  • Psalm 119:7 – Praise with Integrity

    Psalm 119:7 – Praise with Integrity

    I will praise you with an upright heart
    When I learn your righteous judgments.

    What does learning about God’s righteous (right) judgments have to do with praise?

    If we think of this Psalm as expressing joy over a list of rules, this might be a good question. If you haven’t yet, please read my earlier post on what “law” means in Psalm 119. To summarize, in Psalm 119 we heard one of God’s people praising God for God’s revelation in Torah. The various words for law direct us to the varied things that are present in this revelation of God.

    This is important in terms of praise. Genuine praise results from looking at God’s self-revelation. We look at what God has done and the response is in praise. This is genuine praise.

    There is also praise that is manipulative. “Lord, I praise you, and I want …” There is false praise. “Lord, I’m praising you because otherwise you might wipe me out. I hope you don’t notice that I don’t really mean it.”

    This doesn’t mean that praise somehow results from knowing everything there is to know about God. We’re never going to do that this side of eternity. What it does mean is that genuine praise from us results from our observation of God’s revelation.

    The more we observe, the more we praise. Not because God needs it, but because it flows from that knowledge.

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:6 – Overcoming Shame

    Psalm 119:6 – Overcoming Shame

    Then I won’t be ashamed,
    When I keep my eyes on all your commands.

    I didn’t get the poetry in my translation. It’s hard to get everything into it at once.

    This verse strikes at one of our most serious problems. Our identity. Our ability to live with ourselves.

    You’ve surely heard stories of people going on various pilgrimages to find themselves. Others go through their lives with a continuous question of whether they are important, or contribute, or make a difference of some kind. Who are we?

    Often this comes as shame. We are ashamed of things we have done. Let me confess that there are things I have done in my life of which I am not proud. Even more, I have rarely (almost never) done my work to what I consider a high level of quality. There are always things in what I do that I want to apologize for, even to myself.

    But when we get our eyes on God, in this case the God revealed in the commands he gave, we can begin to find our identity. The God who did these things actually cares about us.

    7 “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

    Deuteronomy 7:7-8 (NRSVue)

    For a New Testament quote,

    1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

    1 John 3:1a (NRSVue)

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:5 – Let’s Get Real

    Psalm 119:5 – Let’s Get Real

    Oh that my ways were steady,
    Keeping your statutes.

    Any time we’re looking at a set of standards, it’s well to be realistic, especially with ourselves. As we go through this Psalm, we’ll be celebrating God’s law in many ways and places, but there are a number of instances where the author admits his limitations and calls for help from the lawgiver.

    It would all be very good if …

    I sure wish I could, says the Psalmist. He knows it’s good. He’s glad to know it. But can he?

    I feel this. There are things in my daily life I wish I could do better. Some days are better than others.

    There’s a balance here, and we can see that balance in the rhythms of the Psalm.

    The praise is a prayer. I’m going for it! Please help me!

  • Psalm 119:4 – Tough!!

    Psalm 119:4 – Tough!!

    About your precepts you commanded,
    “Keep them diligently!”

    Sometimes things are tough. You wonder what’s coming next.

    I’m meditating on these passages one at a time. I read the passage in the morning, and then I write these in the evening. During the day, I keep coming back to that verse. In deciding to do 176 daily meditations (that’s how many verses there are in this Psalm), I knew that some would be more encouraging than others.

    This one is just tough. God says to do this diligently. Don’t just pretend. Don’t follow these precepts sometimes. Seventh percent is not a passing grade.

    I’m reminded of choosing a Sudoku puzzle. How spiritual is that? Well, I like to pick the hardest level in the app I use. Sometimes I’m tempted to do an easier one. If I give in to that temptation, I’m drawn to watch the time and try to complete it as rapidly as possible. Most of the time, however, I choose the hard one.

    Is the call of the toughest “right” living just as strong for me? Do I want to take the hard, but right path whenever possible?

    The bad news, which I notice even in a sparse verse such as this, is that I don’t get there. Not ever. I have a desire, but it’s often a fairly week desire. The good news is that God is working on me, and the fact that he has such high hopes is very encouraging.

    I think the Psalmist shares some of my feelings. But that’s the next verse!

    (The featured image was generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:3 – Not Malicious

    Psalm 119:3 – Not Malicious

    They also don’t act with malice
    In God’s ways they walk.

    This verse could be translated in many ways, but the basic message doesn’t change.

    We’ve had too verses talking about blessed people and what it is that they do. This verse introduces an “and one more thing” moment. They also don’t act maliciously. The KJV, a bit more literal than I am, says “They also do no iniquity.”

    I may just have a problem getting into this elite group!

    But let’s keep a couple more verses in this very section of the Psalm in mind, such as verse 5: “Oh that my ways were steadfast, to keep your statutes.” and the plea in verse 8: “Don’t forsake me completely!”

    The Psalmist sees a glory in the law, a glorious challenge. This is something he would like to do. The one keeping the law is in a blessed state.

    Yet he knows he’s not perfect. In verse 176, a long ways down the road from where we are, he says, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep.” That can seem like a real downer of an ending for a lengthy poem celebrating the law. But it’s nothing of the sort. It comes from the heart of someone who appreciates the beauty of God’s law, and trusts in God to seek him.

    There are two ways we tend to dodge God’s law. First, we can trim it down to size. We make it something we can do easily. We create a relaxing law of God, an undemanding law. We aim low, and generally we end up even lower than we aim.

    On the other hand, we can say, “This law is much too hard for me to keep. Forget it! It’s no good.”

    The Psalmist makes neither error. He realizes God’s law is glorious, that it is a high standard, and he’s glad of that. He also realizes that he needs the God who welcomes the seeker (119:2) is, in fact, the seeker. In this he finds great joy and great comfort.

    From a Christian perspective, this reminded me of this song, which probably dates me just a bit! Note “the buyers and the sellers were no different fellers than what I confess to be.”

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI. This post is part of a series on Psalm 119. For all entries to date, see tag Psalm 119. For a deeper look at the language and poetry of the psalm read Bob MacDonald’s series, starting here.)

  • Psalm 119:2 – The Blessing of Seeking

    Psalm 119:2 – The Blessing of Seeking

    Continuing with Psalm 119, which I began with Psalm 119:1 yesterday. There are some notes on this series there.

    Blessed are those who preserve [keep] his testimonies,
    who wholeheartedly seek him.

    In the translation I use “testimonies” as in the KJV, though there are a number of other possible translations. I’ll comment on these various words for “law” in Psalm 119, though I don’t think the author’s intention is to discuss different types of law and say different things about them. Rather, he is pointing us to the whole of God’s law in its various manifestations through the use of these various types of law.

    It’s interesting to compare two other passages that use the same word used here for “blessed.” One is Isaiah 30:18, which says those who wait on the Lord are happy/blessed. Deuteronomy 33:29 says Israel is blessed because the Lord is their shield.

    There is a blessing simply in being able to seek. The history of Israel at the time of the Exodus shows us a time when we are told the people don’t even know who to call on. Moses has to ask for the name he is to give when the people wonder who sent him.

    When the ten commandments are given at Mt. Sinai, they begin with the declaration, “I am YHWH your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

    This verse points us to the blessing there is in simply being able to seek God. This seeking is a result of the call of God. Those testimonies (covenant provisions) are the result of God’s choosing and opening to you the opportunity to seek.

    What does seeking God with your whole heart mean for you today?

  • Psalm 119:1 – Living According to God’s Law

    Psalm 119:1 – Living According to God’s Law

    Introductory Note

    I’ve been meditating on Psalm 119 recently after a conversation with an author regarding a forthcoming book reminded me of it. I’m going to write a few short devotionals. I’m not sure how many I’ll write, but reading this Psalm does make me think.

    For any devotional on Psalm 119, please remember that I’m commenting on no more than a few verses at a time, and thus won’t cover all, or even a substantial number of related ideas. Also, please remember that this is poetry, not a theological essay, so even within the text of the Psalm, ideas are not completed in a systematic way.

    Psalm 119:1

    Blessed are those blameless in their living
    Who act according to God’s instructions.

    Now there’s a challenging verse. We all have ways of avoiding it. But I think it pursues us through all our escape routes.

    Our escape routes often start from something very good. That’s what makes them so tempting.

    1. As Christians, we look immediately to the grace of God, given through Jesus. This is a good thing. We realize that being blameless and having all our actions fall within the range of God’s instructions (Torah), is not something we’re going to accomplish, and we are driven to a gracious God who forgives. But we can use this to avoid the issue. “Because God is gracious, I can safely ignore this,” we think. We think the only reason God talks about good actions is to let us know we can’t make it. But the Psalmist, at least, is talking about doing, hoping to do, an mourning the failure to do.
    2. We can decide that a totally blameless life is, in fact what we’re going to do, on our own and in this life. This leads us astray in two ways. It can be horribly discouraging and end up in cynicism, inevitable failure, and self loathing. On the other hand, it can lead us to imagine ourselves successful even when we aren’t and an incredible spiritual pride that falsely assumes one is blameless.
    3. We can engage in trimming the text, so as to make “blameless” less daunting. We can’t reach the goal, so we move the goal closer, or we pretend the goal is closer. This can result in complacency and also to a trust in ourselves for our salvation. The problem with aiming low is that we generally manage to reach no higher than our aim.

    That’s my long way of getting to this: God has instructions that are worth our attention. Even in our limited ways of attempting to follow these instructions there is blessing, not just bringing us to Christ, as important as that is, but also simply as good ways to live.

    Torah, the word used here for “instruction” (your translation may read “law”), goes beyond giving us a list of rules. I’ll discuss the various rule/law/instruction words in Psalm 119 along with other verses. It also includes stories of heroes of the faith. They were blessed in following Gods law, but they were not generally “blameless.”

    One need go no further than the last version in this section. (Psalm 119 is divided into 22 sections of 8 verses each, in which each verse begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet.) “I remember your edicts. Don’t abandon me completely!”

    The Torah referenced here is the story of how God never abandons, even those who do forget.

    Some Definitions of Law in Scripture