Psalm 119:136 – Crying
Am I led to tears by seeing a lack of love for other people in myself and in others?
Psalm 119:109 – Risky
At the time of tough and urgent decisions you need to hahve a habit of attending to God’s instructions.
Psalm 119:97 – Loving the Law
Law can be annoying, but it is also valuable. I illustrate this by talking about a time when I couldn’t understand the rules applying to a situation.
Psalm 119:80 – Blameless
Let my heart be steadfast in your statutesso I will not be put to shame. If you immerse yourself in this Psalm, you’ll lose any sense of boastfulness and self-sufficiency. There are claims before God to being a commandment keeper, but they are well-balanced by those passages that ask the Lord to accomplish this work….
Psalm 119:55 – Remembering
I remembered your name in the night, Lord,So I followed your instruction. Dahood (Anchor Bible Psalms III) again has an alternate suggested, based on repointing the word translated “And I kept/guarded/followed.” I remember your name in the night YHWH,and during the watch, your law. I won’t discuss the arguments for his rendering, which I consider…
Psalm 119:44 – Keep it Forever
And I will keep your instruction (Torah) continuallyforever and ever. For another sense of Hebrew parallelism, note the short 2nd line here, “forever and ever.” This is parallel with “continually” and suggests a combined “all the time for all time.” If we hadn’t just read a number of verses in which the Psalmist expresses dependence…
Psalm 119:27 – From Precepts to Wonders
Explain to me the way of your preceptsand I will tell of your wonderful acts. We tend to think of particular rules or principles for living as fairly boring, somewhat annoying, and often unreasonably restrictive. We seem to live in a debate between what we ought to do and what we actually do. Even the…
Psalm 119:24
Your testimonies are also my delight,My counselors [the men of my counsel]. I like to say that we tend to go to the Bible for information, while God is there for conversation. I don’t mean that there is no information there. We tend to think in binary terms: Either the Bible is a source of…
Psalm 119:10 – Seeking and Finding
With my whole heart I have sought you.Don’t let me wander from your commands. The word here translated commands is mitsvot, which is often thought of as good deeds, but Jewish commentators use this primarily of the 613 commands in Torah. In this way, the mitsvot can be considered another way to refer to the…
Psalm 119:9 – Talking about Purity
How shall a young man keep to a pure way of life?By keeping it in the bounds of your word! I have a feeling that some would question the way I translated that verse. It’s OK. Poetry is challenging. In this case I was aiming more for meaning that being faithful to the poetic form….