Year 8, Day 247: Psalms 119

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Psalm 119 is a teaching psalm, designed to use the Hebrew alphabet as a means to remembering the psalm.  Being a teaching psalm, it makes sense to ask about the point.  What exactly does this psalm teach?  Without going into every stanza, what are the main points of the psalm?

As a teaching psalm, its main point is living according to the ways of the Lord.  We can tell this by examining the first and the last stanzas.  After all, the psalmist wants to put the most memorable in the easiest positions to remember.  If the psalmist starts greatly and ends greatly, the long psalm will be remembered as a great psalm.

We begin with a discussion on what it means to have the Lord’s blessing.  Those who are blessed walk in the ways of the Lord.  The psalmist is interested in steadfastness and determination when keeping the Lord’s statutes.  It is hard to make the right decision time and time again.  It is hard to consistently chase away the temptation to pursue selfish thought.  As a teaching psalm, the psalmist tackles on of the biggest areas of human weakness.  We are good in the moment, but sometimes we falter when it comes to the long haul.  If we are the Lord’s, we need to be the Lord’s at all times.  That needs to be our persistent focus.

The stanzas continue to pass throughout the psalm, but again and again the focus is upon the ways of the Lord.  We approach the idea that the ways of the Lord lead us to praise.  The ways of the Lord keep us from harm.  The ways of the Lord allow us to escape danger.  The ways of the Lord have many applications and genuinely leads to a better life lived.

This brings us to the last psalm.  It begins no different than we would expect: Give me an understanding according to your word!  Once more the ways of the Lord are cast before us, even as we close out this psalm.  His law is our delight.  His statutes are worth leaning.  His commandments are right.  His rules help us.  The last stanza is one of the most forceful in its focus on the ways of the Lord.

I love how this psalm ends.  “I have gone astray like a lost sheep.  Seek out your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.”  I could write another entire blog post about this line alone.  Clearly it is putting a great stamp on the idea that the ways of the Lord are important to our life.  It does more than that, however.  It is a confession.  Even knowing that the ways of the Lord should be our focus, we still go astray.  We still need the Lord to seek us out. 

There is still more.  Just because I stray into sin does not mean that I have forgotten the Lord.  The psalmist is drawing out the fact that we can have a life genuinely focused upon the Lord yet have moments of sin. Just because I have gone astray and I need the Lord to seek me out does not mean that I have lost my salvation or risk mortal peril.  It is human to have lapses of judgment.  Yes, we must also deal with the consequences of such actions.  Yet, the psalmist knows that God does not abandon us for a single moment of sin.  Our perfection is marred, but our relationship with God need not be.

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