Blogging Through Psalm 119

I’m currently taking part in a men’s theology class offered by my church. We’re studying through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, and we meet monthly to discuss it, along with other issues of theology. The purpose, of course, is to provide a basis for sound teaching in the church, as scripture commands us throughout, especially in 2 Timothy 2:2: “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

The assignment for this month is to read, study, and meditate on Psalm 119, that great psalm on the Word… I thought it might be interesting to bring all of you along on that journey. So for the next 22 days, I will be blogging through Psalm 119, 8 verses per day.

An Acrostic? What’s That?

Psalm 119 is not only the longest psalm in the Bible, it’s the longest chapter of any book of the Bible, intimidating even Charles Spurgeon: “Its dimensions and its depth alike overcame me. It spread itself out before me like a vast, rolling prairie, to which I could see no bound, and this alone created a feeling of dismay.”

It has 176 verses, and it divided into 22 sections, each one corresponding to a letter of the Hebrew alphabet – aleph, beth, gimel, etc. In the original Hebrew, each line of each section actually starts with the letter, corresponding to that section making this what Bible scholars refer to as an “acrostic” psalm. You can see what that looks like here. Notice that the first letter of each group of 8 verses is the same. But don’t forget – Hebrew reads from right-to-left, so you have to look at what is (to us) the “last” letter in each row.

So, What’s It All About?
Psalm 119 is about the Bible. It’s about God’s word. Or, as Matthew Henry wrote,

The general scope and design of it is to magnify the law, and make it honourable; to set forth the excellency and usefulness of divine revelation, and to recommend it to us, not only for the entertainment, but for the government, of ourselves, by the psalmist’s own example, who speaks by experience of the benefit of it, and of the good impressions made upon him by it, for which he praises God, and earnestly prays, from first to last, for the continuance of God’s grace with him, to direct and quicken him in the way of his duty.

Now how can I put it any better than that?

Words

As we go through the psalm, we will see His word referred to in a number of different ways:

The names used to describe God’s Word are: law, testimonies, ways, precepts, statutes, commandments, ordinances, word(s), promise, judgments, faithfulness, appointment, justice and commands. (The Believer’s Bible Commentary, William MacDonald)

This in itself is insightful. Some of these are obvious references to the Bible: law, testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments, ordinances, word(s), commands. Others are not so obvious.

“Promise,” for example, is not a word that you would normally stop and say, “oh, the biblical writer is referring to scripture.” Indeed, “promise” does not appear in the NKJV (the translation I use), but it does appear in v. 41 (among others) of the NIV:

May your unfailing love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise;

In the NKJV, this is rendered as:

Let Your mercies come also to me, O LORD— Your salvation according to Your word.

Isn’t that really what the Bible is all about, anyway? The promise (word, faithfulness, testimony) of salvation? Isn’t that the whole purpose, to make us, like Timothy, complete and wise for salvation through faith?

We’ll keep these words in mind as we make our way through the psalm, and see specifically how each of them refers to God’s word, and what they have to say about it in context. By extension, we’ll learn what the psalm says to us about how to view the Bible and what role it plays in our walk with Christ. Stay tuned…