Psalm 121

A second “Song of Ascents”. There are a number of very familiar verses in this short Psalm – for me, verses 1-4, 6, 8. I am particularly fond of verse 4: Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. It’s comforting to know that our God is a 100% God. Part of His eternal nature is that, for us, He is a 24/7 God. I say “for us” in that “time” is a concept that we apply for ourselves that does not constrain God in any way! All of our four kids did Study Abroad semesters or other time in Europe on their own. I remember saying that God could watch over them in Europe better than Carol and I could watch over them in our basement. He is always “awake” for me, for you, and for those you love. Sweet!

Psalm 120

Only seven verses, following on Psalm 119’s 176 verses! Today’s psalm begins with the heading, “A Song of Ascents”. We see this today and we’ll see it for the next fourteen psalms (Psalms 120-134). Scholars have suggested one of two meanings for these headings. The first is a suggestion that these psalms are prayed or sung by someone who is walking up the steps leading to the Temple. It could also include the whole of the journey for someone who lived in Jerusalem as they walked to the Temple, since the Temple was built on a high hill, Mount Moriah. (See the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22.)

I’m more attached to the second argument, that travelers from afar would pray and sing these psalms as they journeyed to Jerusalem for one of the annual feast days. That understanding rings true in today’s Psalm, since the psalmist mentions his sojourn in Meshech and his dwelling in Kedar (v. 5).

I’ve mentioned before how the psalms can trigger a different interpretation in my head, different from what the psalmist meant or what Biblical scholars say. Today, another one of those cases. In today’s first four verses the standard interpretation is that the psalmist is being verbally attacked by an adversary – a straightforward explanation. But I saw it as the psalmist speaking to himself about his own tongue! It could be that with his tongue he is lying or slandering or simply twisting words to win his point. How often I have later regretted something that I have said! Maybe the psalmist feels the same way. Read what the Apostle James has to say about “the tongue” (James 3:1-12). Powerful! It’s this connection that makes me wonder if today’s psalmist has his own problem with his own tongue: A warrior’s sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree! (v. 4)

Psalm 119:161-176

Psalm 119, Day 11, the end. It seems fitting to me that the focus I see in today’s reading is praise. See Ps. 119:164,171,172,175. This has been a joyful 11-day trip for me through Psalm 119. Seeing the psalmist’s use of all those synonyms and his alphabetic acrostic mode… Even though we don’t see the Hebrew, we know it’s there, and what an effort the psalmist made to put it together!

We do need to praise God regularly for His Law – His Statutes, His Decrees, His Precepts, His Commandments, His Ordinances, His Testimonies, His Word, His Ways – however we see them. Francis Schaeffer once wrote a book entitled How Should We Then Live? A good question. Psalm 119 provides the answer, 176 verses worth! Great peace have those who love Your law; nothing can make them stumble. (v. 165)

Psalm 119:145-160

Psalm 119, Day 10. God’s Law is eternal. The psalmist closes each stanza in today’s reading (Ps. 119:152,160) with this truth. When God gave Moses and the Israelites the Ten Commandments, they weren’t something that He had just dreamed up for the moment. These commandments are eternal practices that give life; they’re not just a listing of “do this, don’t do that” behaviors. “The Perfect Ten” is a song that our kids sing in Avanza. I doubt that there is any condition or situation that we could ever encounter in life that is not covered in these Ten Commandments. I don’t really know what we mean when we say “God’s Law” or “His Ways”. I just know that the Ten Commandments come as close as any other listing as a moral guide for my life. And yours…?

Psalm 119:129-144

Psalm 119, Day 9. Thinking again about those synonyms for the Law… Here they are again, the ones that I listed on Day 1: “commands” / “commandments”, “decrees”, “judgments”, “precepts”, “statutes”, “testimonies”, (Your) “ways”, (Your) “word”. What I did not say back on Day 1 is that each of these words has a different Hebrew word, so it’s not just a translator who decided to grab some synonyms for the Law – it’s the psalmist who made that decision. And he made that decision at least six times in each eight-verse stanza! One editorial note – the ESV translates “decrees” as “rules” while the NASB uses “ordinances”. So how different would it be if we substituted all of those synonyms with just one of them? For example, if we read “precepts” wherever we see the Law or any of the other seven or eight synonyms. Yes, it would be boring, but would we lose anything in the meaning? I think not. So we give the psalmist “poetic license” here!

Don’t forget the other interesting tidbit about Psalm 119 – it is an “alphabetic acrostic” poem. Each of the eight verses in each of the 22 stanzas begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, so that all 22 letters are highlighted in the Psalm. No doubt that would help with Bible memory! Again we give the psalmist “poetic license”!

Psalm 119:113-128

Psalm 119, Day 8. I’m on a bit of a kick where I see items repeated. Two days ago it was affliction; yesterday it was knowledge/understanding. Today it’s evildoers, the “wicked of the earth” (Ps. 119:115,118,119,126). Notice that it’s not the psalmist’s oppressors from Ps. 119:121,122; it’s very simply those who have broken God’s Law. Now we can quickly climb ourselves into that boat – we are all sinners (Romans 3:23). But I think the psalmist is referring to those habitual evildoers – I’m having a hard time describing them, so I’ll let Paul (the Apostle) take it from here:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 1:18-25

Yeah, that’s who I think the psalmist has in mind as evildoers and the “wicked of the earth”. Don’t go there!

Psalm 119:97-112

Psalm 119, Day 7. Yesterday the psalmist had four verses in one stanza on affliction. Today he has four verses in one stanza devoted to knowledge/understanding (Ps. 119:98,99,100,104). Knowledge makes him wiser than his enemies, his teachers, and the aged. All this through following and keeping the Law. A good plan…!

Psalm 119:81-96

Psalm 119, Day 6, passing the halfway point on this Psalm! We had a discussion in Freedom Road yesterday on a phrase from the Serenity Prayer, “…accepting hardship as a pathway to peace…”. I had recalled Ps. 119:71 from yesterday’s reading: It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes. So we talked about hardships and affliction, asking (in part) if there truly is gain from the difficulties that we encounter.

A good discussion yesterday, but applicable to today’s reading also where we again see “affliction”, today in Ps. 119:92. But that’s only the word “affliction”. The psalmist in today’s reading spends half of his verses in today’s first stanza ( Ps. 119:84-87) discussing his persecutors. This is not David writing/singing a lament. This is probably a post-exile priest or Levite hundreds of years later crying out to the Lord; he is frustrated at his enemies attacking him, even to the point of near-death (v. 87). Yet he remains steadfast in seeking God, expressing his continuing trust and, in particular, asking for deliverance.

That’s a lesson for us today in the face of our difficulties – continuing to trust and asking for deliverance. Of the two, I am certain that continuing to trust is the more important. Whatever is out there, we need to continue to hold on to our faith. We need to really mean it when we say the words that we pray so often, “Not my will, but Your will be done…”. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (II Corinthians 4:17-18)

Psalm 119:65-80

Psalm 119, Day 5. The following phrase appears twice today: “…those who fear You…” (Ps. 119:74,79). Applying this Psalm to today’s world, I see “those who fear You” as believers. And I can see those two verses as very separate in time. That is, verse 74 can be the joy that older believers feel when someone new comes to the Lord: Those who fear You shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in Your word. Then verse 79 points to a later time when this new believer has matured in the Lord and has become a resource him/herself for other new believers: Let those who fear You turn to me, that they may know Your testimonies. I daresay that this is the truth for each of us. At some point we began to walk with the Lord at some “higher level” and, no doubt, there was someone or some group of believers rejoicing over us as they watched us grow. And now we’ve moved on, we’ve grown, and others look to us for leadership. That’s the way of the Christian life. It’s what discipleship is all about!!

(Please understand that this meandering of mine is not an interpretation, just my own reflecting. It’s what we need to do with Psalm 119.)

Psalm 119:49-64

Psalm 119, Day 4. You may recall three days ago that my intro to Psalm 119 included seven or eight synonyms for “the Law”. Those synonyms that I listed were “testimonies”, “ways”, “precepts”, “statutes”, “commands” / “commandments, “judgments”, “decrees”, and “word”. Six of those synonyms are straightforward substitutes, with no modifiers needed. Two however – ways and word – are awkward synonyms without a helping article or pronoun. A good “helper” for both of those synonyms is “My”, as in “My ways” and “My word”. We are fairly familiar with “My word” when we see it in either the first person (So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void…, Isaiah 55:11) or the second person (Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path…, Psalm 119:105).

Which brings me to “My ways”… This phrase is, I believe, my favorite synonym for “the Law” (notwithstanding John’s comment yesterday about “comfortable translations”). To me “the Law” and precepts and testimonies and other synonyms can indeed sound rigid if we don’t dig deeper into the loving meaning that the Lord had for us – again, thanks to John for initiating that discussion yesterday. But “My ways” brings me immediately into God’s heart. What are “His ways”? Everything that is good and wonderful and righteous and holy and…whatever descriptors you want to add. I find that I can more easily seek “His ways” than “His decrees”. I know it’s just semantic, but if I want to remember what Psalm 119 is all about, I want to remember it as reflections on “God’s ways”, not on His Law. It’s a warmer feeling!