The light of the law: Beth

The second poem in the great acrostic poem that is Psalm 119 starts with the Hebrew letter Beth, and covers verses 9-16 of the Psalm. We invite you to join us now, to sit under the glorious word of God, and to see the light of the law shine brightly.

How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.

(Ps 119:9)

In the first verse, verse 9, we see the principle of this poem. It is phrased as a question and answer, and becomes the context for what follows. The Psalmist asks a question that any adolescent or young adult Christian male (or female) has certainly asked, but a question that would fall on deaf ears to their peers. In our (Western) culture, who cares about ‘keeping their way pure’? In the current popular thought, to keep your way pure would mean ‘to follow your heart’ or ‘to live your truth’. It certainly would not mean joyfully obeying God’s commandments about holiness and purity.

Thankfully, the Psalmist has an answer: ‘by guarding his way according to [God’s] word.’ The imagery here is that God’s revealed will, which we have in his word, is a defence for the Christian to use against the straying influences of the world. This is a challenge to the Christian, indeed it is a challenge to this author. Have we not felt, from time to time, that God’s word is more a high fence locking us out of a good time than a sentry guarding us from evil?

With my whole heart I seek you;
Let me not wander from your commandments!

v10

If we view verse 9 as the principle of the poem, we might consider verses 10 and 11 as a short prayer. There is something wonderful to see if you compare verses 9 and 10. Firstly, we see what one might call the instrumental cause of pure living in the guarding of one’s way by God’s word. Then we see what you could consider the principal cause of this action: that the Psalmist seeks God with his whole heart.

The Psalmist doesn’t feel the need to explain that he’s not confusing his worship of God with his zeal for God’s law. It is only natural that to seek God means to earnestly study and apply his law. His ‘way’, his day to day behaviour and manner, is the very same thing in substance seen in his ‘seeking’ of God. To seek God, to keep his way pure, these are the same thing. Next we see the supplication in his prayer: ‘let me not wander from your commandments’.

Pause there for a moment. What is necessarily implied by such a request, if not that God is powerfully able to bring such things to pass? To put it another way, the Psalmist knows and takes it for granted that God has the power and every right to act to prevent his people from straying. The Psalmist does not say ‘let me not wander from your commandments insofar as you can do that without violating my free will’. Such a thought is not even in his mind. Indeed, his will that was formerly in bondage to sin has been given the blood-bought freedom of being bound to righteousness. Another mark of regeneration is seen here: the Psalmist, though an active worshipper of God, knows his fallen tendency to sin, and prays that God would intervene on his will to prevent him from turning back to it. He desires more greatly that God’s spirit would see God’s law followed by God’s people than that his waning will would be trusted to bring such things to pass.

It was this same sentiment so beautifully captured in the words of the Hymn:

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let Thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, oh take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

(Come Thou Fount)

The way we are dividing this poem, the next verse concludes the prayer.

I have stored up your word in my heart,
That I might not sin against you.

v11

Not only is this verse a very helpful quotable prooftext for encouraging Christians to memorise Scripture, but it shows such a tenderness and love for God’s word. You do not store up blueprints for a great palace in your heart, majestic as it may be. You do not store up harsh instructions or regulations in your heart, either. The Psalmist treasures these things, and does not want to be without them. He is honouring God with his time by dedicating portions of it for memorisation. He is sanctifying his mind and his thoughts with the illuminating, searching, redemptive power of God’s word on his soul. He knows that the more God’s word changes him, the more he will be enabled to keep himself from sin. He will do this not by sheer intelligence, nor by clever strategies, nor by mere recital of God’s word as if it were a spell, but by the obedience produced by joy, and by what Paul would later describe as the ‘shield of faith’.

Blessed are you, O LORD;
Teach me your statutes!

With my lips I declare
all the rules of your mouth.

In the way of your testimonies I delight
As much as in all riches.

v12-14

This author is constantly moved to wonder by the words of the Psalmist. In our day and age, there are many things with which we would follow ‘Blessed are you, O LORD’, but ‘and teach me your rules!’ is not usually high among them. This need not cause despair, but rather the realistic acceptance that we have yet much room for sanctification of mind and heart. Personally, this author is always glad to think that there is yet much of Christ that he hasn’t fully taken hold of, because he would be awfully dismayed if his current degree of sanctification was about all there was to be had. No, there is rather a long distance yet to travel, a long distance to the Celestial City, and many pilgrims to meet along the way.

Furthermore, look at how high his doctrine of Inspiration is: he considers the words of the Law which God gave to Moses to be equivalent to the very words of God’s mouth. He does not think of them as merely wise teachings, nor as the culmination of various human ideas and traditions refined over time (which is roughly how Dr Jordan Peterson speaks of God’s word), but as being words that come directly from the personal and knowable God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: Yahweh, the true and living God.

Is it not wonderful how proud the Psalmist sounds when he announces that he declares all the rules of God’s mouth? He sounds almost like a child that might proudly tell his mother that he ate all his vegetables or like a student proud to tell his parents that he ranked first in his class. He doesn’t mumble God’s rules, and then quickly follow them up with a softening rejoinder like ‘but that’s all been done away with now, since we’re free in Christ’. He doesn’t just quietly read them. He declares them.

Verse 14 touches a very sensitive nerve: wealth. Can we as a nation, we as a culture, we as a church, say that we delight in the way of God’s testimonies as much as in all riches? Can we say that we wouldn’t rather owning our own planes and boats and tanks and jets and islands and theatres and monuments, having all of the best medicine and education and technology, having the best real estate anywhere and everywhere, than how much we delight in the way of God’s testimonies? If we are to be fair, we will admit that we would greatly enjoy those things, and some of them we would enjoy for a rather long time. However, once the dust settles, a heart that has tasted the immeasurably deep joy of adoption to sonship by God will never be satisfied in a lasting manner by the things of this world. They will lead us to idolatry and to loose living, which for a Christian always leads to sorrow, repentance and restoration.

One final note on this verse. The Psalmist speaks of ‘the way of [God’s] testimonies’. Saying this implies that there is such a thing as a knowable, understandable, recognisable pattern of living and set of laws that constitute obedience to God and are able to be lived out. Though the content of God’s word has increased since this Psalm was written, and as a result there are more texts to understand and apply, it is worth noting that this verse demonstrates to us that faithfulness to God’s word is not a matter of private decision, or personal opinion. It is not a matter of ‘what the 3rd commandment means to me’ or ‘what I feel constitutes obedience to the fourth commandment’. There are not multiple ‘ways’, there is only ‘the way’. As we now know, Christ used those same words of himself. He is The Way, the Truth and the Life. Though his words aren’t a direct textual reference to this Psalm, the concept is closely linked. The Psalmist knew the way of righteousness that Yahweh revealed in his word. Now, Yahweh has revealed that he himself is the way of righteousness, and that any righteousness we have is that which he has freely given us. Free for us, and at great cost to himself.

I will meditate on your precepts
And fix my eyes on your ways.

I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.

v15-16

The final section of this poem is the Psalmist’s commitment to the faithful obedience he has been speaking of. He will meditate, not in the Eastern fashion of emptying your mind and escaping the notion of self, but in the proper fashion of engaging his intellect and his affections with God’s revealed will, his precepts. Parallel to meditating on his precepts, which might be considered more theoretical or abstract, is fixing one’s eyes on his ways, which might be thought of more as the place of role modelling in discipleship. Whereas the former might be done in one’s closet, Pentateuch open, the latter may by comparison imply a sense of manifest observation. The Christian can fix her eyes on God’s ways by watching those who are more mature in the faith, just as Paul instructed the Corinthians. Some lessons can be learned by thinking carefully and prayerfully about God’s laws, others will only be learned by seeing them lived out.

The Psalmist closes this poem with a sentiment that is core to this Psalm: he will delight in God’s statues. He promises and prays for obedient faithfulness, but not merely out of duty, but also because it makes his day.

Having stored up God’s word in his heart, he will not forget it. Having sought God with his whole heart, he is set with sure footing to walk the straight and narrow. Oh, how beautiful is this vision! What joy there is to be found in obedience! What a pearl is this poem, Beth, and how much we have to learn from it!