Psalm 119:1-8

SING A SONG OF SCRIPTURE

The Bible Will Make:
  I.  A HAPPY MAN (119:1-3)
      A. In His Way (119: la)
      B. In His Walk (119:lb)
      C. In His Will (119:2-3)
         1. Gives Purpose to Life (119:2)
         2. Guarantees Purity in Life (119:3)
 II. A HOLY MAN (119:4-6)
      A. His Duty (119:4)
      B. His Desire (119:5)
      C. His Decision (119:6)
III. A HUMBLE MAN (119:7-8)
      A. Still Learning (119:7)
      B. Still Longing (119:8)

WE DO NOT KNOW who wrote this psalm. Suggestions have included David, Hezekiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Malachi, and Daniel. The internal evidence makes it evident that the author was a suffering saint who had to endure contempt if not downright ill treatment. His enemies included Jews who were in a position of power and able to do him harm. He was in physical danger, he was faced with laxity and even apostasy in the ranks of his people, and he had successfully resisted temptation. Some have thought he was a young man, others that he was old. Rotherham presents a strong case for Hezekiah, others an equally strong case for someone living after the exile. The fact that the singer makes no mention of the temple and of ritual law, but rather emphasizes the inward, spiritual aspects of faith, points to Daniel rather than either Hezekiah or one of the post-exilic writers. In their days, the Hebrew religion was centered on the sanctuary and the sacrifices.

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Sing a Song of Scripture

The psalm is a mosaic arranged around the central theme of God's law. The psalmist did not see God's law as harsh edict but as a source of joy and rejoicing. We do not have here any cold legalism of Mosaic precept but the warmth of one in love with the Lord. We have the passion of a poet—precept rhapsodized by poetry, law transfigured by love, demand elevated to desire, edict replaced by emotion, fact matched by fervor, enforcement made easy by enjoyment.
The Word of God is the foundation on which this poet builds; he builds on it because he loves it. He is bound to the Word of God, not by the chains of law but by the magnetic attraction of love.
The psalm, as most Bibles show, is an acrostic. It consists of 22 stanzas, each consisting of eight verses, and each emphasizing, in order, a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each verse in each stanza begins with the letter of the alphabet to which the stanza is related.
This form of writing may seem somewhat artificial and stilted to us, but probably the psalm was written that way as an aid to memory. The theme of the psalm is the law, which is referred to in 173 of its 176 verses. God is mentioned in every verse. The psalm contains 70 prayer requests. The psalmist refers to himself 325 times and mentions his suffering in 66 verses. He is resolved to know, keep, and love God's law.
The psalmist uses eight synonyms for the Word of God. (Some expositors expand the list to nine, others to ten. All are agreed on the eight.) He uses the word Torah ("law" or "instruction") 24 times; Edoth ("testimonies") 19 times; Piqud ("precepts") 20 times; Chaq ("statutes") 19 times; Mitsoth ("commandments") 22 times; Mishpat ("judgments," "decisions," or "appointments") 22 times; Debar ("Word") 22 times; and Imrath ("word," "promise," or "saying") 20 times.
Maclaren says of this psalm that "there is music in its monotony," and that although "there are but few pieces in the psalmist's kaleidoscope they fall into many shapes of beauty." Spurgeon says, "It is weighty as well as bulky." Simons says, "It is a star of the first and greatest magnitude in the firmament of the Psalms." Rotherham says, "It is a study set to the murmuring of the sea" and "The monotone...is that of a lullaby by which a troubled soul may be softly and sweetly hushed to rest." Someone has said, "It is the Alphabet of Divine Love."
The psalm's eulogy of the Word points us directly to the Word made flesh. Many a verse can best be illuminated by relating it directly to Him who truly hid God's Word in His heart. Again and again in our study of this psalm we find our best illustration of its heights and depths in the person of the Lord Jesus. In this

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Psalm 119:1-8

psalm we have the Word made flesh—the Word clothed with warmth and enthusiasm such as Israel in its recurring apostasies never knew. We turn repeatedly from this psalm to Him in whom the Word was made flesh.
This first stanza shows us what will happen in the life of those who make the Word of God the center of their life. It sets before us a picture of:

I. A HAPPY MAN (119:1-3)

He is happy because the Word of God rules in three areas of his life.

A. In His Way (119: la)
"Blessed are the undefiled in the way." The word rendered way occurs 13 times in the psalm, and some authorities include it as one of the synonyms for God's Word. The word suggests a course of conduct marked out by God's Word, a road trodden as a way of life, a course of action mapped out by God's law.
We can make our journey through life along one of two ways. There is the broad way of disobedience, a way that seems right to a man but ends in death; and there is the narrow way of obedience, a way that leads onward and upward to life everlasting. That is the way the psalmist has chosen.
Most people would consider that way undesirable. The picture most unsaved or backslidden people have of the Christian life is one of gloom—no gambling, no drinking, no smoking, no fun. Just prayer meetings and Bible conferences and church— boring sermons, bad music, dull people. On the other hand, how much fun is it to contract AIDS or herpes, to be hooked on drugs, to be a slave to tobacco or alcohol? The psalmist says, "Blessed is the man who chooses the way of the undefiled. We think of Daniel who refused to "defile himself with the kings meat" and of Jesus who was "holy and harmless and undefiled and separate from sinners."
The word blessed in the Old Testament is invariably, in the plural. It means "Happy," literally "Happy! Happy!" or "Oh, the happinesses..." Happiness is the overflow of joy. Joy is the source; happiness is the stream. God always weds happiness to holiness. That is why an unsaved person can never know real happiness. The devil has his counterfeits, mostly based on pleasure but they are shallow; they have no deep well from which to spring. The devil's brand of happiness depends on what happens; he weds happiness to happenings.
We tend to equate happiness with pleasure ("I want to have fun"), with prosperity ("If only I were rich..."), with power

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Sing a Song of Scripture

("I'd show him..."), with popularity ("I wish everybody liked me..."), or with position ("I'm the boss"). God equates happiness with none of those. The failure of human sources of happiness was expressed like this by Robert Burns:

Pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, the bloom is fled,
Or like a snowflake on the river,
A moment white, then gone for ever.

So the opening words of Psalm 119 strike an important note. We would all like to be happy. And not just happy, but "happy, happy." But we cannot have overflowing joy without holiness, and we cannot have holiness without the Holy Spirit—and we cannot have the Holy Spirit without salvation. So the first verse takes us back to spiritual basics.
I like to think that the supreme example of the happy, happy man was Jesus. I cannot imagine Him being miserable, sulky, out of sorts, gloomy, or pessimistic. He faced even Calvary looking beyond to "the joy that was set before Him."
"Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD." The ultimate secret of happiness is to live according to the principles found in God's Word. The happy man is happy because the Word of God rules his way. He is also happy because the Word of God rules:

B. In His Walk (119:lb)
"Who walk in the law of the LORD." We all once learned to walk. Watch that baby He knows from the start that lying flat on his back, or face down on his stomach, is no position for a human being. He's supposed to stand upright and walk. So he begins to wave his arms and legs, he struggles to push himself up, and finally he gets to the point where he can. Then he crawls and soon learns to stand on two wobbly legs. Next he learns to balance himself, holding out his arms, to take a few tentative steps. At first he has many a fall, but soon he is walking around hanging onto things. And then he is off on his own, running here, there, and everywhere.
That is how it is with us and God's Word. When we first begin to read it, study it, try to obey it, down we go. We stumble and fall; we pick ourselves up and try again. Soon we are walking in the law of the Lord, making progress, moving forward, growing in grace, and increasing in the knowledge of God. There is no happiness like that which floods the soul when the Word of God has guided us past a snare or led us into a right decision.
He is a happy man because the Word of God rules:

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Psalm 119:1-8

C. In His Will (119:2-3)
The psalmist sees two things that happen when we bring our wills into captivity to the Word of God. Our wills are such that they must be brought into captivity to something. Happy is the one who has his will enslaved by the Word of God.
1. Such captivity gives purpose to life: "Blessed are they that keep His testimonies, and that seek Him with the whole heart" (119:2). The idea behind the word testimonies is that of attestation. It carries the thought that God has solemnly declared His will on matters of faith and morals. In the singular it is used to describe the Ten Commandments.
Everybody is seeking something in life. People seek to get married, be promoted at work, to be approved by a boss or a friend. Persons whose will is subject to the Word of God are seeking God with all their heart. There can be no greater purpose in life.
2. Captivity to God's Word also guarantees purity in life: They also do no iniquity: they walk in His ways" (119:3). Sin will keep us from the Bible, or the Bible will keep us from sin—one or the other. Think of the Lord Jesus. He walked through life seeking God wholeheartedly and doing no iniquity. The ultimate secret of His marvelous life was the Word of God. It ruled His every thought.
He stepped off the throne on high, walked down the streets of gold, out through the pearly gates, down the star-spangled splendor of the sky to be born as a human being. His triumphant shout rings out as a challenge to all the hosts of hell and as a cheer to all the hosts of Heaven: "Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, 0 God" (Hebrews 10:7). He could not sin because His life was ruled by God's Word. When Satan tempted Him, He simply referred him to God's Word.
The Bible will also make him:

II. A HOLY MAN (119:4-6)

A. His Duty (119:4)
"Thou hast commanded us to keep Thy precepts diligently." The word precepts occurs only in the psalms. It has the idea of "taking charge." It refers to God's mandates enjoined on the human race, His injunctions.
The psalmist calls attention to the fact that it is God who is the author of the law. The word Thou is emphatic. We could read it, "Thou Thyself has commanded us." That relates the commandments to duty. There really is no choice in the matter. The God

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who commanded light to shine out of darkness has commanded us to live by His laws. The sun, moon, and stars obey Him and so should we. There is an aspect to God's law which obliterates all choice in the matter.

B. His Desire (119:5)
"0 that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!" Welling up from the soul of this singer is a deep desire to keep God’s Word. Being mortal, he knows how easily he can wander away. But his deepest desire is to obey.
This cry was wrung from the heart of the apostle Paul at the end of Romans 7. He had been studying the secret of living a holy life. He longed to live a holy life but he found he was incapacitated in doing so by the active power of the flesh. Who shall deliver me from this dead body?" he cried. Many an earnest believer has echoed that cry, "0 that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes."
The anguished cry summons up the picture of a storm-tossed mariner in the grip of a storm. The captain has been swept overboard, the first mate is dead, the helmsman is dead, and the ship is at the mercy of wind and wave. What it needs is a firm hand on the helm, it needs to be brought before the wind it needs someone with a skillful hand to take over and direct it back on course. Without such a hand on the helm of our life, shipwreck on the rocks and shoals is inevitable. The psalmist’s words were the passionate cry of one who knew and felt his need.

C. His Decision (119:6)
"Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Thy commandments." A decision is necessary here: a choice to obey God's commandments. Then and not until then, the psalmist says, will he escape being ashamed.
Note also, he chose to obey not just some of the commandments-those that were not irksome-but all the commandments. It was his commitment to keep the whole law that caused Daniel to dare to stand out against the entire Babylon establishment. The command not to eat improperly prepared meat might easily have been dismissed as a trifle, given the tact he was a captive in a foreign land and under the will of a despotic and dangerous king. He could have compromised, arguing that the kosher laws were secondary ritual laws, not moral laws. Daniel knew no such fine points, no such twisting of truth. "Has God said it? I obey it." That was his rule. There were 613 commandments in the Mosaic Law. The psalmist determined to keep them all.

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Psalm 119:1-8

III. A HUMBLE MAN (119:7-8)

He is not proud or arrogant in his determination to live a holy life. He does not look down on other people. Here is no prudish self-righteousness, no proud Pharisee praying with himself and saying, "Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are...even as this publican..."
The psalmist is:

A. Still Learning (119:7)
"I will praise Thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned Thy righteous judgments." The word judgments contains the thought of a legal decision, a ruling from the bench. It is a judicial decision which makes an authoritative ruling, a precedent for similar cases in the future. Sometimes the word is used to describe God's judicial acts in executing His judgment on the wicked.
The psalmist realized that he did not know all the cases in which God had acted thus judicially. He did not know all the precedents nor how God would act in every instance. But, he knew that when he was in possession of all the facts, he would praise Him with uprightness of heart.
A classic example of this is found in the Apocalypse. There we meet the four and twenty elders. They are mentioned seven times in the book of Revelation and on six of those occasions they get up from their thrones, fall on their faces before God, and cast their crowns at His feet. The only time they do not do that is the last time they are mentioned—when they are so entranced at the triumphant entry of the 144,000 witnesses into Heaven that they sit as if riveted to their thrones. All through the book of Revelation those mysterious beings act as a kind of celestial jury. They watch God's acts in judgment, they see Him setting His magnificent precedents, and time and time again they are so blessed at what they see that they fall down in worship. They praise Him with uprightness of heart because they are seeing His righteous judgments.
We too will thank God one of these days that He has always done the right thing. Vexing questions like: "Are the heathen lost? What about my lost loved ones? What about all the injustices done on earth?" will all be answered. We shall see "the Judge of all the earth" doing right and we will make Heaven ring with our hallelujahs. Right now, like the psalmist, we are still learning. We see only the shadows of His judgmental ways today because we are living in an age of grace. More often than not in this age, God stays His hand. He defers judgment until the time of the judgment seat of Christ and the great white

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Sing a Song of Scripture

throne. Everything will be dealt with then. Right now we are still learning.
The psalmist pictures himself as a humble man, still learning, and also as:

B. Still Longing (119:8)
"I will keep Thy statutes: 0 forsake me not utterly." The word for statutes comes from a word meaning "to hew, cut, engrave, inscribe." It stands for anything prescribed or enacted. God's law, we remember, was engraved on two tablets of stone (symbolizing its immutability).
The psalmist, conscious of failure, promised the Lord to keep His laws. He pleaded with the Lord to be patient—not to cast him off utterly, not to forsake him.
Thus David must have prayed in those dreadful weeks and months after his seduction of Bathsheba and murder of Uriah. He had committed two capital offenses, adultery and murder. Worse still, because he had sinned presumptuously he knew of no sacrifice that would cover his sin. He was haunted by the memory of King Saul and of God's refusal to speak any more to that man who had sinned once too often. David might well have prayed, "I will keep Thy statutes: 0 forsake me not utterly." The psalmist leaves his first stanza there, with his heart still longing for the ability to keep God's law.