Thursday, 1 June 2017

Psalm 119:137-144 – The Word of our righteous God bring true life

Psalm 119:37-141 begin with “Tsadhe,” the eighteenth letter of the Hebrew Alphabets. The opening line tells us that God is righteous. He is absolutely right and just and had never done a thing wrong, and will never do anything wrong. He is the only one with such absolute standard, hence He never misjudges and will never ever misjudge. With this righteous God, everything He commands and gives as a testimony is reliable, faithful and totally trustworthy.

To the Psalmist, God’s Word is undeniably trustworthy so that his whole life was taken up with it. He zealously guarded them and was appalled that his enemies would show no regard and was inattentive to the Word. This underscores how much we need to love the Word and to be taken up to practice it in our daily living. Like the Psalmist we should love it because it is totally pure and unadulterated. It is so prefect and free of any impurity.   

The word small may also be seen as young. What the author is saying is that he may be insignificant yet he would not neglect the Word. Even should people value us lightly, we must never value the Word lightly. We must always deem it faithful and take time to absorb the principles it gives. The emphasis of verse 142 is that God is absolutely righteous, thus His Word embodies total truth and is full of integrity. Hence even though the Psalmist had been troubled inwardly and outwardly, yet he would not fail to make the Word of God his delight. In other words, he was not unsettled by the troubles that assailed him. He chose to trust God and His Word.   

Verse 144 shows us the fabric of God’s Word. They are principles of righteousness founded on God, who is just and right. Furthermore they are everlasting. The Psalmist was very sure that by understanding them and living them out, he and his family would have true and abundant life. We too can find true life in living out the Word of God. This we must do habitually.   

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