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Psalm 119
Jod
73 Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.
74 They that fear thee will be glad when they see me; because I have hoped in thy word.
75 I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.
76 Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant.
77 Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight.
78 Let the proud be ashamed; for they dealt perversely with me without a cause: but I will meditate in thy precepts.
79 Let those that fear thee turn unto me, and those that have known thy testimonies.
80 Let my heart be sound in thy statutes; that I be not ashamed.
This is the tenth section of Psalm 119. Having covered a more detailed overview of the Psalm, it is my intention to
go more thoroughly through each section. Briefly, each section is according to the letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each
letter contains 8 verses that begin with that specific letter. Jod is the tenth letter, so each verse, in the Hebrew,
begins with a word starting with the letter Jod.
In Hebrew, unlike English, each letter was originally also a word. We do not know the meaning of every letter today,
but we do know most. Jod means, 'a hand, indicating power, means, direction'. Since the Psalmist built the Psalm based
on the letters, it is likely the meaning of each letter played in his thoughts as he composed each section. In this
section, we see God's hands at work in the first verse. The very word for hand, being the first word in the Hebrew
text. This section is also a lesson on the hand of God at work in a disciplinary manner.
This Psalm is also based upon the usage of a host of words that are 'legal' terms in the Hebrew. I have gone into a
more thorough definition of each word, as it has been encountered, in the previous sections. I would recommend going
there to find those expansions. I will cover additional words as we come across them.
Born Into God's Family
73 Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.
This verse can carry two distinct thoughts. If we are thinking of the natural, we will perceive how God has created us
physically. If we think of the spiritual, we will perceive the new birth in Christ. For both, we see God's hands being
the might and the glory. We did not begin the work of our creation, nor did we finish the task. Likewise, we did not begin
the work of a new birth, nor did we complete that work in the 'coming to birth' as it were. Only the Spirit of God has
the power to bring that repentant heart.
The word for 'fashioned' is also often translated as 'established'. I don't believe we are seeing a 'doubling' of speech
here. It is not simply repeating the 'made' with a slightly different word. The 'made' is one aspect, while the 'established'
focuses on completion and 'quality control', as it were. As we were told in Genesis, what God made was good.
The second portion turns to a request. I believe the Psalmist takes his turn to the spiritual birth, for he completes what
Adam never did. Adam and Eve were created, but they turned from the second part, which is what they should have been hungering
after. Instead, they turned from their desire to please God, to the desire to please self. That destiny has been set in stone,
and we cannot undo the fruit.
On the individual level, we can take the right path, as this Psalmist, and make the cry from our hearts that he made. If one
has become a new creature in Christ, the next step is to take up where Adam and Eve departed.
We need to have the heart cry to God for 'understanding'. The 'that', or literally 'and', forms a connection in thought. An
important connection. Unless God gives us understanding, we will not be able to learn God's commandments. You may say, 'What?
That seems illogical.' Let me point out an important lesson from the Garden of Eden. Part of the devil's temptation was for
the knowledge of good and evil. By man's taking a part of that, he was to gain the ability to discern good and evil apart
from God. It was the power of the soul in the faculty of the mind. The man who walks in the power of intellectual reasoning
and knowledge; walks in death apart from God. That man will never be able to 'learn' God's commandments, though he may be
able to list them.
Let me illustrate it this way. If you have learned to type or play an instrument, you work hard at first, then comes a time
when you find you can do it without really thinking about it. You no longer pay attention to each letter as you type, you
learned those long ago. You pay full attention to the content of what you are typing. The same goes with learning a language
and reaching the point of fluency. Though the illustration has its weaknesses, it comes close to explaining a 'learning'
that can only be attained by a God dependent 'understanding'. The understanding gained Adam's way, will never result in
obedience to God as an automatic outflow of life. We must seek Him to continue His 'making and establishing' in us.
74 They that fear thee will be glad when they see me; because I have hoped in thy word.
The Psalmist pulls in the community of others who also have chosen this path, forsaken by Adam and Eve. He is not alone, nor
is he the only one who can get back on the right path. Any who enter into the fear of God will walk in that same path. They
will also recognize the same life in him that is flowing through them. The union of the body is not just a man made
corporation. It is the same life of Christ that flows through all of them. These sharing that same life will have the
singular characteristic of 'fearing God'.
Oh, look at the beauty of the second part of this verse. He has become part of that living body through responding to God's
Word. He either heard it through the preacher or read it in the Bible and put his trust in it. It tells us he simply
'hoped'. Such hope is to place the trust through faith. When that is done, one has grounds upon which to base one's hope.
The other believers will hear his testimony of 'faith' and 'hope', and will know he has become part of the household of
God in the fear of the LORD.
A Son Accepting His Punishment
75 I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.
This next verse takes us to the position of God as our Father. We see the discipline of a Father with His children. This
is also the only place God's name is used in this section. The Psalmist is bowing in confession of his Father's faithful
upbringing in His just disciplines in life. We are seeing the 'parent/child' relationship described.
The word translated 'right' is more than just right, it is the word for 'righteous'. He knows that Yahweh is watching over
him and decides, in necessary care, to uphold righteousness in his discipline. Consider these other passages:
6 A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master,
where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised
thy name? Malachi 1:6
In the Old Testament, there was the knowledge of God both as Father and Master. In the lines of discipline read this from
the New Testament:
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening
of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom
he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth
not? Hebrews 12:5-7
76 Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant.
He has shown the necessary acknowledgment of God's righteousness in the previous verse. He has accepted the punishment he
was receiving. Now that has taken place, he seeks God's 'mercy' in his discipline. He asks for God to grant a comfort now
of His mercy, in lifting that disciplinary hand.
He takes the position of 'servant', indicating the position of obedience. In his request for God's mercy, he appeals to
the 'words' (being that term more for speech), that God has spoken to him. He is appealing, based upon the recollection
of hearing of God's great mercy and lovingkindness. He knows he has grounds for hoping that God will act to spare further
trial. God does not seek to destroy His own children, he simply seeks to raise them in the path of righteousness. He
disciplines us so that we will learn, repent and continue in the right path. Once He has accomplished His purpose, we
have grounds of hope that the discipline will shortly end. There are potentially other factors, such as King David's
Uriah/Bathsheba episode that will not just go away, but God was merciful to David in forgiving the repentance from
iniquity. If the case is sufficient that lingering consequences continue, we can still have the comfort that God will
forgive in the face of true repentance.
77 Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight.
This is a Hebrew parallelism to verse 76. The 'mercies' here are appealing to God's compassion. When one is in the midst
of God's discipline, tender mercies look real good. What is great is that HE IS FULL OF COMPASSION! Such a prayer is not
without warrant. It is not without basis in His Word.
Though God does indeed have an ear to the cry for 'tender mercies', He is looking for something. Works? No. Look at the
second part of this verse. 'For', showing a reason for cause, God's 'torath', His directions, are his delight. The Psalmist
is stating that his heart has been set right. He now has set God's path as his path of joy. For some time, he had erred
from this path, but the discipline opened his eyes to his folly. He had repented and turned back in obedience to God's Word.
78 Let the proud be ashamed; for they dealt perversely with me without a cause: but I will meditate in thy precepts.
This verse has a very important difference in a literal reading of the first half, 'Let be ashamed the proud for lies they
perverted me;'. When we couple this with its second half, I see a serious warning come popping out.
We had our dealing with the proud in the previous section. We have been taught to see them as the opposite of God's people.
They are opposed to the humble and seek to slander them. When their slander can't prevail, then what? They have another
tactic that proves often fatal. They have the power of 'lies'. They will seek to pervert the righteous ones. They will
endeavor to get them away from the truth so that they can fill them with their world view and their pleasures. This Psalmist
had erred, entering into shame. He had to face his shame before God, in accepting of God's discipline. He had to face
the shame of his testimony before men, in turning from that wicked detour. Now he arises in his fury for their wicked
devices. He cries to God for the shame to now be turned about on the perverted proud ones. He had been perverted from
God's way through listening to their lies.
The second half shows us the reconsecration to that which protects from being seduced by the lies of the proud. If he had
never departed from meditating upon God's precepts, he would not have been deceived by the lies. The fatality to his
faithful walk came when he ceased his meditation on the Word of God. We are all susceptible to being led from the truth
when we fail to keep our hearts and minds actively feeding upon the Word of God. It is that active devotion that protects
us. Fortunately, this Psalmist responded to God's disciplines and awoke to righteousness. He considered where he erred
and reconsecrated himself to continue faithfully in feeding upon God's Word.
We too must make that decision. We cannot fill ourselves with the lies which come from a host of sources: false teachers,
college professors, apostate brethren, government agencies, secular or so called 'Christian' entertainment, fellow employees,
assorted peers of every kind, and not be destroyed from God's truth. We must realize the great danger such lies pose to our
soul. Should we have departed, we need to respond quickly to God's discipline. He will quickly restore us, but we can't fool
ourselves into thinking we will be fine unless we commit ourselves and follow through, with meditating on God's Word and
FORSAKING THE LIES.
(Read Psalm 11 along with this section. The parallel of the message is quite striking.)
79 Let those that fear thee turn unto me, and those that have known thy testimonies.
We see an important interaction of fellowship indicated in this verse. This Psalmist, having been led astray into the shame
of the proud's lies, had apparently been viewed, by those who walked in the fear of the LORD, as one to avoid. This man was,
at least to some degree, facing a certain amount of excommunication. Those walking in the fear of the LORD had seen the path
he had gone and would not continue in their fellowship with him.
The heart of this repentant man was not bitter. Rather, he was desirous that those who avoided him, because of their fear of
the LORD, would be able to accept his repentance as real. He saw the loss he had suffered in this area as well.
Those who had distanced themselves from him were those who knew the testimonies of God. The 'testimonies' are those laws most
clearly declaring God's character. Those who knew what God's Word said about His character, saw the necessity to stay away
from the likes of this wayward Psalmist. Their action of separation was a reflection of their knowing God's testimonies.
Basically, his prayer was for the faithful to discern his repentance was real and forgive. There was no display of bitterness
or condemnation, only the acknowledgment that they knew God's Word.
80 Let my heart be sound in thy statutes; that I be not ashamed.
The word translated 'sound' also means 'complete, whole'. We see this man knows his own weakness. He does not take the position
of self confidence. He, in fear and trembling, prays that God will maintain his heart complete, whole and sound, living and
established in God's statutes. He had been burned. Now he approaches God's Word in a new way. That old self confidence is
gone. He did not want to end up back in the path of shame.
He had learned the lesson that Jesus' disciple Peter had learned. Peter was confident he would never deny Jesus. He sensed
his own strength. He was tried and found wanting, to his shame. He repented and was restored. Even after that, he failed in
the same manner, recorded in Galatians, in the fear of man. He was rebuked then as well, and we know he died faithful to
Christ. Peter's life is a lesson of how weak we are and how dangerous the snares are. Unless we continue in broken
dependence upon God, we are subject to falling away. We must cleave to His Word, cling to Him for ability, knowledge and
understanding and walk trembling in our faithfulness, shunning the lies of the proud.
This is never a pleasant subject, but may it be to our profit in helping avoid bringing God's disciplinary hand. Let it
be like one natural brother to another, 'You better stop that, boy will dad be mad!'
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