Psalm 119:17-32: Which Way Will I Go?

Today’s reading is Psalm 119.

cool Stuff about Words and Letters

Throughout Psalm 119, the psalmist repeats eight man terms for God’s Word over and over and over again: law, testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments, promises, word, rulings (this last one is translated in various ways in most translations). Out of 176 verses, 172 of them have one of these eight words. Only four verses do not use one of these words. Two of those verses (vss. 3 & 37) use another word: the Hebrew word “DEREK.” The common English translation: Way. “Way” is found 13 times in Psalm 119. Of those 13, 5 are in DALETH (vss. 25-32).

Look, I get it, not every body thinks this kind of thing is cool like I do. For most of us, talking about word count is one of the most boring things in the world. Sadly, for many people, noticing this sucks the life and emotion out of a poem. Not to mention, throwing out different numbers right and left can get confusing. However, when nearly 40% of a word’s uses in this lengthy psalm are packed into one section, we are supposed to notice. We are supposed to take stock. We are supposed to stop and figure out why the author did that.

Additionally, I can’t help but think our author did this on purpose for another reason. This is the DALETH section. Every line begins with the Hebrew letter DALETH. It probably doesn’t take much to notice “DEREK” (the word translated “way”) begins with DALETH.

By the way, our author pulled out all the stops on words and letters in this section. Not only does every line begin with DALETH; not only does this section contain the greatest concentration of the word for “Way,” DEREK, which also begins with DALETH; each line of vss. 25-28 ends with the Hebrew letter KAPH and each line of vss. 29-32 ends with the Hebrew letter YODH.

Which Way?

Check out what DALETH says about “ways.” It speaks of “my ways” (vs. 26), “the way of your precepts” (vs. 27), “false ways” (vs. 29), “the way of faithfulness” (vs. 30), and “the way of your commandments” (vs. 32).

When I want to talk about my ways, what I really need is the Lord’s statutes. My struggle is I’m prone to false ways, therefore I need the Lord to teach me His law. I need the Lord to make me understand the way of His precepts so I can run in the way of His commandments. Of course, it’s my choice whether I will follow God’s way so I must choose a way of faithfulness (interestingly, “faithfulness” is the word used in one of the four verses missing one of the eight terms for God’s Word: see vs. 90).

With all this focus on the Way, I hope you are ahead of me in recalling how the Psalter began. Psalm 1:6 says, “The LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (ESV). The way of the Lord’s statutes, precepts, and commandments leads to righteousness, blessing, life. My ways are false ways. That is, they promise to lead me through the swamp, but they simply get lost in the bog.

Understand this: God’s Way Works! It is the only way that does. Every other way fades into oblivion, leading us to demise, destruction, and death.

Love God’s way. It is amazing, it is wondrous.

Praise the Lord!

Today’s reading is Psalm 119 (vss. 17-32).

PODCAST!!!

Click here to take about 15 minutes to listen to the Text Talk conversation between Andrew Roberts and Edwin Crozier.

PATHS:
Discuss Today’s Meditation with Your Family

How does Psalm 119:17-32 prompt or improve your hope in God?

Psalm 115: Where is Our God?

Today’s reading is Psalm 115.

The Invisible God

As I mentioned yesterday, most commentators place this psalm in either the days of the kings facing some military crisis or in the post-Babylonion exile period. The thought is God had been seemingly inactive and the nations had been gaining an upper hand against Israel. From this perspective, Psalm 115 is a call for God to act, demonstrating His presence with Israel.

That is, of course, possible. I have no idea when the psalm was written. However, this psalm seems less about what God has done and more about the fact that Israel has an unseen God. We are so used to the notion of the invisible God, we may miss how different this was, and therefore how difficult for the ancients to support. Remember, it only took 40 days of Moses being up on the mountain for Israel to decide they needed something to represent YHWH (Exodus 32:1-6) even though they had just been told not to craft such man-made representations (Exodus 20:4-6).

In that ancient time, if no icon represented the nation’s god, how could they even claim to have one? No doubt, Egypt, Moab, Edom, Ammon, Philistia mocked the unseen God of Israel. Psalm 115 provides a defense against them.

The Problem with Statues

The psalms and the prophets both respond to the taunts of the nations with a mockery of their own. The gods of the nations are nothing but carved wood and cast metal. They can’t move, can’t see, can’t talk. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk all take potshots at the silliness of people making their own gods (see Isaiah 40:18-20; 41:5-7; 44:9-20; Jeremiah 10:1-16; Habakkuk 2:18-19).

However, we must not see these taunts as the straw men many treat them as. The ancients did not believe the statues were their gods, but merely representations of their gods. Yes, they sometimes believed the deities behind the statues talked through the statues and even acted through them, but they didn’t believe their god was a piece of wood or metal that was nailed to the floor. If the psalmists or the prophets were truly trying to compare their invisible God to the statues themselves, then the pagans would merely dismiss the claims. A statue may represent Baal, the statue is not Baal himself. A pillar or tree may represent Asherah, but the icon was not Asherah herself.

If that is not the issue, what is? The pagan nations served deities that could be represented by the work of men and women. The problem is the moment they tried to represent their gods, the representations limited them. The pagan gods could be represented by lifeless wood that could also be burned in a fire. The pagan gods could be represented by statues that could not see, hear, talk, move, lift, smell, hear. YHWH is so grand and powerful, He cannot be represented by anything man can make. The Israelites were not even supposed to try. The lifeless simply cannot represent the living and life-giving. The deaf cannot represent the God who hears. The mute cannot represent the God who speaks. The immobile cannot represent the God who is everywhere.

By representing their gods with these impotent, immobile, silent statues, the pagans should learn what their gods truly were. Of course, the pagans believed the statues were only representations and not actually the real deities. But if their gods could be represented by such impotent objects, what kind of gods could they possibly be? The difference between Israel and the nations was not the pagans crafted representations of their gods, but Israel refused. The issue was Israel’s God was really God and therefore could not be represented. The pagan gods, by “asking” for representation, demonstrated themselves as nothing more than the inventions of the people who thought they could be represented by statues. The lesson for the pagans was any god that can be represented by what men or women hand make are actually nothing more than what the men and women make.

Our God is in the Heavens

YHWH is not only unseen and invisible, He is unrepresentable. Men and women cannot make anything to represent Him. Therefore, those who know Him don’t even try. Those who try don’t actually know Him. Our God is in the heavens. He does what He pleases. He cannot be represented by us, therefore, He cannot be limited by us.

He is not a God of our making. Therefore, He is not a God to be cajoled to our bidding. Our job, therefore, is to glorify Him without seeing Him or trying to represent Him by what we make, and to trust Him to bless His people.

Praise the invisible, unseen, unrepresentable Lord!

Tomorrow’s reading is Psalm 115.

PODCAST!!!

Click here to take about 15 minutes to listen to the Text Talk conversation between Andrew Roberts and Edwin Crozier.

PATHS:
Discuss Today’s Meditation with Your Family

How does Psalm 115 admonish you?