Psalm 119:33-48 “Give
Me Understanding; Give Me Life”
Psalm 119 teaches us to cherish the commandments and precepts of the Lord.
People sometimes struggle with this, because (they say),
“the Old Testament law was so demanding,
but Jesus’ teaching is all about love!”
Matthew 10 reminds us that Jesus’ teaching is, if anything,
more demanding than Moses’.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me.
Whoever
loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Whoever
does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Whoever
finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Mt 10:37-39)
You will not find any commandment in the Old Testament that is more difficult than this!
And yet Psalm 119 teaches us to love these statutes.
Because Jesus is talking about the way of life!
You must love Jesus more than your family.
You must love Jesus more than your work.
You must love Jesus more even than your own life.
What do you love?
What is your heart inclined toward?
What direction does it tilt?
Matthew 10 sends us back to Psalm 119
crying out, “Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes!”
The driving force of this stanza is a series of verbs all beginning with the letter “he.”
Teach me,
give me understanding,
lead me,
incline my heart,
turn my eyes,
confirm to your servant,
turn away the reproach that I dread.
Seven verbs drive this Psalm
as the Psalmist pleads with God.
Psalm 119 began with a blessing on those whose way is blameless.
If God has blessed those whose way is blameless,
then I want to be one of the blameless!
The previous stanza ended
with the Psalmist declaring his desire to run in the way of God’s commandments
when God enlarged his heart (when God set his heart free).
And so the fifth stanza, “he,” picks up where the fourth stanza ended:
the Psalmist acknowledges his dependence upon God for achieving blessedness.
As in most of the stanzas there is also a couple repeated words or phrases in this stanza:
turn is the opening word in verses 37 and 39,
in verse 37 asking God to turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;
in verse 39 asking God to turn away the reproach that I dread;
and the other repeated phrase is
give me life (v37 and v40).
in your ways (v37)
and in your righteousness (v40).
So verse 37 is the verse where both key phrases occur –
it is also one of only four verses in the entire Psalm
that does not have one of the eight words for “law”
Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end.
We continue to hear echoes of stanza four.
If you recall, stanza four is “daleth” –
and five of its verses begin with the word “derek” – or “way.”
Stanza five uses derek twice (verse 33 and 37),
as well as its synonym “path” in verse 35.
Derek has been used 11 times so far in Psalm 119,
but in the last 140 verses it will be used only twice.
At the beginning of Psalm 119 the Psalmist is concerned for his way –
for the path or trajectory that he will be on.
The rest of the Psalm is firmly set along this path,
so it does not need to talk about the path so much.
That is actually how life works.
When you are in high school and college everyone talks about their path.
By the time you are a senior in college you are sick of the question,
“so what are you going to do when you graduate?”
Or in other words, “what path are you on?”
But once you are firmly established on your career path,
people can see what is the way of your life.
For those of you who are still just getting established in life,
I would urge you to consider your path.
What is the way that characterizes you?
And for those of you who have been walking down the same path for a long time,
I would urge you to look back on this path.
Is this way the way of God’s statutes?
The Psalmist says,
Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end.
Notice that what the Psalmist pledges to keep is not the statutes,
but the way of your statutes.
What is the difference?
The Psalmist is not a legalist.
His mission in life is not slavish obedience to a set of rules;
rather, it is to a way, a pattern, a direction.
After all, v34 says:
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart.
If slavish obedience were the point, then I wouldn’t need understanding!
But if I am to observe God’s law with my whole heart,
then I need understanding.
I need wisdom.
Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it.
There is a path laid before your feet.
It is a path characterized by the love of God and the love of neighbor.
After all, this is the summary of the law! (Mt 22)
But the Psalmist recognizes that if I am going to walk successfully in this path,
then you, O Lord, must lead me in it.
And I must delight in it.
What do you delight in?
Do you delight in the path of God’s commandments?
Or do you delight in something else?
Verses 36-37 provide the contrast:
Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain.
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.
Where is your heart leaning?
Are your eyes drawn to worthless things?
If so, then you need to join in the Psalmist’s prayer!
Incline my heart to your testimonies.
My heart is tilting toward selfish gain.
I liked Paul Tripp’s comment, quoting his brother Tedd:
I used to think that I was frugal and not attracted to materialism.
Then my books started to sell, and I had all this money,
and I found that I wanted all this stuff.
It wasn’t that I immune to materialism.
I was just poor!
If you heart is inclined, if it tilted toward “selfish gain,”
then you will find yourself leaning that direction over and over agin.
If your eyes are looking at worthless things,
that is because your heart is tilted in that direction.
And so verse 37 concludes,
Give me life in your ways.
God alone is the source of life.
His way is the way of life.
If you would find life,
then you need to acknowledge your need for him.
Verses 38-39 then turn from the problem to the solution:
Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared.
Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good.
The solution is the promise of God.
You can hear the echo of God’s promise to Abraham –
this is the heart of the solution.
And even as the Psalmist had asked God to turn his own eyes
away from worthless things,
so also he asks God to turn away the reproach that he dreads.
For your rules are good.
God’s rules are good.
Behold, I long for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life.
The stanza ends with “behold,”
“hine” – perhaps the most common word in Hebrew that begins with “he”
After all this run of verbs,
the contrast with “behold” is striking.
And now the order is inverted.
Rather than plead with God first,
the plea comes second.
I long for your precepts;
in your righteousness give me life.
Now this might sound strange:
“in your righteousness give me life.”
This is the point that Luther found so hard to believe:
isn’t God’s righteousness what condemns us?
He is righteous.
We are not.
Therefore God’s righteousness brings judgment, right?
But verse 40 brings to conclusion a trajectory that began with verse 33.
The way of God’s statutes,
the path of God’s commandments,
is confirmed to us by God’s promise.
And once God has proclaimed his promise,
then his righteousness is at stake.
If God has promised to do something,
then he cannot be righteous unless he does what he has promised!
Righteousness has to do with conformity to standard –
or to use the dominant image of the last couple stanzas,
staying on a path.
God is righteous.
And so you can trust him to do (and to judge) according to his promise.
We are not dealing with God in the abstract.
We are dealing with the God who has demonstrated his righteousness
in doing as he has promised – time and time again.
He
delivered
He
brought back
And in these last days,
he has raised up his Son, Jesus Christ, from the dead,
and seated him in glory at his right hand!
So when the Psalmist says, “in your righteousness give me life,”
he is saying something that you and I can say as well!
Because God has revealed his righteousness in the gospel.
His righteousness has been manifested apart from the law,
although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it –
the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ
for all who believe.
Because God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do.
By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,
he condemned sin in the flesh,
in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us,
who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
(Romans
There is no way to life apart from the righteousness of God!
But after verses 33-40 have set forth what God must do –
indeed, what God has promised to do! –
verses 41-48 speaks of what the Psalmist will do
in response to God’s righteousness.
Verse 41 could be seen as a summary of the preceeding section:
Let your steadfast
love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise;
Let your steadfast love – your hesed (sometimes translated, “covenant faithfulness”)
come to me,
your salvation according to your promise.
God is righteous – he will do what is right and just (according to his promise).
And God is faithful to his covenant – his steadfast love endures forever.
And so the Psalmist opens the sixth stanza, “waw,”
with a resounding plea for God’s hesed, his steadfast love and salvation,
according to that very promise that was at the heart of stanza five.
Every word in verses 42-48 begins with a waw and an aleph.
The “waw” is the Hebrew conjunction, often meaning ‘and’ –
but the waw can mean “also” “for” “so” “even”
It is more or less the all-purpose conjunction!
And so this stanza is something of a giant run-on sentence;
with every verse adding on to the verse before,
and as a result, the whole stanza flows continuously
from verse 41 into verse 48;
so there is a sense in which all of the periods in the whole stanza
should be semi-colons.
All of the promises and commitments that the Psalmist makes in this stanza
are rooted in God’s steadfast love –
the salvation that has come according to God’s promise.
And when God’s salvation comes:
Then shall I have an
answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in your word.
And take not the word
of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your rules.
“My hope is in your rules?”
This may sound strange to our ears.
We don’t like rules –
especially when someone else is the one making them!
And yet, if you think about it,
the salvation that God has promised
is revealed in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
I suppose you could say that in some sense
my hope is that Jesus will keep all of God’s rules.
But that is not the Psalmist’s point.
After all, remember how Paul says it in Romans 8:
“By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin,
he condemned sin in the flesh,
in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us,
who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Paul does not say that the righteous requirement of the law will be fulfilled for us,
but in us.
God has no intention of letting you remain in your sin!
Not only does he pardon your sin – forgiving you all your debts –
but he also destroys the power of sin.
Sin no longer has dominion over you – it is not your lord!
And now the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ dwells in you.
And so for you – even more than for the Psalmist –
the rules of God are your hope!
Why do I say that?
Because for you, the rules of God are not burdensome!
God’s commandments are life!
What are God’s rules?
Love God.
Love neighbor.
Believe in Jesus.
And so the Psalmist’s cry should be our cry as well!
I will keep your law
continually, forever and ever,
And I shall walk in a
wide place for I have sought your precepts.
At first we might find the Psalmist’s promise a bit much:
I will keep your law continually, forever and ever.
Isn’t this a bit optimistic?
What should he say?
I will keep your law occasionally, whenever I feel like it?
Ow!
The redeemed heart cringes at such a statement.
We cannot take such a cavalier attitude toward God’s ways!
God says that we are to believe in Jesus,
Love the LORD our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength,
and love our neighbor as ourselves.
This is what should characterize our lives.
And when we fall short, we should remember the end of the Psalm:
“I have gone astray like a lost sheep;
seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.” (v176)
Doesn’t the Psalmist nail it right on the head?
I have gone astray, yet I do not forget your commandments.
Augustine said it very well:
"Many sins are committed through pride but not all happen proudly . . .
they happen so often by ignorance, by human weakness;
many are committed by men weeping and groaning in their distress."
(quoted in Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo p350)
The Psalmist combines an honest appraisal of himself
with a triumphant appraisal of the Word and promises of God.
If all you do is look at yourself, you will no doubt despair.
But the Psalmist does not merely look at himself.
All of his statements about his own commitment –
all his promises about his own way of life –
are rooted in what God has said.
Therefore, he says in verses 46-47,
I will also speak of
your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame,
For I find my delight
in your commandments, which I love.
This was true of David and Solomon and all the faithful Davidic kings.
But it was preeminently true of the great Son of David,
our Lord Jesus Christ, who stood before Herod and Pilate
and was not put to shame!
Oh, it looked like he was put to shame!!
He was whipped, mocked, and hung upon the cross!
But even as he endured the shameful death of the cross,
hanging there naked on the cross,
Jesus was not put to shame!
Indeed, it is on the cross that the glory of Jesus begins to be revealed.
And in Matthew 10 Jesus says to the twelve apostles,
“you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake,
to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.”
Jesus says that they too will be beaten and scorned.
They too will appear to be shamed before kings –
but like their master, they will not be put to shame,
because their testimony before governors and kings
will be their glory.
And so the Psalmist concludes this stanza in v48:
I will lift up my
hands toward your commandments, which I love,
and I will meditate on your statutes.
If you love Jesus,
then you will love his commandments,
and meditate on his statutes.
There’s that word again – “meditate” –
we keep bumping into it throughout the Psalm.
We need to keep soaking in the Word of God,
letting its juices seep into us
so that we marinate like a tough old piece of beef that needs to be made tender.
Have you ever tried to marinate quickly?
It doesn’t work.
If a marinade is going to do its job, you need to let it soak.
Even so, if your tough old heart is going to be softened by the word of God,
you need to let it soak.
I will lift up my
hands toward your commandments, which I love,
and I will marinate in your statutes.
God promises to teach you his ways and give you understanding.
Spend time in his word reflecting and chewing it over.
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.