Psalm 119:105

In Israel a journey after dark was a dangerous thing. Paths were unpaved and uneven, with rocks and holes along them and wild animals about, and a traveller carried a small oil lamp in his hand to see the ground just in front of him. The psalmist says that God’s word does this for him. It shows him where to put his next step, and it keeps him from stumbling into sin and error and the harm that comes with them.

The word for word, dâbâr, means word or speech, and in a separate sense a matter or thing. In this psalm it stands for all that God has said: his commands, his promises and his decrees. The word for lamp, nîyr, means a lamp or light and comes from a root meaning to glisten. The word for light, ʼôwr, means illumination, or a light that gives it.

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. It is an acrostic of 22 stanzas of eight verses, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in turn, and in Hebrew every verse of a stanza begins with its letter. These verses are the stanza of Nun, and the KJV prints the letter’s name at the head of verse 105.

The whole psalm is a song in praise of God’s word, and it calls that word by many names. Every verse of this stanza uses one of them: “word” in verses 105 and 107, “judgments” in 106 and 108, “law” in 109, “precepts” in 110, “testimonies” in 111 and “statutes” in 112. Each name brings out a side of the one word of God, as the notes below show.

The stanza moves between light and trouble. After the lamp of verse 105 come a vow, deep affliction, a life held in the hand and a snare laid by the wicked. Through all of it the psalmist holds to what God has said, and he ends in joy, with his heart set to obey to the end. The lamp, it turns out, was given for exactly this kind of road.

Having seen the way, the psalmist commits himself to walk in it: “I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.” The verb shâbaʻ means to swear, to take an oath or make a solemn promise, and it calls on God as witness to what is promised. Israel took such promises with great seriousness. The law said, “When thou shalt vow a vow unto the LORD thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it,” and it counted a vow left unpaid as sin (Deuteronomy 23:21–23).

“I will perform it” uses qûwm, the verb for rising or standing up. Here it means to make the oath good and carry it out in practice. “Keep” is shâmar, to guard, watch over, observe and take heed, a verb whose root picture is of hedging something round, as with thorns, to protect it. The psalmist means to guard God’s judgments as a precious thing and to be careful in following them.

The judgments are mishpâṭ, a word for a verdict given by a judge, a sentence or a formal decree. God’s judgments are his rulings and ordinances for his people. They are “righteous” because of tsedeq, the word for rightness, righteousness and justice. He commits himself to them because they are right and good, as another psalm says: “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul” (Psalm 19:7–11).

This vow joins words to deeds. James calls believers to “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22), and he says that “faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17). Joshua made a commitment of the same kind: “as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). Moses told Israel to love the LORD with all their heart and to keep his words in their hearts and teach them diligently to their children (Deuteronomy 6:5–9), and the psalmist’s oath is that command made personal.

The next verse is an honest cry: “I am afflicted very much: quicken me, O LORD, according unto thy word.” The verb ʻânâh means to be bowed down, humbled, oppressed or afflicted, and mᵉʼôd means very, greatly, exceedingly. The psalmist says plainly how heavy his trouble is, and he lays it before God as it is. The verse leaves its cause unnamed, so it fits suffering of every kind, in body, mind or spirit.

“Quicken” is the old English for give life. The Hebrew verb châyâh (also spelled ḥāyâ) means to live, to revive, to keep alive or to restore to life. The psalmist asks the LORD for life itself, for strength and renewal where affliction has worn him down. He addresses God by his covenant name, Yᵉhôvâh, printed in the KJV as “the LORD”, the self-existent God who has bound himself to his people.

The same prayer runs through the whole psalm: “My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word” (Psalm 119:25), and “Great are thy tender mercies, O LORD: quicken me according to thy judgments” (Psalm 119:156). In another place the psalmist says the prayer has been answered: “This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me” (Psalm 119:50).

“According unto thy word” uses the same word, dâbâr, as the lamp of verse 105. The psalmist asks God to act as he has said he will, and so his request rests on God’s promise and God’s faithfulness. Moses told Israel of God’s words, “For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life” (Deuteronomy 32:47). In Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, the word of the LORD is spoken over the bones and they live (Ezekiel 37:1–14).

God’s word gives life because it carries his own power and truth. Jesus said, “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). As we read it, think on it and hear it preached, the Holy Spirit uses it to show us God’s character and promises, to remind us that he is faithful and able to deliver, and to strengthen faith that has grown weak.

“Accept, I beseech thee, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD, and teach me thy judgments.” The verb râtsâh means to be pleased with, to accept with favour, and the psalmist asks humbly for God’s approval of what he brings.

A freewill offering, nᵉdâbâh, comes from the verb nâdab, to be willing. In the law of Moses it was a voluntary sacrifice, given from a willing heart out of thanks or devotion, and the law lists such offerings beside the vows and the appointed sacrifices (Leviticus 7:16, Numbers 29:39). The psalmist brings his offering with his mouth. His prayers, his praise and the vow he has just made are the gifts he lays before God. The prophets taught that God looks for this kind of worship from the heart: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6).

The New Testament takes up the same thought. “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” (Hebrews 13:15). Paul calls believers to present their bodies “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God” (Romans 12:1). Those words “By him” matter, because our praise is accepted through Christ, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), whose sacrifice makes our offerings acceptable to a holy God.

“Teach me thy judgments” uses the same word, mishpâṭ, as verse 106. The man who has sworn to keep God’s judgments now asks to be taught them. He loves God’s law and knows it well, and still he knows his understanding has limits and life keeps bringing new questions. He wants to know God’s ways deeply enough to live by them. The psalm prays this often: “Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end” (Psalm 119:33). God gives such wisdom gladly: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5). The things of God are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14), and we learn them from the Spirit and from Jesus, who said, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

The two halves of the verse belong together. Worship that is real makes us hungry to learn God’s ways, and learning his ways makes our worship truer.

“Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart.” The testimonies, ʻêdûwth, come from a root meaning to bear witness. They are God’s solemn declarations, which bear witness to who he is, to his covenant and to what he asks of his people. In Israel they were taught to each new generation as a family’s most precious legacy (Deuteronomy 6:5–9).

“Have I taken as an heritage” is a single verb, nâchal, to take or give as a permanent possession, to inherit. Its noun, nachalah, was most often a family’s share of the land, bound up with who they were and with God’s promise of the land to Abraham’s descendants. The psalmist has taken God’s testimonies as his own possession, and “for ever” marks it as lasting. Earthly inheritances can be lost. Peter tells believers of “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3–4). Wisdom is worth more than any earthly wealth, for “the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver” (Proverbs 3:13–18).

The reason follows: “for they are the rejoicing of my heart.” Sâsôwn is exultation, gladness, the joy of a festival. Lêb, the heart, is the inner person, the seat of feeling, will and understanding alike. So this joy fills the whole man. Jeremiah used the same English phrase: “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart” (Jeremiah 15:16).

People ask how laws can be a joy. They are a joy because they come from God’s wisdom and love, and they lead to life. The man who delights in the law of the LORD “shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water” (Psalm 1:1–3), and Moses called God’s commands the way to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19–20). To know God’s will and walk in it is freedom, and the psalmist found it so.

The stanza closes with a settled resolve: “I have inclined mine heart to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end.” The verb nâṭâh means to stretch out, to bend or turn. The psalmist has turned his own heart toward God’s statutes, and the verb stands in the perfect tense, which speaks of a resolve already made and still standing. The heart, lêb, is the same word as in verse 111, so the heart that rejoices in God’s testimonies is the heart that has turned to do his statutes. Joy and will meet in one place. This answers the great command, “thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5–9), and it rests on God’s own promise: “the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart” (Deuteronomy 30:6).

“To perform” is ʻâsâh, to do or make, the broadest verb for doing in Hebrew. The English “perform” also stood in verse 106, where it translates a different verb. The statutes, chôq, are things God has prescribed: a law, a decree, a custom, a task, an appointed portion. The word comes from a verb meaning to engrave or decree. Through Moses God gave his statutes to Israel, and keeping them was to be their wisdom in the sight of the nations (Deuteronomy 4:5–8). His covenant set blessing on obedience and curses on disobedience (Leviticus 26), so the psalmist’s resolve was a serious one.

“Alway, even unto the end” joins ʻôwlâm, for ever or always, with ʻêqeb, a word for the heel and so for the last of anything. The psalmist means the whole of his life, without a break, to its last day. Elsewhere he longs for God’s judgments “at all times” (Psalm 119:20). Jesus said, “he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13), and “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). Proverbs gives the same lifelong trust: “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

The God whose word is a lamp has spoken his fullest word in his Son. John writes that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” that all things were made by him, and that “In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1–4). That Word “was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Jesus said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12), and “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). The written word points us to him, and through him God has called his people “out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Jesus kept the psalmist’s vow in full. He came to the law and the prophets, he said, “not to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17). Of his Father he said, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29), and “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34). He kept that will to the very end, for he “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8), and he could say, “I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:10).

He knew the snares of the wicked. In the wilderness he answered the devil with Scripture, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:1–11). The scribes and Pharisees lay in wait for him, “seeking to catch something out of his mouth” (Luke 11:53–54). He came to “fulfil all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15), and he “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). His life was in his enemies’ hands, and he never strayed from his Father’s will.

He also answers the cry of verse 107. He said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25), and “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Paul writes, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1–5), and the Spirit who raised Jesus “shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Romans 8:11). In him we receive the inheritance that fades not away, and our joy is in him: “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

These eight verses show us a God who speaks, and whose word is light in the dark. He hears an afflicted man’s cry for life and answers according to what he has promised. He accepts praise offered freely from the mouth, and he teaches those who ask him. He keeps his people on the way when their lives are in danger and when the wicked hide traps beside the path. He gives them his testimonies as an inheritance that lasts for ever and fills the heart with joy.

The psalmist’s vow at the beginning and his settled heart at the end both rest on that word, and in Christ, who kept his Father’s commandments all the way to the cross, we see the vow kept in full. The lamp of verse 105 lights one step at a time. The psalmist could see the next step, the next prayer and the next snare to pass by, and he trusted the same word for the end of the road. That word is in our hands still, and the God who gave it still teaches, still gives life, and still accepts the freewill offerings of his people’s mouths.