Psalm 119:1

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, 176 verses built as an acrostic on the Hebrew alphabet. It has 22 stanzas of eight verses, one for each letter, and every verse in a stanza begins with that stanza’s letter. That is why verse 1 is headed “ALEPH.” Aleph is the first letter of the alphabet, and in Hebrew each of these eight verses begins with it. Running through the whole alphabet in this way says that God’s word reaches every part of life, from first to last.

The whole psalm is a meditation on that word, and it calls it by many names. In these eight verses alone it is the law, the testimonies, the precepts, the statutes, the commandments and the judgments of the LORD. Each name brings out a side of one thing, the will of God made known to his people. This opening stanza sets the theme for all that follows: the life God blesses is a life lived in line with his instruction.

The psalm’s first word is ʼesher, “blessed”. It is an exclamation, “how happy!”, and it describes a person who is fortunate and blessed by God. The Psalter itself begins with the same word, in the man whose delight is in the law of the LORD and who meditates in it day and night (Psalm 1:1–3). Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with a string of such blessings (Matthew 5:3), and he calls blessed those who hear the word of God and keep it (Luke 11:28). The happiness meant here is a settled well-being that comes from being right with God, and it holds when moods and circumstances change.

With verse 4 the psalmist speaks to God directly: “Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.” The verb tsâvâh is to command or charge, the word of one in authority laying an order on those under him. The precepts, piqqûwd, are God’s appointed charges, the particular instructions he has given for daily conduct. The word “us” is supplied by the KJV translators to make the sense plain, and it rightly shows that the command was given to God’s people, the people he met at Sinai (Exodus 19–20).

“To keep” here is shâmar, a different verb from the one in verse 2. Strong’s gives it the root picture of hedging something about, as with thorns, and it means to guard, observe, preserve and attend to. “Diligently” is mᵉʼôd, the ordinary Hebrew word for “very, greatly, exceedingly”. God asks for his precepts to be kept very greatly, with care, earnestness and consistency.

The command rests on God’s own authority, and it comes from the God who delivered his people and wants them to flourish. Jesus put the same truth in one line: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Verse 5 answers the command with a longing: “O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!” The word ʼachălay, “O that”, expresses a strong and earnest wish. Having owned that God commands his precepts to be kept with great care, the psalmist longs for the power to do it, and he looks to God for it.

The verb kûwn, “directed”, means to stand firm or be erect, to establish, prepare, make firm, set right or make ready. He asks for his ways, the whole course of his conduct, to be set firm and held steady on God’s statutes. The word for statutes, chôq, means something prescribed, such as a law, decree, task, allotted portion or set limit, and Strong’s traces it to a root meaning to engrave or decree.

Scripture teaches this dependence throughout. Jeremiah confesses, “O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jeremiah 10:23), and Proverbs says, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). We are to trust in the LORD with all our heart and acknowledge him in all our ways (Proverbs 3:5–6). Paul knew the gap between willing what is good and doing it (Romans 7:18–19), and he also knew the answer: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). Hebrews prays that the God of peace would equip believers in every good work to do his will, working in them what pleases him (Hebrews 13:20–21), and Jesus promised that the Spirit of truth would guide his people into all truth (John 16:13).

“Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.” To be ashamed, bûwsh, is to turn pale, to be ashamed, confounded or disappointed. It speaks of disgrace, often in front of others, when a person is exposed as having failed or a hope comes to nothing. In Israel shame touched a person’s honour and standing among the people and before God.

“Respect unto” translates nâbaṭ, a verb that most often means to look, see or gaze, and in some places to have regard for or consider. Here it has that second sense: the psalmist keeps all of God’s commandments in view and gives them his regard. The commandments, mitsvâh, are God’s commands, and the word is often used of the law as a whole.

The weight falls on “all”. A person who keeps only the commandments that suit him leaves room for the very failure that brings shame. James teaches that the law stands together as a whole, so that to offend in one point is to be guilty of all (James 2:10). Proverbs says that he who walks uprightly walks surely (Proverbs 10:9), and John urges believers to abide in Christ, “that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming” (1 John 2:28).

The freedom from shame in this verse is the vindication of being found upright when a life is measured against God’s law. A believer still feels the Spirit’s conviction over particular sins, and that conviction is healthy, because it leads to repentance. The promise is that a life given over to all of God’s commandments will stand before him at the last without disgrace.

“I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.” The verb yâdâh, in the form used here, means to praise, give thanks or confess, acknowledging God for who he is and what he has done. “Uprightness”, yôsher, is straightness, rectitude or integrity, and the heart here is lêbâb, the inner person with its will, mind and feelings. Upright praise is sincere, undivided and unfeigned, offered from a pure motive, the worship in spirit and in truth that Jesus spoke of (John 4:24). Proverbs calls us to keep the heart with all diligence, because the issues of life flow from it (Proverbs 4:23).

The judgments, mishpâṭ, are God’s decisions and ordinances, and they are righteous, tsedeq, which means right and just in every way. Learning them is the work of a lifetime, and the psalmist ties his praise to it. The more he understands of God’s justice and his ways, the deeper and truer his praise becomes. The blessed man of Psalm 1 meditates in God’s law day and night, Israel was told to keep God’s words in their hearts and teach them diligently to their children (Deuteronomy 6:6–7), and another psalm sings of the perfection of the LORD’s law and the righteousness of his judgments (Psalm 19:7–11). Paul prays that believers’ love would abound in knowledge and in all judgment (Philippians 1:9–10), and he calls for minds renewed so that we may prove the good and perfect will of God (Romans 12:1–2).

The stanza ends where verse 5 began, with God’s statutes, chôq again, but the longing has now become a resolve: “I will keep thy statutes.” “Keep” is shâmar, the same verb as in verse 4, to guard, observe and preserve. The psalmist gives his word.

At once he prays, “O forsake me not utterly.” To forsake, ʻâzab, is literally to loosen, and so to let go, leave, abandon or desert. “Utterly” is mᵉʼôd, the same word that stands behind “diligently” in verse 4. God asked for his precepts to be kept very greatly, and the psalmist now asks that God would never leave him very greatly, that is, altogether. He knows that his own resolve, however firm, would fail if God left him to himself. Under the covenant, to be left by God was the gravest consequence of unfaithfulness, and God’s presence was the greatest blessing. The plea also fits a man who, through the rest of the psalm, often speaks from affliction and opposition.

The two halves of the verse belong together. The psalmist commits himself fully, and he hangs entirely on God to make that commitment hold.

The blessed man of verse 1 is fully seen in one person only. Jesus walked in the law of the LORD without blemish or turning aside, and he fulfilled all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). He is the one “Who did no sin” (1 Peter 2:22), who “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), and who could say of his Father, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29). He came down from heaven to do the will of the one who sent him (John 6:38), and he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8). He came to fulfil the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17), and he is himself the Word who was with God and was made flesh (John 1:1–14). The psalm speaks of walking in God’s ways, and Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

He also answers the plea of verse 8. On the cross he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He was made a curse for us to redeem us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13), and he bore the shame our disobedience had earned, so that those who believe in him will never be utterly forsaken. The righteousness of God comes by faith in him to all who believe (Romans 3:22). He who knew no sin was made sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21), and being justified by faith we have peace with God and access into his grace (Romans 5:1–2). His one offering of himself accomplished what the sacrifices of the law could only foreshadow (Hebrews 10:1–10). So the freedom from shame of verse 6 is ours at the last through Christ’s perfect obedience counted to us.

In these eight verses God gives us a road and calls the people on it happy. He makes his will plain in his law, testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments and judgments, and he gives it with all the authority of his own name. He hears the prayer of a person who wants to obey and knows he needs help to do it, and he sets firm the ways of those who ask him. He receives the praise of those who are still learning his judgments. And the God whom the psalmist begged to stay has, in Christ, promised to be with his people always.

The stanza also gives us words to pray, from the longing of verse 5, “O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!”, to the vow and plea of verse 8. They belong to anyone who wants to walk with God and knows that God alone can keep him on the way.