Psalm 119
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Happy are those whose way is blameless,*
who walk in the law of the Lord.
Happy are those who keep his decrees,*
who seek him with their whole heart,
who also do no wrong,*
but walk in his ways.
You have commanded your precepts*
to be kept diligently.
O that my ways may be steadfast*
in keeping your statutes!
Then I shall not be put to shame,*
having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
I will praise you with an upright heart,*
when I learn your righteous ordinances.
I will observe your statutes;*
do not utterly forsake me.-Psalm 119:1-8
This Sunday, we will pray the first 8 verses of the longest psalm in the bible - psalm 119. It is a hard psalm to like, because it goes on forever saying the same sort of thing over and over and over again. The psalmist repeatedly asserts that they will obey God’s law - or ordinances, or statutes, or commandments or decrees or precepts or way - all different words for God’s Word. The entire psalm is comprised of 22 stanzas of 8 verses each - 176 verses! The psalm is so long that even in monasteries they split it up into sections instead of trying to pray it all at once.
But it’s an interesting psalm. It has 22 stanzas because there is one stanza for each letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Although we can’t see this in English, every verse in each stanza begins with a word that begins with that particular letter - like an alliterative children’s book. In addition, every singe verse of the psalm contains one of the words used to describe God’s Word.
It is also clearly structured to be a call and response prayer, as many psalms are, which is why we still usually pray them that way in church. This is what the asterisk is for in our psalms - it delineates the call and the response of each verse. The psalms are often set up so that the second half of each verse - the response - is an affirmation, a further description or a repetition of what was just said in the call. For example, in verse 1 the call says that those whose way is blameless are happy and the response expresses that those whose way are blameless are happy because they’re walking in the law of the Lord. And in verse 2, it says those who keep God’s decrees are happy and the response affirms that those who keep God’s decrees are happy because they are looking for God with their whole heart. This is called “parallelism” and it is found throughout the psalms. It’s often really easy to identify in most of Psalm 119.
People have been praying the psalms for many, many generations. As Christians, we treasure it because this was the prayerbook Jesus used, as we can tell by his many references to the psalms in the gospels, as well as in the words of the early disciples. Even some of Jesus’ very last words were straight from the psalter; “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” We are praying Christ’s own prayers every time we pray with the psalms. (Now, I know there are many questions about the psalms, including who all those enemies they’re always talking about are and why some of the them contain prayers for hurtful revenge. I guess that will all have to wait for another blog!)
Anyway, as tedious as psalm 119 may appear at first, I commend praying once stanza at a time regularly. The fact that it was included in its entirety even though it is strangely longer than any other psalm only shows that we’ve always known that the idea of obeying and following God is of key importance in our lives of faith. Reading Psalm 119 in English doesn’t give us the chance to enjoy the alliteration in the original Hebrew, but we all would certainly benefit by repeatedly affirming its very important message. Happy are those who walk in the way of the Lord. Or as it’s said in my favorite verse in Psalm 119
Your word is a lamp to my feet* and a light to my path.
This Sunday we will be welcoming new members among us in worship and celebrating them at our coffee and connection time. I hope you’ll bring a yummy dish to share for the celebration!
