I fell in love with God’s Word in my teens after reading a biblical novel. I love all parts of Scripture and am currently reading in about five places at once. I save the Psalms to read before I turn out the lights for bed. Sometimes that can be a disadvantage if I’m already sleepy, but most of the time I try to concentrate on the passage.
This past week, I started to read Psalm 119, the longest of the psalms. If you are familiar with this particular psalm, then you know that it is divided into sections, each one beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I learned years ago how to sing the Hebrew alphabet on the website Hebrew4Chrstians. Hebrew is read right to left, which goes against our English reading brain, but you get used to it after a while. That’s not to say that I can read Hebrew. I know a little about the alphabet and for a while could identify certain words, but like anything you can’t practice often, I have forgotten much of it.
But, back to Psalm 119. The second section begins with the Hebrew letter Bet. (Pronounced Bate). Its meaning points to a number of possibilities, but two that stood out to me were life and creation. Especially after reading the section (verses 9-16) that follows this letter.
“How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
Praise be to you, Lord;
teach me your decrees.
With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from your mouth.
I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.
I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word.”(Emphasis mine.)
The passage begins with asking how can we keep our way pure? The answer is to live according to God’s Word. Sounds simple, but then again, how does one come to love God’s laws the way the psalmist did?
We often equate law with strict rules we can’t or don’t want to obey. But if you search the Scripture, you come to realize that the whole law can be summed up in one phrase. Love your neighbor as yourself.
In context, Paul puts it this way:
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”
In the psalmist’s day, the Law of God seemed more complicated, but this truth was written back as far as Leviticus 19:18.
“‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
So how does we stay pure in God’s eyes? The psalmist explains.
Lastly—don’t neglect His Word. Why would the psalmist end with that warning? I think it’s really easy to neglect the Bible. We get so busy with life. We don’t have time to set aside to read, let alone study it. And if we are reading it just to check off a box on our Christian to-do list, we aren’t doing these things the psalmist urges us to do. Seek, Hide, Praise, Recount, Rejoice, Meditate, Delight.
When we do these things, we grow in our faith, we renew our thinking, we find joy, peace, and we humbly learn how to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Jesus fulfilled the Law of God and kept it perfectly. He is the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. So when we delight in the Law of the Lord, the Word of God, we are delighting in Jesus. And there is no one who ever lived who loved His neighbor better than Jesus did. Jesus died to bring His neighbor to a right relationship with the God of that Law.
So how does the letter Bet fit with this section of the psalm? The Creator became the Word that dwelt among us. The Word was in the beginning with God and nothing that was made came into being without Him. Bet gives us meanings of creation and life, just as God created and gave us life.
In these times in which we live, it is good to remember the One who gives life. Life is a gift, a privilege given at the hand of a loving Creator. He made us for community to teach us how to love each other and to love Him above all. We do that as we get to know Him, just as we would anyone else. We communicate. He communicates with us through His Word. We communicate with Him through meditating on that Word and telling Him what is on our hearts.
The psalms have been a comforting balm to people throughout the ages. King David, who wrote most of them, went through many, many struggles in his short years on this earth, but he left behind a legacy of faith that God never forsakes those who seek Him. Perhaps that is why seek is the first verb in this passage. When we seek Him, we will find Him – if we seek Him with all of our heart.
~Selah
