Psalm 119: Aleph

Westerners get the impression the Hebrews weren’t too good at math, but that has more to do with a different attitude about when and where math matters. At 176 verses, this is the longest chapter in the Bible, and with few exceptions, each verse mentions the revelation of God directly. In English we see: law, testimony, statutes, ordinances, teaching, instructions, commandments, precepts, promises, ways and word, among others. It’s also an acrostic psalm in alphabetical order, 22 stanzas of 8 lines each, one for each letter, and each line in a stanza beginning with the same Hebrew letter of the alphabet.

Obviously the psalmist strives to get across his personal experience in devotion to God in terms of what we can know of God, what He allows us to see of Him through His self-disclosure. This is culturally challenging for us because Western Christians suffer the powerful influence of Hellenized Pharisaism and the resulting legalism. This is not a question of learning the Law as legislation, but as the manifestation of God’s personal character. The Law of God is not a mere record of statements and associated events, but the indicator of moral personality. The reason for the record is the Person behind it, so any obsessive legalistic focus on the record will never come up with the right answer. God’s revelation is also the very fundamental nature of reality itself. So we note that this psalm is an elongated celebration of Scripture as the tangible expression of God Himself.

We will examine this psalm one stanza at a time.

119: Aleph 1-8

The psalmist begins with a bold declaration: O, how blessed are those who are possessed of moral integrity! The image is a heart ruling over the entire being, directing all things in concert to conform to God’s divine moral character. This assertion is restated in different terms with twin Hebrew parallel statements. This is not legalism, since our notions of precision are not binding on God, but a celebration of how much power there is for living with a sincere commitment to pleasing God.

It’s the desire that matters, so God does not register their every miscalculation, but sees the heart of love and devotion. Thus, they are said to perform no evil, regardless of mistakes. These are people who do their best to walk in God’s footsteps. In the fourth verse, the word often translated “precept” actually has no English equivalent. It’s a reference to the substance of reality, arising from the concept that all of Creation reflects the moral nature of God. Clinging to whatever perception we have of that character makes our lives consistent with the very design of the universe.

The next verse (5) follows up by wishing mightily that his habits were built from God’s revelation. With that kind of character, reading the Scripture is a warming joy, not some kind of guilt-inducing embarrassment. Verse 7 looks forward to a life of worship that bubbles up irrepressibly from a heart that has an unalloyed commitment to God as personal Lord. Can you not see how our very existence takes on a blessed clarity when we order our commitments consistently? So the final verse is the psalmist’s resolve to build a thorny hedge of protection internally so that his habits of life create a moral hedge externally in his actions.

Finally, in accordance with courtly protocol, he asks that God keep a tight grip on his life and reserve His wrath for someone else.