119: He

Gabriele Levy’s Alefbet entry for today’s letter reads: “He [ה] represents divine revelation, the breath of the Creator (Psalm 33:6 — ‘By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host’). The world was created with the utterance of the He. It represents the gift of life and creates the verb of being (היה Haya — being).”

Wow, is that ever on the nose, as we will see shortly. The themes of life and being weave throughout this section of Psalm 119.

Last week’s study turned up five different prayer petitions in five straight verses, an early leader in the request department among our alphabetized sections. This week’s entry blows right by it and no section in the remainder of the psalm will surpass it. In fact, the He section is almost nothing but requests, with at least one ‘ask’ for every couplet, and a total of nine for the section.

Psalm 119:33-40 — Nine Requests in Eight Verses

“Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared. Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good. Behold, I long for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life!”

Perhaps we imagine that we are asking too much when we pray. Both Old and New Testament writers disagree: we are not asking enough. The OT’s signature psalm is over 30% requests. The NT tells us, “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” What is supplication? Asking for stuff, that’s what. “You do not have,” says James, “because you do not ask.” So ask away, and the Lord assures us he will hear and respond to requests made “in my name”, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

The stipulation “in my name” reminds us that we do not have carte blanche in prayer to rattle off requests for just any old thing we might like to have. The prayers and supplications the Lord responds to are those made for his glory, not ours, and in accordance with his will, not our fond wishes. Whenever God’s children act as his agents in the world, making requests on his behalf, we can trust he will stand behind us. That’s precisely what the psalmist is doing here. He’s concerned not merely for himself but for the Lord’s glory to be displayed in his life: “Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared.” He wants the world to know that God exists and that he rewards those who seek him. This is the substance of faith.

1/ Teach Me the Way

In previous sections, the psalmist has referred to “the way of your testimonies” (Beth), “the way of your precepts” and “the way of your commandments” (Daleth). Here we get the final member of the quartet: “the way of your statutes”.

As I pointed out in the first instalment of this series, each of these words refers to the self-revelation of God, so there is a sense in which they serve as functional synonyms within Psalm 119. That said, each word retains distinct nuances of meaning: a testimony is a witness, a precept is an appointment, and a commandment is a direction. The word “statute” refers primarily to the limitations on human behavior prescribed by God, the “do nots” rather than the “dos” of scripture. So then, the psalmist may be asking, “Lord, show me where to stop. Remind me when it’s time to tap the brakes and say ‘No further’, like Daniel did when offered the king’s food.”

Coupled with this first request is a promise: “I will keep it to the end.” The Hebrew word translated “to the end” is literally “until I get paid”. “I will obey whatever limitations you set for me, Lord,” writes the psalmist, “all the way until the consequences play out. I am not merely observing your restrictions for a trial period, to see if I like the way they are affecting my life. I’m not simply sampling your law until I come to some part of it that doesn’t taste right to me. I’m going to live within the borders you have drawn for me, regardless of how they affect me, right to the end of the line.”

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego would agree.

2/ Give Me Understanding

Sometimes the answer to “Why do I have to do this?” is “Because I said so.” We obey without full knowledge of the reasons behind the instruction because we trust the one giving the commands. Still, it’s a lot more enjoyable when the Lord tells us why. In doing so, he is not opening a negotiation, but he’s treating us as cherished family members rather than slaves, like sons or daughters learning the family business.

Thank the Lord, scripture is full of reasons Christians are required to do things against which the flesh rebels, and they start early. Why submit to parents? Not just because “this is right”, but so “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land”. Why should husbands try to understand and consider their wives? Well, they are fellow heirs of the grace of God. Also, your prayers will be hindered if you don’t.

See? Understanding is a very good thing. It leads to more than mechanical obedience. Understanding helps us observe the Lord’s rules “with a whole heart”, that is to say with the mind and affections as well as the will, with love and clarity as well as self-control.

3/ Lead Me in the Path of Your Commandments

The flesh finds rules a bit of a downer. It wants to express its autonomy and assert its own will in the world. So it may seem counterintuitive to find commandments associated with words like “heart”, “desire”, “hope”, “singing”, “delight”, “love” and “panting”, but this is what the psalmist does. Almost every reference to commands in Psalm 119 comes with an expression of his joy in keeping them. Here, concerning the path of God’s commandments, he says, “I delight in it.”

Why is this? Because God’s commandments work. They produce better results, greater happiness and longer-term satisfaction than my own half-baked ideas or those of Gloria Steinem, Karl Marx or Klaus Schwab. The path of God’s commandments is a path in which delight is a regular feature. “Oh, look at that,” I find myself saying as I forge into my seventh decade as a follower of Christ, “He’s right again!” And guess what? He is.

4/ Incline My Heart to Your Testimonies

The contrast here is between God’s testimonies — the evidences of his power and glory in verbal form — and “selfish gain”. The Hebrew word for “selfish gain” is often translated “bribe”. A bribe is the purported evidence of the world’s power and glory. To take one is to say, “This is what really matters in the world and what really matters to me.” What a sad commentary if that’s all life amounts to. Paul cautions Timothy about those who imagine godliness (following God’s testimonies) is “a means of gain”. No, he says, “Godliness with contentment IS great gain.” It’s not a means to anything. It’s the goal of the exercise.

Why? Because you can’t take the world’s “gain” with you when you go. In later years, you may not even be able to enjoy it. Make choices that lead to eternal reward, not just a short-term fix.

5/ Turn My Eyes from Looking at Worthless Things

Does God help those who help themselves? Inclining the heart and turning the eyes are two things you might think mature believers should be able to manage more or less on our own. But aren’t we asking something similar when we pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”? We should never be afraid to ask for the Lord’s help with self-control, and from keeping us from temptations too great for us. As Jesus reminded his disciples, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

The word for “worthless” is not a synonym for “wicked”, but rather for “empty”. We tend to ascribe value to much that is actually valueless, chimerical and passing away. The psalmist is praying, “Don’t let me be sucked in by the world’s sparkly things.”

6/ Give Me Life in Your Ways

The Hebrew word here has the sense of “preserve” or “revive”. The woman at the well in John 4 has a long exchange with the Lord Jesus about water. He offers her living water, which, if she drinks it, she will never thirst again. The ways of the Lord are like that living water. They will never leave you without what you need.

7/ Confirm to Your Servant Your Promise

This is the first of twelve references to God’s promise in Psalm 119. The promises of God are associated with love, life, grace, comfort, stability, righteousness and steady steps — whatever the needs of the moment require, God has promised to those who walk faithfully according to his word.

Why should the Lord keep his promises? There are many good reasons, but the one the psalmist focuses on is this: “that you may be feared”. Testimony is important. When God upholds his servants, the Powers That Be quake in their boots. The fear of God may be knowledgeable or ignorant, spiritual or merely superstitious, but wherever God confirms his promises, “many will see and fear”. Pharaoh did, and Rahab, and Nebuchadnezzar, and many, many others.

8/ Turn Away the Reproach That I Dread

The psalmist is placing his trust and confidence in God’s word: “your rules are good”.

The kind of reproach the psalmist fears most is the kind you get from the world when you do the right thing and it doesn’t work out the way you hoped right away. A godly man and woman who can’t have a child. Reproach. Nabal’s abuses of David when he had done nothing but good to him. Reproach. The exiles return from Babylon to a Jerusalem with no temple and no walls. Reproach.

Hey, I would dread that sort of public embarrassment too, but sometimes the servant of God must wait for his vindication. Why? Because God’s rules are good, and they will eventually work exactly as expected, always for greater glory to God than if they had produced the results you were looking for right away. The childless couple who conceive in old age, the enemy who falls dead without you touching him, or the city the enemy cannot breach even though its inhabitants appear weak, small in number and poorly armed: all these things vindicate the servants of God and take away their reproach.

9/ Give Me Life in Your Righteousness

As an appeal for preservation or revival, this is similar to the sixth request (v37), but while the first prayer request is for obedience to God’s word to give life, here it is for the righteousness of God to give life. How a righteous God could grant eternal life to sinful men remained a mystery to all but the most devout in the Old Testament, but the apostle Paul explains it in a few sentences for us in Romans: the cross of Christ allows God to remain entirely just while justifying those who have faith in Jesus, bringing us into his family and granting us life eternal so overflowing that it starts working the moment the Spirit of God enters our hearts, renewing us day by day.

“Give me life in your righteousness” indeed! He has, and he will.