Psalm 119, Verse 161

I have come to realize Adonai, that when a man lives in the light and follows all Your instructions carefully, his behaviour is strikingly different from everyone else's. This bothers the "everyone". They get agitated. They begin to label such men who love You as fanatics, fundamentalists, rebels, crazy and a host of other terms. Such men of God are perceived as a threat to society. You are one example, Yeshua. Elijah, Jeremiah, Paul and several others are other cases in point. Even leaders and governing officials get vocal against Your servants so as to appease the crowd.

Yet, just as You stayed focused, my Lord and example, and continued to do the will of the Father, so too do I stand in awe and reverence for Your word constantly ask Thee for grace to remain steadfast and faithful. For there is none greater than Thee; and with You by my side, there is none who can harm me, unless You permit it.

Over the past several weeks, we have seen how the Psalmist has so marvellously weaved His longing for God's word with the eternal, dependable truth that it is; deftly composing eight verses for each Hebrew letter. We looked at 20 of the 22 Hebrew letters. Now, moving to the penultimate alphabet, "Shin", we see how the Psalmist continues with the same thought, persistently expressing his love for God while magnifying the word of His Maker. Here is one of the eight verses that begins with the letter Shin.

Lately, I have found myself drawn to Psalm 119. Charles Spurgeon beautifully describes it thus:

There is no title to this Psalm, neither is any author's name mentioned. It is not just long only; but equally excels in breadth of thought, depth of meaning, and height of fervour. It is like the celestial city which lieth four square, and the height and the breadth of it are equal. Many superficial readers have imagined that it harps upon one string, and abounds in pious repetitions and redundancies; but this arises from the shallowness of the reader's own mind: those who have studied this divine hymn, and carefully noted each line of it, are amazed at the variety and profundity of the thought.

It contains no idle word; the grapes of this cluster are almost to bursting full with the new wine of the kingdom. The more you look into this mirror of a gracious heart the more you will see in it. Placid on the surface as the sea of glass before the eternal throne, it yet contains within its depths an ocean of fire, and those who devoutly gaze into it shall not only see the brightness, but feel the glow of the sacred flame. It is loaded with holy sense, and is as weighty as it is bulky.

The Psalm is alphabetical. Eight stanzas commence with one letter, and then another eight with the next letter, and so the whole Psalm proceeds by octonaries quite through the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, from Aleph to Tau.

I thought I should post a verse each day in the hope that we all, including myself, may get an opportunity to reflect on them.