Examine It - Part 2

Psalm 119 Example - A Continuation
by Dick Emberley

The book of Psalms is divided into 5 sections, 5 books actually. Probably grouped that way by Hezekiah and each of the 5 sections is based on themes, probably Hezekiah put it together this way. Some have seen that each of the 5 books of the Psalms is aligned with the first 5 books of the Bible. So jumping down to where we are going specifically, Psalm 119, which finds itself in the 5th division, which is similar to the 5th book of the Bible, Deuteronomy. You have a grouping of the Psalms that deals with thankfulness for God’s faithfulness. In Deuteronomy, the people are listening to the law for the 2nd time, the second generation is about to enter the land, they are seeing a faithful God who has delivered them from Egypt and they are being reminded of how important it is for them to be faithful to God’s Word as well. So when we come to Psalm 119, we are in the section dealing with the faithfulness of God and the thankfulness of man for his Word. Psalm 119 is a very interesting Psalm in the sense that it is organized as a few of them are, as an acrostic. It takes the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and it starts each of the 22 sections dividing it into the poetry, the verses. Each of the 16 lines are grouped in 2’s, 8 sections pretty closely in our English Bible, 8 verses per section. Each of those verses in Hebrew starts with that letter of the Hebrew alphabet. When you are translating from Hebrew to English or any other language as well, it is very difficult because Hebrew by its very nature is a base and poetic language. So, words are not as fixed and defined as we tend to find in the English. They can have wide meanings. When you add the fact that the Psalms are poems, translating a poem into another language is very difficult because of the nature of poetic language. Each of the sections looked at, look at it individually; try to pull the main point. Each verse is going to be a couple. In the English you don’t necessarily see 2 things put together but there are 2. When you only see one thing, it shows how difficult it is to translate Hebrew poetry into English. Within each section, you see one major point. What keeps being brought out over and over again is the Word of God. It is mentioned in many ways, commandments, ordinances, precepts, laws; it is all talking about the Word of God. In this session we are not going to get into each of the acrostics but just remember that it is God’s revelation of Himself, Jesus Christ as the Word of God. Psalm 119 is a revelation in song, in poetry, of Jesus Christ to his people so that they will understand how important the living Word of God is, his place in our life, how he needs to be our guide, our strength, our encouragement, how connected he is to our emotions, how we need to discipline ourselves, you will see over and over “I will, I will” we need to discipline ourselves, we need to control our emotions. It is going to teach us how to do that, what we should be thinking about and how we should look at life and how we should allow the Word to be our guide, our example if we want to live a life that God has designed us to, a successful life.

A note of caution; when you are studying, try to define things. Many times we use “Christian language, terms” and really do not have a true understanding of what we are talking about. For example, the word “separation”, what do you mean when you say that? Use simple language, common language to say what you mean. Ask yourself if there are prejudices in how you use it.

Prayer: these things are spiritually discerned. Keep prayer simple, open my understanding.

Meditation: This is truly an art. The Jewish culture has a good handle on this. I shall attempt to try to explain. It is quietness. It is like you are holding a diamond, you turn it a bit and look and see the colors and various aspects of that side, then your turn it a bit more and ponder as the colors and things you see will be different. I will call it P-O-V: Point of View. When you meditate and ponder what it has to say you need to take it text and then look at it from different points of view. What is God’s point of view, how does he see things? What is man’s point of view, women’s point of view? How would a child see this, a teen, an older person, a disabled person, a soldier, a doctor, a lawyer, a farmer, a wealth person, a poor person? I think you see where I am going. Each person brings to scripture a different point of view depending on where God has put them in life. The ability to meditate is to take and see things from different vantage points. There are many aspects to this and it will take time to develop the ability to think so be patient with this part.