December 31, 2018 ● 18-14
Psalms 119:97: O how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.
Psalms 119:104: From Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
Of the 150 Psalms in the Bible, Psalms 119 is the longest, containing 176 verses. Psalm 119 is arranged in a unique way: there are twenty-two groups of verses, each group contains eight verses. The first word of each verse that begins the next group begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
Psalm 119 has one theme: the Word of God. All through this longest Psalm, the writer gives reason after reason why the study of the Word of God is so important. In verses 97 and 104, the bookends of this one section, we read something very important: if the psalmist did not love God’s law, if he did not meditate on it all day, then he would never know the true way from the false way. If the Psalmist did not love and meditate on God’s law, he would not have understanding.
What a great truth these two verses, and in fact, the entirety of Psalms 119 teaches us: how much we miss, how much danger we put ourselves in, when we stay away from God’s Word. What a great truth these two verses teach us:
When we stay way, we stray away!
Allow God’s word to equip you to make you wise, give you insight, and to keep your feet from
every evil way (Psalms 119:98, 99, 101).