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Introduction:

Why did God provide salvation?

He loves us.

He wants us to be reconciled to him.

Salvation is about more than eternity.

God’s desire included changing our present.

To trust in Jesus for salvation is to long to be given life.

What do we long for God to do for us in the present?

Psalm 119:17 has already given us an occasion to consider the best way to spend our short amount of time.

We have occasion to reconsider that big question this morning.

We need to think about the Psalm technically, and then we need to think about it spiritually.

Technical Considerations

Each of the eight verses begins with the Hebrew letter “He” which would be the fifth letter of the 22 letter alphabet.

All but one stanza or verse begins with a Hebrew imperative in the Hifil stem.

This is for, at least, two reasons:

Hifil verbs use a “He” prefix. This satisfies the structural, poetic needs for each statement to begin with that letter.

Hifil verbs express/show causation.

The Psalmist uses Hifil imperatives because he wants to express a desire or a wish, and God must be the active agent causing the wish to come to be.

As we study these statements, we will especially notice the sense of an expression of desire.

When we express our desires to God, what are they about?

Family?

Work?

Safety?

Longing for Instruction

In the four statements from Ps. 119:33-36, three of them are expressions of desire for instruction or understanding.

Ps. 119:33.

Ps. 119:34.

Ps. 119:36.

Statement #1: “Cause to instruct me,” O Lord.

While this does make a request for the Lord to teach actively, the focus is on what the Psalmist wishes for the Lord to teach him.

“The way of your statutes.”

Like the statements above (see Ps. 119:27, 30) we have a singular “way.”

God’s “statutes” reveal/make known “the way;” they define and disclose the proper course of life.

Learning the word of God is about more than memorization or the accumulation of academic knowledge. We should want to know God and to know his ways.

Statement #2: “Cause me to understand.”

Like the previous expression of longing, this one conveys the desire for knowledge to be imparted. It could even connote discernment.

Two statements of commitment follow:

I will keep/guard/protect your Torah.

I will keep (it) with my whole heart.

Both of these statements present God’s law as something valuable to be obeyed, the first one even protected.

The second one also reminds us, again, of Dt. 6:4.

Statement #3: “Cause to lead me in the path of your commandments.”

This statement reiterates the statements already made, in a sense.

The Psalmist wants the Lord to provide guidance in the path made known by his commandments.

These are not statements requesting special revelation, they are statements expressing the desire to understand the Word of God with greater accuracy so that the life can be lived based on what the scriptures make known.

This is what he finds joy in: the path of your commandments.

He does not find the Word of God or what it reveals to be tedium.

Statements #4: “Cause to bend my heart”

In an very picturesque statement, he asks the Lord to bend his heart to the Lord’s testimonies.

He wants to be bent toward them over greed.

This points, yet again, to a proper value system.

Introduction (Part 2):

We focused, in part 1, on the initial two statements.

We have thought about the technical side of the Psalm.

The Psalmist longs to understand, he recognizes God as authoritative teacher, and he intends to obey what he learns.

In the final five verses, the Psalmist continues to make requests of the Lord.

In them, we are reminded of where he located true living.

What does a good life look like?

How might the Word of God direct our attention toward that which matters as opposed to that which does not matter?

Longing for Instruction (Part 2):

Statement #3: “Cause to lead me in the path of your commandments.”

This statement reiterates the statements already made, in a sense.

The Psalmist wants the Lord to provide guidance in the path made known by his commandments.

These are not statements requesting special revelation, they are statements expressing the desire to understand the Word of God with greater accuracy so that the life can be lived based on what the scriptures make known.

This is what he finds joy in: the path of your commandments.

He does not find the Word of God or what it reveals to be tedium.

Statements #4: “Cause to bend my heart”

In an very picturesque statement, he asks the Lord to bend his heart to the Lord’s testimonies.

He wants to be bent toward them over greed.

This points, yet again, to a proper value system.

Selfish gain, profit, is a diversion from what is most important.

No life is spiritual that pauses for money.

Longing for True Life

The Psalmist recognizes that the life of a human being has competing distractions.

“Selfish gain” in Ps. 119:36 is one of them.

Now, he uses a “catch all term” referring to “worthless things.”

That term “designates anything that is unsubstantial, unreal, worthless, either materially or morally” (TWOT 2:908).

He requests for the Lord to “cause my eyes to pass by from seeing vanity.”

This corresponds to the earlier request for discernment because it implies the ability to distinguish between that which has substance and that which does not.

What really matters? How do we know?

The contrast with that which proves to be nothing more than “smoke and mirrors” is “life in your ways.”

This is not a request for eternal life, per se, but of substantive living which, he understands, must be based on the Word of God.

A substantive life is one lived “in your ways.”

The Psalmist appears to see the reproach under which he lives as a source of distraction from what he should fear.

He requests for God to “confirm your promise to your servant that you may be feared.”

He follows that by asking for the removal of the shame that he “fears.”

Ps. 119:22.

Ps. 119:6.

The word of God is both the source of his reduction to public humiliation but also that which will affect its reversal.

He prays, so it seems, to be vindicated.

Ps. 119:40 is the only statement that does not begin with a causative verb.

It emphasizes, yet again, the desire or longing the Psalmist has for God’s precepts.

He longs for life which God, in His righteousness, can/will/has the power to give.