Psalm 119:49

We are now ready to take up the next octave of Psalm 119 entitled Zain. The ai is pronounced like the ai in the word aisle. But before we get into this let me state something. Some have said that while they appreciate these meditations on Psalm 119, they prefer when I do blogs on different subjects. But if you look past the fact that Psalm 119 is prefixed to every meditation and pay careful attention to what I am writing, you should notice that many different topics are addressed in this psalm. The psalmist mentions a wide range of human experiences and emotions. It is obvious that the psalmist is processing all of his life with all its myriad of experiences through the word of God, which is precisely what we, who are servants of God, should do. There is a great example being set before us in this psalm. Sometimes I go back and read previous meditations I have written from this psalm and I am amazed at the breadth and depth of information I have already mined from it. So I ask you to look beyond the fact that we are dealing with the same psalm and consider the tremendous variety of information that can be gleaned from it. With that off my chest, let’s come to today’s verse.

Psalms 119:49 ZAIN. Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.

When the psalmist asks the Lord to remember His word, there is no implication here that God ever forgets it. God is omniscient. He knows everything and, therefore, nothing ever slips His mind, most especially His own word. Rather, the psalmist is using a mode of expression very common in speech. We often tell someone to remember something or not to forget something. When we do this, we are simply bringing something before that person that they have said or that they are supposed to do. When we tell someone to remember something they said, we are also telling that person that we remember. The psalmist remembers what God has said and is pleading that before Him, which occurs often in the Bible. The most effective way to pray to God is to ask Him to do what He has promised to do. By so doing we are showing the Lord that we take His word very seriously and that we build our expectations upon it. This honours God in that it demonstrates our faith in His truthfulness to do what He promises and in His power to be able to bring it to pass.

I find the insights of Charles Spurgeon about this verse to be rich.

“This verse is the prayer of love fearing to be forgotten, of humility conscious of insignificance and anxious not to be overlooked, of penitence trembling lest the evil of sin should overshadow the promise, of eager desire longing for the blessing, and of holy confidence which feels that all that is wanted is comprehended in the word.”

Observe that the psalmist asked God to remember His word unto thy servant. The psalmist is referring to himself in the singular. He is applying the word of God to himself in particular. And that is the privilege of every servant of God. When you read the Bible, read it as though God is speaking to you in particular, because He is! Take the promises He has made to you and turn them back to Him in prayer. Prayers that are centered in God’s word are sure to be heard.

1 John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: 15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

But just you remember that this word is a word to God’s servant. You have no place praying a prayer like this if you are in rebellion against God, if you are serving self, or mammon, or something other than the Lord. This is a servant’s prayer!

The psalmist described God’s word as a word upon which thou hast caused me to hope. The psalmist built his expectations upon what God said. Men may promise you many things and thereby raise your hopes. But men do not always follow through on what they promise, either because they cannot or they will not. We should all make it a priority to make good on our word to others. But sometimes things occur so that we cannot do as we promised. We mean well, but we just do not have the absolute control of all things that always permits us to follow through on our intentions. But God has no such problems. He has the power at His disposal to always fulfill His promises. His great works in creation and in the government of this universe, and His promises that He has fulfilled thus far give us good reason to hope in His word. Hence we can say to God that He has caused us to hope in His word. He has given us the reason to expect Him to do as He has said.

But this thing of God causing us to hope in His word goes a step further. If we hope in God’s word, we obviously believe it. We have faith in it; we trust it. Faith and hope work in tandem. You certainly would not find much hope in something you did not believe.

Jeremiah 17:7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

And if we have such faith, we have it because we are born of God, because God has brought us from spiritual death unto spiritual and eternal life so that we may hear, receive, and believe His word. And believing His word, we build out hope upon it.

1 John 5:1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

1 Peter 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead….

Without the work of God in giving us spiritual life in the new birth, we would neither hear nor receive His word. Thus we would have no cause to hope in His word.

John 8:47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Thanks be to God for His saving grace that has caused us to hope in His word.

Psalm 119:48

We come today to the last verse in this octave entitled Vau. Recall that unlike the other octaves, every verse in this octave is connected by some word to the verse that precedes it. And such is the case with verse 48. By means of the word also it links up with verse 47.

Psalms 119:48 My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.

Both verses 47 and 48 mention that the psalmist has loved God’s commandments. In verse 47 we saw that loving God’s commandments leads to delighting oneself in them. In verse 48 the psalmist brings forth something else that loving God’s commandments will also lead to. So both verses are talking about the effect in one’s life of loving God’s commandments.

My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments. Think about this. Anytime you undertake to do any work with your hands, you lift up your hands unto the task, whether it be driving a vehicle, washing dishes, combing your hair, raking leaves, typing a document on your computer keyboard, reading a book, or repairing something. You can’t very well work with hands that are hanging down. By this expression of lifting up his hands unto God’s commandments the psalmist is telling us that he is going to apply himself to the task of keeping them.

Recall from our last meditation that the verb phrase I have loved is in the present perfect tense, meaning that the psalmist loved God’s commandments in the past and continued to love them in the present. Now the effect of loving God’s commandments is doing them. We pointed out last week the general principle that what you have loved up to now will determine what you will enjoy in the future. Now we can state another general principle from the verse we consider today: What you have loved up to now will determine what you will do in the future. The character of our lives is shaped by what we love. If we have loved God’s commandments we will lift up our hands to them. It will not be drudgery to execute the tasks God has assigned us in His commandments if we love them.

1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

And I will meditate in thy statutes. This is something else that will flow out of having loved God’s commandments. Not only will he apply his hands to God’s commandments, but he will also apply his heart and mind to them, by meditating in them. He will consider them, study them, which is what it means to meditate in them. It is not enough just to hear and read God’s word. You need to think about what you hear or read. If you love it, you will think about it. And that brings us to a third general principle that we can add to the other two: What you have loved up to now will determine what you will think about in the future. We more readily think about the things we truly love.

Psalm 119:47

The psalmist links the verse we consider today to the preceding verses by the word and.

Psalms 119:47 And I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved.

The man to whom God’s mercies have come (verse 41), who trusts in God’s word (v. 42), who hopes in God’s judgments (v. 43), who keeps God’s law continually (v. 44), who seeks God’s precepts (v. 45), and who is unashamed to speak of them before kings (v. 46), is a man who is going to find pleasure in God’s commandments. His Bible will be a source of joy for him in time to come.

The psalmist states: “I will delight myself in thy commandments.” What makes you most happy with yourself? Matthew Henry’s comment on this is most insightful:

“I will never be so well pleased with myself as when I do that which is pleasing to God.”

Observe the verb tenses in this verse. I will delight is the future tense. I have loved is the present perfect tense. According to Wikipedia and other resources I have checked, the present perfect tense is “used to express a past event that has present consequences.” The psalmist had loved God’s law in the past and he continued to love God’s law in the present, as he wrote later in this psalm:

Psalms 119:97 O how love (present tense) I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.

Having loved God’s commandments, the psalmist was sure to delight himself in them in the future. From this we may draw a conclusion in general about life: What you have loved up to now determines what you will enjoy in the future. The things you most care about and place your affections upon are the things that have the greatest potential to bring you pleasure. Now some persons or things we have loved can disappoint our expectations and bring us grief in the future. But such will never be the case with God’s unfailing word.

It is interesting that the psalmist loved God’s commandments. When we studied verse 19 of this psalm, I pointed out that “this word commandment not only refers to those things that God has commanded us to do…but that word also refers to God’s government of this universe. Everything in this universe is subject to the command of God. It was created and continues to function by the commandment of God.” The psalmist loved the government of God over His creation. But he also loved God’s commandments as they pertain to the things God ordered him to do. He loved being under God’s authority. The person who loves being subject to God’s commandments is the person that is going to delight himself in them. If you resent any commandment God has given you, then to that degree you resent His authority over you. Such a rebellious attitude toward God’s authority is a poison that will spread and rob you of your pleasure in God’s word. If you want to enjoy your Bible study and your pastor’s teaching in the future, make sure you have the right attitude toward God’s word today.