Psalm 119:89

I wish to thank each of you that took the time to encourage me to continue making my way through this lengthy Psalm 119.  When I began this task, I wrote:  “I am setting out on what looms before me as a gargantuan task.”  Reflecting on all the time and work that has gone into this project and realizing I am only halfway, it still “looms before me as a gargantuan task.”  But with the help of Almighty God supported by the prayers of the righteous, I am resolved to forge ahead

We now come to the octave entitled by the Hebrew letter Lamed.  The pronunciation of lamed is divided into two syllables, lä – mĕd.  Were it one syllable, I could make a lamed attempt at a joke, but it would be forced.  Hence, I forbear.  The verse we consider today brings us to the heart and height of this psalm being situated as it is in the very center of the psalm.

Psalms 119:89  ¶LAMED. For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.

In my introduction to this series of meditations I wrote: 

“The author of this psalm records a variety of experiences, emotions, and frames of mind in which he found himself….In this psalm we find the author experiencing the full range of human emotions….And yet the psalmist processes all of these experiences through the word of God.  It is obvious from the psalm that the author’s relationship with God was grounded in and experienced through the word of God.” 

The psalmist related everything to his Bible, the very word of the living God.  And from today’s verse, lying at the heart of Psalm 119, we find that he related his life to something that is constant, stable, unchanging, and, therefore, forever reliable. 

Relating this verse to the previous octave Charles Spurgeon wrote:

“After tossing about on a sea of trouble the Psalmist here leaps to shore and stands upon a rock.  Jehovah’s word is not fickle nor uncertain; it is settled, determined, fixed, sure, immoveable….settled in heaven, where nothing can reach it.  In the former section David’s soul fainted, but here the good man looks out of self and perceives that the Lord fainteth not, neither is weary, neither is there any failure in his word.”

Much in our lives may be unsettled, but God’s word is for ever settled.  Our thoughts about the word of God may be unsettled, but the word itself is not.  It is for ever…settled.  God’s word is unshaken by anything that transpires in this world or in our hearts.  Nothing we think or wish or do ever alters one thing God has said.  Once God says it, it is settled for ever.  And being settled in heaven God’s word is beyond the reach of being overturned by anything on this earth.  In the days of Jeremiah Jehudi thought to destroy the word of God spoken by Jeremiah by burning its pages in the hearth.  But being forever settled in heaven, God simply delivered it again to Jeremiah and it was rewritten (Jeremiah 36:23, 27-28).  To mount an attack on the Scriptures is to mount an attack on heaven itself.  But futile is the attempt to overthrow something that is for ever…settled in heaven.

Men like to think of their decrees and laws as unalterable.  Consider the boast of the Medes and the Persians:

Daniel 6:8  Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.   

Yet those decrees are long since passed away.  Governments are ever changing and their policies are ever changing no matter how fixed they think them to be.  But the decrees of God’s word are settled forever.

Psalms 119:160  Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

Isaiah 40:8  The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

So you have a firm, unshakeable foundation upon which to build your faith and hope.  May God Whose word is forever settled in heaven settle the hearts of you who trust in that word.