Psalm 119:136

We now come to the conclusion of the octave of Psalm 119 that bears the title of the Hebrew letter Pë.  Today’s meditation will be a bit longer because the subject of it is so broad.  Much more could be written.

Psalms 119:136  Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.

Rivers of waters running down his eyes?   He was that upset?  And what called forth so much emotion?  It was people who do not keep God’s law.  It certainly bears testimony to the psalmist’s tremendous love for God’s law that he could be that deeply moved because it was not kept.  Oh, the great good that would be done for the cause of God and truth if God’s people were that emotionally bonded to His holy word!

Now just who are they that keep not God’s law?  Earlier in this psalm the author has identified those who do not keep God’s law as the proud (verse 21) and the wicked (verse 53).  These are they who persecuted and oppressed the psalmist (verses 78, 85, 95, 122).  But that which caused him such abundant grief here was not what they were doing to him, but what they were doing to God’s law.

It says a lot about your character when you are deeply grieved rather than indifferent to the abounding iniquity around you.  We find examples in the Bible of other God-fearing people who were grieved to the point of tears over the sin of those about them.  When the prophet Elisha knew of the evil that Hazael would commit, he wept.

2 Kings 8:11  And he (Elisha) settled his countenance stedfastly, until he was ashamed: and the man of God wept.

12  And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.

When the law of Moses was read to king Josiah and he was made aware of the judgment that would befall his nation because of the evil that they had done, he wept before God.

2 Chronicles 34:27  Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD.

When Ezra learned of the abominations committed by the Jews, realizing the anger of God that they had merited he and the people fell before God praying and weeping.

Ezra 10:1  Now when Ezra had prayed, and when he had confessed, weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a very great congregation of men and women and children: for the people wept very sore.

Or consider how Jeremiah wept for the pride of the people of Judah and Jerusalem who would not humble themselves before his warnings by the word of the Lord. 

Jeremiah 13:17  But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the LORD'S flock is carried away captive.

It is well for us when we can weep for the sins of those among whom we live.  This is especially so when we read that God singled out and spared those that mourned “for all the abominations that” were done in the midst of Jerusalem.

Ezekiel 9:4  And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

5  ¶And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:

6  Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.

The apostle Paul warned with tears against those who teach false doctrine and thereby corrupt the churches of God.

Acts 20:30  Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

31  Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

Philippians 3:18  (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:

19  Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

It was not without many tears that Paul wrote his first epistle to the Corinthians rebuking them for their sins.

2 Corinthians 2:4  For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.

One of the things Paul rebuked in the Corinthians was that they had not mourned over the fact that fornication had been committed among them and nothing had been done about it.

1 Corinthians 5:2  And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.

The Corinthians were so puffed up over other things that they had not taken due notice of the wrong going on in their very midst.  These Corinthians needed to feel what Paul felt as he wept over their sad state of affairs.

In fact, these tears of Paul were a part of the service he rendered to God.  Speaking of himself he wrote:

Acts 20:19  Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews:

A minister of God is a man of tears if he is really in earnest about what he does as a teacher of the law of God.  Such a minister was Timothy to whom Paul wrote:

2 Timothy 1:4  Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy….

Of course, today’s verse points us to the Lord Jesus Christ, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).   He poured out His tears over Jerusalem which had had a history of not keeping God’s law and now ultimately broke that law in rejecting Him, the promised Messiah.

Luke 19:41  And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

42  Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

There is a decided spiritual advantage to weeping over those who break God’s law and it is this:  when we are that grieved over others not keeping God’s law, there is a much greater likelihood we will keep it ourselves.  Commenting on today’s verse Thomas Manton wrote:  “The soul will never agree to do that which it grieved itself to see another do.”  William Nicholson also had this comment to make:  “If we grieve not for others, their sin may become ours.”  Therefore, it behooves us to never let ourselves become calloused or indifferent to the sin that surrounds us.  God forbid that these words is ever describe us:

Matthew 24:12  And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Now you may say, “I am not an emotional person.  I do not cry easily.  I am very disturbed by the abounding iniquity, but rivers of water are not running down my eyes.”  In that case, then, you may enlist with Jeremiah when he wrote:

Jeremiah 9:1 Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Notice that Jeremiah did not say he his head was waters and his eyes a fountain of tears.  He rather expressed the wish that his head were waters and his eyes a fountain of tears, that he might weep.  Jeremiah was using the subjunctive mood which we often use to express the wish for things to be other than they actually are.  So even if your eyes are not a fountain of tears, it is good that you are so grieved over the sins you witness that you wish you could weep profusely.  And the day will likely come that the fountain of tears will break forth and rivers of water will run down your eyes, because they keep not thy law.  Something will come along to trigger that release of emotion.  And as sore as such weeping is, it is a token of a heart that loves God’s law and a guard against breaking that law.  May the Lord bless this meditation to you who out of love of the truth characterize this fallen, perverse world we live in as “a vale of tears.”