Psalm 119:2

Psalm 119 goes on in the second verse to describe those who are blessed or happy.

Psalms 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.

They are genuinely happy who do two things: they keep God’s testimonies and they seek Him with the whole heart. As noted in the introduction, the word testimonies is one of the various words describing the word of God, the Scriptures. First of all, what is it to keep His testimonies?

Keep – To have regard, pay attention to, observe. To pay attention or regard to; to observe, stand to, or dutifully abide by (an ordinance, law, custom, practice, covenant, promise, faith, a thing prescribed or fixed, as a treaty, truce, peace, a set time or day.

The blessed souls pay attention to God’s word. They do not ignore their Bible. They read it and listen to it preached. They dutifully believe and practice what the Bible teaches. They defend the Bible. Of course, in order to keep the testimonies, it is imperative that one have the testimonies. It is pretty hard to keep something you don’t have. Duh! I thought I would throw some slang in there to give you a break from my rather lofty style of writing.

The God Who gave us His words has promised to preserve them.

Psalms 12:6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

Anyone who follows my teaching knows that I believe that the A.V. 1611 or the King James Version of the Bible is the pure, preserved word of God in the English language. I consider myself blessed to have God’s testimonies and my greatest happiness is found in keeping them.

The blessed souls are also those that seek God with the whole heart. God will not be sought half-heartedly. This was one of the Lord’s chief complaints against Israel.

Jeremiah 3:10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD.

God considers it pretence if you are not seeking Him with your whole heart. You may profess to be entirely devoted to God, but in reality you have something else that you are devoted to that competes with your pursuit of the Lord. It may be your educational goals, your professional goals, your financial goals, your family, your social life, or your pleasures. These things are all fine in their place so long as they are always subordinate to seeking the Lord to please Him and to do His will. If you are struggling with a divided heart, then this prayer is a suitable one for you to pray:

Psalms 86:11 Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.

One who seeks God with a united heart seeks God with his whole heart. His heart is not divided.

Observe that seeking God is connected by the word and to keeping His testimonies. God will be sought on His terms! Keeping God’s testimonies is essential to seeking God with the whole heart. And this pertains to things we might consider unimportant. The man who seeks God with his whole heart considers nothing God has said as indifferent or unimportant. When David at first attempted to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, the ark was carried on a cart drawn by oxen. When the oxen shook the ark, Uzzah put for his had to steady the ark and God smote Uzzah for it. Uzzah did not have authority from God to touch His ark. Furthermore, the ark was supposed to be carried on the shoulders of the Levites, not on a cart drawn by oxen. David later recognized his error as the following passage shows:

1 Chronicles 15:11 And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Asaiah, and Joel, Shemaiah, and Eliel, and Amminadab,
12 And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it.
13 For because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.

How the ark was carried might seem trivial to us. Many would reason that as long as the ark got to Jerusalem that was all that mattered. But God had commanded that the ark be carried by the Levites and He would tolerate no deviation from His order of doing business. And David connects this with seeking the Lord. So do not talk about seeking God with your whole heart, unless you are willing to do anything and everything that God says the way He says to do it.

Lastly, you are indeed blessed if you are keeping God’s testimonies and seeking Him with your whole heart because these are evidences that you have the Spirit of God within you and that God has given you a new heart.

Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Jeremiah 24:7 And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.

Psalm 119:1

With a prayer for the blessing of Almighty God we are now ready to begin our verse by verse meditation of Psalm 119 starting, of course, with the first verse of the first section entitled Aleph.

Psalms 119:1 ALEPH. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.

As noted in the introduction, the first three verses of Psalm 119 are not prayers. They are rather statements regarding the effect of the scriptures on the lives of those who obey them. Verse 1 pronounces them blessed who are undefiled in the way. It goes on to describe those who are undefiled in the way as those “who walk in the law of the LORD.” Let’s begin with considering what it means to be blessed.

Blessed – Enjoying supreme felicity; happy, fortunate.

The word blessed translates the Hebrew word esher which means happiness. It is rendered happy in Deuteronomy 33:29; 1Kings 10:8; Psalm 127:5; 144:15; 146:5; Proverbs 3:13; 29:18.

Thus our psalm opens up by introducing us to that one thing that all men claim to want and to seek and that is to be happy. Sadly, however, most men seek happiness in the wrong way. But our verse points to the way in which men can find happiness.

In order to understand what it is to be blessed, we need to grasp what it is to be happy. For this we will examine the dictionary definition of happy.

Happy – Coming or happening by chance; fortuitous; chance. Having good ‘hap’ or fortune; lucky, fortunate; favoured by lot, position, or other external circumstance.

Now the scriptures teach that a man can be happy even when he is not favoured in his external circumstances. His happiness does not depend upon chance happenings in his life, but upon something much deeper. So we look further in the definitions and we light upon this one.

Happy - Having a feeling of great pleasure or content of mind, arising from satisfaction with one’s circumstances or condition; also in weakened sense: Glad, pleased

This more agrees with the overall teaching of scripture regarding happiness. Happiness does indeed have something to do with things that happen and with circumstances. But Biblical happiness lies in how we deal with those happenings and circumstances. The following verses will demonstrate the meaning of happiness as Psalm 119 presents it.

Luke 6:20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.
22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.
23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

Observe from this passage that one can be blessed or happy even in adverse external circumstances.

1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

James 5:10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

If in the midst of want and adversity you can experience great pleasure and contentment of mind, you are blessed or happy indeed. Paul obviously experienced such blessedness as he could both be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

Our psalm opens with pronouncing them blessed or happy who are undefiled in the way. First of all, they are in the way. As we noted in the introduction, the way refers to the course of life and conduct God has set before us to pursue. This definition of the way is confirmed in this verse as it goes on to describe those in the way as those who walk in the law of the LORD. To better understand this, consider the definition of walk.

Walk – To journey, move about, esp. on foot. fig. Chiefly in religious use, after Bible examples: To conduct oneself, behave (ill or well, wisely or unwisely). Sometimes with reference to a metaphorical ‘path’ or ‘way.’

Those who are in the way are those whose conduct is regulated by the law of the Lord. They move about in life under the direction of that law. In other words, they live their lives according to the teachings of the Bible, doing what it commands and avoiding what it forbids. The truly happy souls are those who are in that course of life that God has prescribed in His law.

Now observe that they are undefiled in that way. They are undefiled as they conduct themselves according to God’s commandments. Their reasons for keeping God’s commandments are pure. They do not obey God to be seen of men, or to acquire money, prestige, and power for themselves. They keep God’s commandments out of a sincere conviction that this is indeed the right way to live and they want to live that right way. Their goal is to please God, not merely to please themselves. And they endeavour to keep God’s commandments purely, just as He has delivered them. They do not mix God’s commandments with the inventions of men. They are undefiled in the way.

In conclusion, consider just how blessed or happy they are that are in the way. Isaiah vividly describes their blessedness.

Isaiah 35:8 And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.
9 No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:
10 And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Those who are undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord, are walking in “The way of holiness.” They are living clean since the unclean have no access to this way. They are “wayfaring men,” that is, they are men on a journey. This world is not their home. They are “just a passing through.” They are “marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God,” their eternal home. Since “they shall not err therein” they can be sure they are doing the right thing no matter what else may go wrong in their lives. Satan, the roaring lion, cannot devour them as long as they remain in this way since “no lion shall be there.” Those that walk there are "the redeemed" of the Lord. Christ has died for them and secured the forgiveness of all their sins.

Colossians 1:14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

The happiness that those in this way experience is an everlasting happiness with perfect joy and perfect health at the end. Indeed, “blessed are the undefiled in the way.” This, dear reader, is the way to true and lasting happiness.