Psalm 119:97

Greetings, dear readers!  After a pause I’m back and ready to dive into the next octave of Psalm 119 entitled Mem.  According to the pronunciation guide in the front of my Bible, the Hebrew letter mem is pronounced like our word maim.  Now what kind of a humourous remark could I make about this without meming my reputation for a little comedy?  I think I had better pass on this one.  And, by the way, don’t quote me on that pronunciation as I do not speak Hebrew.  It’s all Greek to me. 

Psalms 119:97  ¶MEM. O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.

This octave opens with emotion, expressed by the word O.  The word how coupled with this word O is expressing the degree of emotion.

How – In direct exclamations.  In what way! to what an extent or degree!

The psalmist loved the law of God to the degree that it stirred his emotions.  It is the same when you state your love for something and then add the expression “and how!”  It is fitting, therefore, that this sentence concludes with an exclamation point.

Now the psalmist loved God’s law to such an extent, his feelings for it were stirred to such an extent that he could say:  it is my meditation all the day. All day long the psalmist reflected upon and considered the law of God. Matthew Henry remarked:  “What we love we love to think of.” Your thoughts tend to gravitate to the things you love.  So when you love the word of God to the extent the psalmist did, it is easy for your mind to go to it during the day. The love you have for it draws your thoughts there.  And it says a lot about your spiritual health when you love the law of God at all times, even when it crosses your will. 

Now it isn’t that you only think of Bible verses all day. Obviously, we have to think about our occupations and daily duties in order to perform them. But if as you encounter various situations and decisions throughout the day you think of what God’s law has to say about them, whether it be by recalling its teaching or looking up a passage in the Bible, then you are reflecting on God’s law.  This is meditating on it by definition. If your daily thoughts revolve around the teachings of the Bible, then you are meditating on them because you are taking them into consideration.  In this case you have devoted enough time to studying your Bible that its teachings mold your daily life.  Thus God’s law is your meditation all the day. And having God’s law as his meditation all the day put the psalmist in fine form to be able to say the things he did in the verses that follow in this octave.      

It follows that those who know the Lord Jesus Christ in the pardon of their sins and who have a sense of being reconciled to God by the blood of His cross, love the law of God.  Even though they have broken that law innumerable times and are condemned for having done so, they love it nevertheless because that law points them to Jesus Christ, the Saviour from sin.  They see the terror of the law directed away from them and onto Jesus Christ, Who bore its curse and freed them from it. 

Galatians 3:13  Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree....

But if you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, then you likely do not love the law of God since its only message to you is one of condemnation and terror.  If anything I write today resonates with you, then may I appeal to you to turn from your sin to God and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, for in believing on Him you will discover pardon and peace.

Acts 13:38  Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins:

39  And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

John 3:17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

18    He that believeth on him is not condemned….

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.