Psalm 119:109

In today’s meditation we find two outstanding themes that recur throughout this Psalm 119, those being danger and duty.  Although the psalmist often found himself in danger, he remained constant in his duty.  And that is what it means to be “a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2Timothy 2:3).

Psalms 119:109  My soul is continually in my hand: yet do I not forget thy law.

To have one’s soul or life in one’s hand is to be in danger of losing it.  When Jephthah passed over against the children of Ammon and thereby risked losing his life, he described his plucky action as putting his life in his hands.

Judges 12:3  And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand: wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me?

Or when David, but a youth, risked his life to defy the giant Goliath, it was said of him:

1 Samuel 19:5  For he did put his life in his hand, and slew the Philistine, and the LORD wrought a great salvation for all Israel….

This makes sense when you think about it.  If you have something in your hand, you run the risk of dropping it, losing it, or having it snatched from you.  Such is the case when your soul is in your hand.  If your soul is lost or snatched from you, you lose your life since the body without the soul is dead.  And that the psalmist’s soul was continually in his hand means that he was in continual jeopardy of losing his life. 

Although the psalmist was in danger of losing his life, he was in no danger of losing his faith as he held that fast in his heart and mind:  yet do I not forget thy law.  Now this word yet introduces an interesting element in the sentence.  It is a conjunction joining the two main clauses of the sentence together and is defined as follows:

Yet – Introducing an additional fact or circumstance which is adverse to, or the contrary of what would naturally be expected from, that just mentioned:  In spite of that, for all that, nevertheless, notwithstanding.

What is stated in the second clause is contrary to what you would expect from what was stated in the first clause.  Imagine the stress of living with such a constant threat of losing your life.  You would think the psalmist would be scarcely able to think of anything else other than fending for his safety.  But although this is what you might expect, yet the psalmist had God’s law in his thoughts.  How this should remind us of our Lord Jesus Christ Whose life was threatened from His infancy until He was finally killed on Calvary.  Nevertheless, though His life was continually in His hand, He always had the law of His Father uppermost in His mind.  This is readily apparent from His words as He was ever speaking of the Scriptures.  Even on His cross as His life was being drained from Him, He said things for the express purpose of fulfilling the Scriptures. 

John 19:28  After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.

He never forgot God’s law.

I close with Charles Spurgeon’s beautiful comments on this verse:

“They say that all things are fair in love and war; but the holy man thought not so:  while he carried his life in his hand, he also carried the law in his heart.  No danger of body should make us endanger our souls by forgetting what is right.  Trouble makes many a man forget his duty, and it would have had the same effect upon the Psalmist if he had not obtained quickening (verse 107) and teaching (verse 108).  In his memory of the Lord’s law lay his safety; he was certain not to be forgotten of God, for God was not forgotten of him.  It is a special proof of grace when nothing can drive truth out of our thoughts, or holiness out of our lives.  If we remember the law even when death stares us in the face, we may be well assured that the Lord is remembering us.”