All Articles For Psalm

Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them. Psalm 126:2 The study of human behaviors is a large and fascinating enterprise, drawing research from every religious and secular worldview known to man. Laughter is perhaps one of the most commonly relatable human behaviors. Most babies laugh by four months of age, and a visit to any schoolyard during recess sometimes makes one think that children communicate through laughter alone. The entertainment industry reaps huge profits by churning out every sort of comedy...

Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments. Ps. 119:65, 66 Lord, Thou hast dealt well! This acknowledgement, and that, too, as a matter of experience, dominates this entire section of the psalm. Enemies there were, haters of God and of His Word, that “forged a lie against” the psalmist, hated him, persecuted him, and spoke all manner of evil against him falsely. And the inspired psalmist, as the servant of the Lord, had been in distress, afflicted, no doubt, because of and...

They that fear thee will be glad when they see me; because I have hoped in thy word. Ps. 119:74 Tribulation worketh experience! And that through patience! For thus the apostle Paul writes in Rom. 5:3, 4: ‘‘knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience,” or rather, more in accord with the meaning of the original: “patience the experienced state,” Perhaps, we may say that the relation between the preceding section of Ps. 119 and the one from which we selected the basis for the present meditation, is somewhat like that between patience and experience. In the former the poet...

O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. Ps. 51:15 Open my lips! The prayer of the psalmist stands very definitely in the singular. Emphatically personal is this outcry, personal in its longings to proclaim the praises of Jehovah, in its profound sense of unworthiness and incapability of praising the Lord, in its consciousness of lips that are irrevocably sealed unless they be opened by the grace of the God of his salvation. But the prayer and praise that leave our lips on Thanksgiving Day are a united expression of the whole Church. On...

Yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. Psalm 75:1b Excelsior! Out of the depths of trouble and fear to the heights of praise and glorying in the God of our salvation. And that, too, on the wings of prayer! This ascent characterizes; the contents of many of the Old Testament Psalms. Many of them are occasioned by trouble and distress, are pressed from the heart of the poet by fear and anguish of soul because of the enemy that oppresses him, that surrounds him on every side, that makes it humanly...

How many are the days of thy servant? when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me? Ps. 119:84 How long, O Lord? This question appears to be the basic note of this particular section of Psalm one hundred nineteen. Strong expressions of grief and sorrow, of anguish of soul and body, but also of hope and yearning for the salvation of the Lord, characterize the entire passage. The Psalmist’s soul fainteth for the salvation of Jehovah, his eyes fail for the Word of God as he anxiously asks the question: when wilt thou comfort me? He is become...

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24 Psalm 139 is a prayer of David in which he exalts the great majesty of God. God is all knowing and everywhere present. He is the absolutely sovereign Creator of all. He is perfectly just and righteous. To such a God and to no other, David submitted himself and was devoted entirely. That submission and devotion is set forth no more concisely and powerfully than in the...

I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me. Ps. 119:93 Marvelous Word of God! Wonderful, because it is God that speaks, and it is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. . . . Glorious, too, because of its infinite perfection, for always God speaks concerning Himself, and through that Word addressed to us He reveals; Himself as the holy one of Israel, as GOD, the incomparable one! That Word is the theme of this entire psalm, but more particularly in this section. We remember that the one hundred and nineteenth psalm is...

I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. Ps. 119:101 Blessed Word of God! That, and the believer’s delight in it, expresses in brief the main theme of this particular section of the psalm. There is a good deal of similarity, and an intimate relation between this section and the preceding one. Both extol the Word of God because of its perfection: “I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad.” Yet, there is also a rather clear distinction. In the preceding passage the psalmist considered that Word...

Thy word is a lamp undo my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105 A lamp unto my feet! And a light upon my path is thy Word! Such, emphatically, is the meaning of this part of the Word of God in the one hundred and nineteenth psalm. Not upon the Word as such, which, in fact, is the theme of the entire psalm, but upon its function and blessedness as a guiding light, as a light that shines in the darkness upon my pathway, as I have to travel it through the midst of the world, falls...