Psalm 119

This passage is the longest chapter of the Bible and I think that most people who are doing a "Read through the Bible in a year" program dread the day that they have to read through this long chapter.  However, there are a few things that you should know about this chapter of Scripture that perhaps will give you a greater appreciation for it.  For starters, did you know that it was a love poem?

Psalm 119 is a love poem for the Word of God. In fact, the psalmist mentions the Word of God in some way shape or form in every single verse.  That's right, every verse mentions the speech of God.  It uses many words, words, statutes, laws, commands, etc. but all of them refer to the same thing, what God has said to us.  And the psalmist mentions it a lot!

Did you know that Psalm 119 is an acrostic.  For those not familiar with poetry an acrostic is a poem where successive lines or groups of lines start with letters that spell something out.  In this case the poem spells out the entire Hebrew Alphabet.  And not only does he come up with one thing to say for each letter, but the psalm is broken down into groups of eight.  He says eight things about the Word of God that start with the first letter (Aleph).  And then he says eight things that start with the second letter.  (Beth) And then the third.  And the fourth. And so on all the way through the Hebrew Alphabet.

I want to pause and ask how well we could do this in our language.  Find eight ways to say coherent sentences that accurately describe your love for God's Word.  Now find eight ways to say them that start with the letter A.  Now jump to Z and have some fun! 

The point of all of this is to drive us to a deep understanding of how much the author loves the words of his God.  And that leads me to a question.  Do you love the Word of God?  Is it precious to you?  Do you care enough to express your love for it and all the benefits that it gives you?  Perhaps we could learn a lot from Psalm 119!