A Meditation On Yahweh's Law Series

Introduction

There were two notable men in Scottish ecclesiastical history with the same name: George Wishart.

The first George Wishart (1513 - 1546) was a Scottish Protestant Reformer and one of the early Protestant martyrs who was burned at the stake on March 1, 1546.

The second George Wishart was born in 1599 and became a Scottish Episcopalian bishop and author.

He died on July 26, 1671, and was buried at Holyrood Abbey (in Edinburgh).

In 1644, this second George Wishart played a key part in the Siege of Newcastle during the English Civil War.

Eventually, the garrison surrendered to the English on a promise of mercy.

While most of the garrison were allowed to depart, Wishart was imprisoned in the “Thieves’ Holy” at the Edinburgh Tolbooth.

Wishart was hoping to be released, as he was among those who had been promised mercy.

Nevertheless, he was condemned to death by hanging.

Wishart was led up to the scaffold, and he was prepared for his execution.

Now, there was a custom at that time that a condemned person could choose a psalm to be sung before his execution.

George Wishart chose Psalm 119.

As you know, Psalm 119 is the longest psalm and also the longest chapter, by far, in the entire Bible.

I don’t know which tune was used to sing Psalm 119, but the tune we use will take us almost 30 minutes to sing the entire psalm.

Before the singing of the psalm was concluded, however, a pardon arrived, and George Wishart’s life was spared.

He lived another twenty-seven years and died at the age of seventy-two.

Some people have told this story as an illustration of God’s salvation of one of his saints.

The truth is different.

According to James Montgomery Boice, “Wishart was more renowned for shrewdness than for sanctity. He was expecting a pardon, requested the psalm to gain time, and, happily for him, succeeded in delaying the execution until his pardon came” (James Montgomery Boice, Psalms 107–150: An Expositional Commentary [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005], 970).

Today, we are going to examine Psalm 119, although not all of it. I plan to explore the first eight verses of Psalm 119.

Before we examine Psalm 119:1-8, I want to make some introductory comments about the entire psalm that will help us understand it better.

Psalm 119 is considered a wisdom psalm. It teaches us about relating to God and understanding him better.

Psalm 119 is an acrostic psalm. It is the most elaborate acrostic psalm in the Bible.

Other acrostic psalms are Psalms 9, 10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, and 145.

There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and so Psalm 119 is divided into twenty-two stanzas, one stanza for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Some of your Bibles probably have subheadings with each letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Psalm 119 has 176 verses. Thus, each of the twenty-two stanzas has eight verses each.

Within each stanza, every verse begins with the same letter of the alphabet.

So, for example, verses 1 through 8 each begin with the Hebrew letter aleph, verses 9-16 each start with the letter beth, and so on.

The theme of Psalm 119 is the word of God.

One of the most striking features of Psalm 119 is that almost every one of the 176 verses refers to the word of God, with only a handful of exceptions.

According to one commentator, “At least 171 of the Psalm’s 176 verses refer to the precepts, word, laws, commandments, or decrees of God explicitly” (James Montgomery Boice, Psalms 107–150: An Expositional Commentary [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005], 971).

The author of Psalm 119—who is anonymous—used eight synonyms for the word of God throughout the psalm. These words are:

1. “law” (torah), which occurs 25 times;

2. “word” (dabar), which occurs 24 times;

3. “rules” (mishpatim), which occurs 23 times;

4. “testimonies” (edoth), which occurs 23 times;

5. “commandments” (mitswoth), which occurs 22 times;

6. “statutes” (chuqqim), which occurs 21 times;

7. “precepts” (piqqudim), which occurs 21 times; and

8. “promise” (imrah), which occurs 19 times.

At first glance, one may think that the psalmist is using an incredible amount of repetition.

But on further study, one realizes that the psalmist is holding a large, beautiful, eight-sided jewel.

Each word presents a different picture of the one central jewel.

“And this jewel,” according to Christopher Ash, “is the covenant.”

Ash continues by saying, “Although the word covenant never appears in the psalm, it dominates it from verse 1 to verse 176, because these words are covenant words” (Christopher Ash, Bible Delight: Heartbeat of the Word of God: Psalm 119 for the Bible Teacher and Hearer, ed. David Jackman and Robin Sydserff, Teach the Bible [Ross-shire, Scotland; London: Christian Focus; PTMEDIA, 2008], 34–35).