April 25, 2014
Tom Lowe
Psalm 19 (KJV)
Title: The Glory of God in the World and in the Law.
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
11 By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
12 Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Introduction
We shall study this psalm as if it consisted of 2 poems; the first poem is verses 1-6 and the second 7-14. Many expositors agree that this psalm has these two distinct parts because there are two different names for God and two different compositions, one ancient, and one more recent. In the first part (1-6) the shorter form of the name “God” (El) speaks of His power, especially that power exhibited as Creator, and which can be observed in the sky—in worlds, infinite worlds. In the second part (7-14)—the Scriptures—“LORD” (Yahweh) fits the relational theme found there. God has revealed Himself to mankind through these two avenues, what He has wrought and what He has written. He is the God of creation and He is the God of revelation. The human race stands accountable to Him because of His nonverbal and verbal communications. Psalm 19 eloquently summarizes these two prominent avenues of God’s self-disclosure.
Outline
1. God’s General Self-disclosure in the World (1-6)
a. The Publication of the Skies (1-4b)
b. The Prominence of the Sun (4c-6)
2. God’s Special Self-disclosure in the Word (7-14)
a. The Attributes of the Word (7-9)
b. An Appreciation for the Word (10-11)
c. The Application of the Word (12-14)
Poem 1 (Vs. 1-6)
God’s General Self-disclosure in the World
The testimony of the universe comes forth consistently and clearly, but sinful mankind persistently resists it. For this reason, general revelation cannot convert sinners, but it does make them highly accountable (Rom. 1:18{1]). Salvation ultimately comes through special revelation alone, that is, as the Word of God is effectually applied by the Spirit of God.
This poem begins, as does Psalm 8, with the poet gazing at the heavens and wondering at the mystery of creation. But man does not see God by looking at the sky; what he sees is the glory of God’s creation. “No man can see God and live” (Ex. 33:20). Glory, to Old Testament man was the outward “clothing” of God. It did not hide or cover His “being,” rather it revealed His actions. As the living God, He is always doing, creating, recreating, producing order out of original chaos (Ge. 1:2{6]), bringing light at each dawn out of the darkness of night.
To say that we see the glory of God in this poem, means that as modern, scientifically-minded persons we are reading something into it. The poem talks of hearing the Word of God, which is proclaimed by the skies. It declares that behind the whole majesty of nature there is sound, the sound of the Word of God. The whole creation, even without the use of words, sounds forth the divine Word; when put into Greek, this is the word Logos that we meet in John 1:1. But Logos can mean more than word. It can also mean reason, meaning. And so this poem is proclaiming that the heavenly bodies are not mere matter, to be understood merely as scientific phenomena. They shout to all who have ears to hear that behind them and their movements lies the meaning of the universe. Joseph Addison’s well-known hymn, “The Spacious Firmament On High” expresses this well.
What though no real voice or sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found?
In reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
For ever singing, as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.
The word knowledge in verse 2 may be translated “powerfully.” Thus the poet is saying that natural phenomena are means through which the meaning of the universe is expressed. Then he turns his attention to the sun. In the Egypt of David’s day the sun was the supreme god, and each Pharaoh was his representative on earth. Here our poet has liberated himself from such myths, and simply uses their imagery to display poetically the greatness of God.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
“The heavens” and “skies” (firmament) are crucial elements of the Creation in Genesis 1 (Ge. 1:1, 8{7]). The two verbs “declare” and “proclaim” emphasize the continuity of these respective disclosures. “The work of His hands” is a personification illustrating God’s great power—“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained” (Ps. 8:3).
2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
The stars are an untiring and unmistakable witness to God’s omnipotence and eternal glory. “Day after day they pour forth speech,” that is, each day tells the story to its successor in torrential jubilant speech. “Night after night they display knowledge,” for planets, moon, and constellations, as primordial creatures, alone were witnesses of the mysteries of Creation which are hidden from the eyes of all living (See Job: 28:20-28).
3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
“No speech” is not a contradiction of “speech” in the previous verse, but it shows that the constant communication of the heavens is not with words of a literal nature. Three words have been added to this verse by the translators which were not in the original text. They were inserted to help bridge the gulf between the Hebrew and English languages. “There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.” Strip off these three words and you get a totally different sense, the sense of the original Hebrew text. Instead of a positive statement you get three negative statements: No speech. No language. Their voice is not heard. In other words, the starry hosts of heaven do not speak in the tongues of men because they have no speech and no language. Their voice, though loud and clear, is inaudible to the human ear. Nevertheless those burning pinpricks in the sky communicate powerfully to all mankind.
4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.
The Psalmist draws special attention to the sun: “In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun.” He had watched it often. He knew just where on the horizon the sun entered its “tent” at night, and just where it would emerge the next morning. He had watched it dissolve the darkness, chase the shadows from the hills, and fill the earth with light. He had watched it mount the sky and race across the meridian. He had watched it sink in fiery splendor to its nighttime rest. He had pondered its coming, its career, its character. The sun spoke to all men everywhere without uttering a single word in the language of men.
The sun is dominant “in the heavens like a bridegroom” who excitedly leaves his house on his wedding day. The sun “rises,” and like a champion runner racing on “his course,” “the sun makes its circuit.” These verses do more than speak of nature as a witness of God’s glory; they also undermine pagan beliefs, for the same imagery was used of the sun god in ancient Near Eastern literature.
So David thrills to God’s revelation of Himself in the sky. But there’s even greater revelation. The stars have their place, but God places no great stock in stars. In Genesis 1 He dismisses the creation of all the suns and stars and satellites of space in five brief words: “He made the stars, also.”
The message of the created world extends to everywhere, but the poet does not deify the sun or the heavens, as was the case in many pagan religions. In the Bible, God is the creator and ruler of all creation.
Poem 2 (vs. 7-14)
God’s Special Self-disclosure in the Word
Poem 1 deals with what we call today General Revelation. God has revealed Himself through the wonders of revelation as He speaks the Word to all men everywhere. But Israel, as the Covenant People of God is privileged to possess a Special Word that has been delivered to her alone. It is the Torah, the Law of Moses, as much of it as was available and complete by the poet’s day. So now the poet adds a whole new poem to the one he has just sung; a poem of praise for God’s Special revelation. The first poem is in praise of the Word of Creation, especially as applied to the heavenly bodies, but God doesn’t spend much time in His word talking about the stars. The second poem is in praise of the Word of Redemption, and the scene shifts from God’s world to God’s Word.
The witness of the stars tells us something about God, but if we are ever to know God Himself—what God is like with respect to His nature, his person, and His personality—then God must reveal Himself in spoken Word. The stars say, God is almighty, He is eternal, He is omnificent, and He is a God of infinite order and immeasurable power. The Scriptures tell us God is a Person, who loves and feels, who knows and cares and rules. So David turns from what God has wrought to what God has written.
The two poems that comprise Psalm 19 are perfectly paralleled. The Word that comes to Israel through the Law means nothing, its voice is not even heard, until faith opens it up to our human understanding. The sun has a path to travel daily; the Law, however, is my path, says the poet, one that has been given me by God. See how Paul, quoting this psalm, puts the two together at Romans 10:17-18: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.”
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
In verses 7-9, there are six names for God’s Word, followed appropriately by six characteristics and six achievements.
The “Law of the Lord is perfect”—of course, because it is the Word of God. “His teaching” might be a better translation than Law: also “direction” or “instruction” (Ps. 1:2{2]). The Law cannot save us because it is perfect and we are not. We cannot measure up to it, but there is nothing wrong with the Law. Paul, who set forth the grace of God, said this about the Law: “So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin” (Rom. 7:12-14). There is nothing wrong with the Law, but it is an administration of death to us because there is something radically wrong with us. The Law was given to show us that we are sinners before God. “The Law of the Lord is perfect.”
The Law revives the soul, the whole of one’s person, or better yet, “gives life” to it. The Word that Jesus has provided us declares, “I came that people might have life and have it more abundantly.” Enlightening the eyes is another way of saying “reviving the soul.” Just give the lost wanderer even a little food and drink and the light will come back to his eyes. “Reviving,” therefore, has in it the idea of bringing back. Just as the sun returns in the heavens, so God’s Word returns the sinner to God. He is brought back—converted! Wisdom replaces foolish thoughts. The great function of God’s Word in conversion is to enlighten a mind darkened by the world’s philosophies and religions. It opposes all man-made theory with an authoritative, “Thus saith the lord!” It cuts right through to the marrow of the soul. The unconverted man rambles down all kinds of religious, philosophical, and ideological blind alleys. He has his own notions about sin, self, and salvation. God’s Word has the power to challenge all that. He convicts and brings men back to the point of departure from divine truth. Then He converts the soul, and makes wise the simple.
The same thing cannot be said about any of man’s ethical systems in a secular society. None of them is pure, because none of them depends on the fear of God. This is not understood by those educationalists who wish to put ethics into the school curriculum in place of religious studies (They have succeeded in this, as well as eliminating prayer in schools.).
The “statutes of the Lord” is a reference to the divine guidance or instruction within the Covenant, which can be trusted to make one wise. In His grace, the all-wise God speaks at the level of the ordinary person, and He gives wise guidance to the young and inexperienced.
God’s Word is “trustworthy,” dependable, reliable, and deserving of our trust and confidence. Today we would say they are a “sure thing.” Don’t bank on God changing to the “new” morality. God is not reading some of the new views of psychology, and He is not listening to the decisions that some judges are handing down. God is going to punish sin—He says that is what He is going to do. The testimony of the lord is sure. Judgment is coming. The commandments reveal that.
Just as the sun is the dominant feature in God’s natural revelation (vs. 4c-6), so the “Law” was the dominant element in God’s specific revelation in the Old Testament.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
“The precepts” or proclamations or statutes “of the Lord,” those things He has commanded us to do, are of course, “right.” Therefore they are the kind of things that should cause us to rejoice and obey. We are grateful even for the “Thou shalt nots,” which God has said in His Word, for we all need to be bridled like a horse. Someone says, “There are certain commandments I don’t like.” Well, maybe you don’t like them, but God does. They are right.
“The commands of the LORD” has the idea of issuing orders. The Word is, therefore, also perceived as divine orders. They are pure because they come from the mind of God which has no impure thoughts. They will do something for you—enable you and lift you up.
It is the Word of God which brings “joy to the heart.” God’s Word cheers us, and it rejoices the heart. Joy and guidance fill the soul of one who meditates on and follows God’s commands. Because “the precepts of the LORD are right,” they produce in the heart the joy that springs from the inner sense of being in the right. Can you imagine having to face death and eternity without God’s Word, without even so much as John 3:16{3] or Romans 10:9{4]. The Word of God takes away all uncertainty and fear. It provides guidance for today and promises glory for tomorrow.
“The commands of the Lord” are like a lamp, “giving light to the eyes” so that the believer can see the right path through life.
9 The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous
The one basic commandment, which we find at Deuteronomy 6:5 is pure, that is, unadulterated by contaminating impurities: “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” Jesus confirmed this for us at Mark 12:29-30: “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”
The Old Testament has no word for religion. Our poet’s definition of true religion is this: It is living before God in a proper sense of awe, reverence, and obedience. And now he claims that that attitude belongs actually in eternity. “Fear” is used here as a synonym for the Law, for its purpose was to put fear into human hearts (Deut. 4:10{5]). Such honest “fear” is clean, that is to say, it is completely uncontaminated by our dirty human minds. The word “fear” reflects the reality that Scripture is the manual for worshiping God. The Law is “pure . . . sure, and righteous:”
• Pure (clean)—we are told that the word fear means “reverential trust.” I believe it means more than that. It means fear. It is a good idea to fear God, my friend. I loved my dad, but I sure was afraid of him. You see he was a red-headed Irishman who was a professional boxer at one time, and he had an Irish temper. He kept me in line, and I think, in the final analysis, that is what kept me out of jail. I knew that when I did wrong there would be trouble. The fear of the Lord is clean; the fear of the Lord will clean you up. Fear of my Dad made me a better boy, but I loved him.
• Sure (true)—the judgments of the Lord are true. Do you want to know what truth is? Pilate wanted to know. He asked our Lord, “. . . What is truth? . . .” (John 18:38), and Truth was standing right in front of him in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• Righteous—the judgments of the Lord are “. . . righteous.” They are right. This is a tremendous section. We ought to learn to love all the Word of God—all of it.
The ordinances, of which there are many in the Torah, and that includes the Ten Commandments—are the most desirable things in life, because they convey His judicial decisions—not the pursuit of wisdom, not heaping up riches, not owning the expensive toys and thingamajigs that money can buy. The ordinances were designed to cause believers to obey God and lead righteous lives. They do three things for him or her who is God’s servant:
1. They warn us of the dangers of continuing in our way.
2. A servant expects payment. Just doing God’s revealed will, however, is all the payment we need. As God had said so long ago to Abraham: “I am your exceeding great reward.”
3. Being God’s servant is your and my personal response to both parts of revelation described in this double psalm, that is, response to God’s Order in Creation, and to His Order in Revelation.
10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
At this point, David disclosed his personal reaction to God’s perfect Law. He found the statutes desirable and enjoyable. In extolling their value to him, he compared them to gold and honey—“they are more precious than gold,” the most valuable commodity in the ancient Near East, and “sweeter than honey,” the sweetest substance known in the ancient Near East. The Law was not a burden to believers who were trying to please God with their lives.
God’s Word has a cleansing effect upon us and it has a consecrating effect upon us. The man who once craves for gold now craves for God.
11 By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
The Word of God has an uncanny way of confronting us with our sin. The Holy Spirit uses it like a surgeon’s knife to slice away all surface things and reveal the cancers of the soul. As someone has said: “This book (Bible) will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.” For David, keeping God’s statutes, which “warned” him of the dangers of folly and sin, brought “reward.”
12 Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.
The Psalmist asks the question, “Who can discern his errors?”, that is, “Who can understand their sins? I can give God excuses, but God won’t accept them. God says you cannot understand your sins. Just take His Word for it that you are a sinner.
It is when we come by grace to reflect on what Poem 2 deals with that we make the one discovery necessary to help us understand the Word of God. Till now, our worshipper has not noticed that, as a sinner, he has erected a barrier between himself and the Word, so that he does not even possess the ears necessary to hear. It is the Word of Redemption, therefore, which alone can help him to faith. He, himself cannot discern his own errors, because his faults are hidden even from his own eyes.
Two classifications of sins are mentioned here that come from the Law of Moses; one in verse 12 and the other in verse 13. Hidden faults are those sins of forgetfulness or mistakes, which in David’s day could be dealt with by the sacrificial system outlined in Leviticus. “Forgive my hidden faults.” Hidden faults are a problem with a great many people today—they are secret from themselves—they think they are not sinners.
If a person watches pornography it will pollute his mind; if he reads anti-Semitic literature he will soon come to hate the Jews. This is the principle behind all propaganda. If a person reads the Bible it will cleanse him.
There are two kinds of cleansing. There is a radical cleansing from sin that depends on the blood of Christ. There is also a recurrent cleansing from sin that depends on the Word of God. The recurrent cleansing was centered in Old Testament times in the laver, first in the tabernacle and then in the temple. The laver was made of the mirrors of the women and filled with water. Thus it both revealed defilement and it removed defilement. It symbolized the cleansing function of the Word of God. We need to spend time daily reading God’s Word so that its convicting and cleansing action might act upon our souls.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
“Willful sins” or as they are often called ‘presumptuous sins’ are the second classification of sin which the poet mentions; in Hebrew they are “sins with a high hand.” You can see the aggressor with his knife in the air ready to strike. And you can see the lustful degenerate pursuing his pray in order to rape her or to uncover her nakedness (as Leviticus puts it). Murder and Adultery were the two particular sins that excluded a person from obtaining forgiveness through sacrifice—the very two sins that David committed, as Nathan his court Chaplin had to point out to him. But here both kinds of sins are covered by the mercy and grace of God!
“Keep your servant also from willful sins” . . . and I will be “innocent of great transgression.” Do you know what the “great transgression is?” It is the rejection of Jesus Christ, the one who is set before us in this psalm.
David’s concerns reflect the attitude of a maturing disciple who, by God’s grace and provisions, deals with his sins and does not deny them. He prayed that he would be forgiven for hidden faults (v.12) and prevented from sinning willfully. For sins committed in ignorance the Law provided atonement, but for willful sins, sins committed in a pompous manner, there was no ceremonial prescription, though forgiveness was still available if the person repented and confessed (See Ps:51). Therefore, he needed the perfect Law and God’s enabling to restrain him from such sins.
Since it is our sin that prevents us from hearing both the music of the heavens, and the honey-sweet words of God’s commandments, it is only God Himself who can help us out of our impasse. He does so by taking us as we are, and forgiving our sin. Only then, says the psalmist “will I be blameless” and, by implication, able to hear the Word of life.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
The words of verse 14 are often made part of our church service today, for they are the response of each individual me and my heart to the profound revelation in this double psalm. For surely, all speculation about the nature and revelation of God’s love ends here. C. S. Lewis, the great critic of English poetry and style, once wrote: This is the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world.”
Contemplation of the holy Law led David to pray for complete cleansing so that he could live an upright (blameless) and acceptable life before God, his “Rock” (Ps. 18:2, 31, 46){8] and “Redeemer”—“May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the LORD” (Ps. 104:34).
“Pleasing in your sight” is an expression often associated with God’s acceptance of properly offered, literal sacrifices. David asks for grace and enablement as he lays his “lip-and-life” sacrifices on the alter—“Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. (Josh. 1:8).
God’s Word has the power to correct us. It will keep us in fellowship: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Who was David’s strength? Christ! Who was his Redeemer? Christ! He is also my strength and my Redeemer, and I pray that He’s yours too. He becomes that through the grace of God. What a wonderful prayer to pray every day! Such a prayer must bring joy to the heart of God.
SCRIPTURE REFERENCE AND SPECIAL NOTES
{1] Romans 1:18) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
{2] (Ps. 1:2) But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
{3] (John 3:16) "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
{4] (Romans 10:9) That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
{5] (Deut. 4:10) Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, "Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children."
{6] (Ge. 1:2) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
{7] (Ge. 1:1, 8) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. . . God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day.
{8] (Ps. 18:2, 31, 46) The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. . . For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?. . . The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God my Savior!
