GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 119:175-176
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175 Let my soul live and it will praise you,
and may your judgments sustain me.
We have seen the piel verb with the meaning “cause me to live” before in this Psalm many times (119:37, 40, 88, 107, 149, 154, 156, 159). Here, however, we are surprised to find the more ordinary qal verb stem with a type of verb known as a jussive, which is a sort of softened command, or a request. Once again we see a passage about the soul, which has all of the faculties of the body apart from mass, opacity, weight, and so on. The living body praises God, and the soul (which does not die) also praises God, and at the resurrection, the body and soul are rejoined, and once again the fully integrated human, body and soul, praises God. Perhaps there is a question here, as to whether the memories of the soul will be restored to the body after the resurrection; that is to say: Will my risen body have the memories of what my soul did, experienced, said, sang, etc., when my body and soul have rejoined one another? This is not answered by Luke 16 or other very helpful passages, but it is reasonable (I use the term carefully and cautiously) to judge that the memories of the formerly separated soul will indeed be available to the risen flesh since they will be rejoined and inseparable. Therefore: If my glorified spirit encounters and in some way embraces and delights in a reunion with, for example, my mother who is already in heaven, will she and I remember that meeting when our bodies join our spirits after Judgment Day and the resurrection of our flesh? Whether we do or not, will we not repeat the encounter, embracing with our arms and voices and smiling eyes just as our spirits did in some spiritual way, long before? These are questions which it will be a pleasure to learn the answers to. We will learn by the doing! They will be happy lessons.
Another jussive (qal) verb ends the verse, “May your judgments sustain me.” This is a simple statement that is a prayer. God’s judgments hold us up; they are a rope thrown to a man calling for help in the water, or in a pit, or in a crook in a cliff-face who cannot rescue himself. Our sins come back to attack us. They are the threat of damnation, but God’s judgment is that all of those sins, every last one of them, is covered by the blood of Christ. This is the rope that rescues (Jeremiah 38:13); this is the hand of God that saves (Psalm 20:6).
176 I have strayed like a dying sheep. Seek your servant!
Surely I have not forgotten your commands.
The first line is a continuous thought: “I have strayed like a dying sheep. Seek your servant!” Almost all translations break this line or include the second phrase with the second line, probably influenced by the presence of “for” in the last line (which I have translated “surely”). But according to both the theology of the passage and the Masoretic accents, the words “Seek your servant” should be connected with the first line. The more important matter is that, after confessing that he strays into sin, and before confessing that he knows (= has not forgotten) God’s commands, he needs saving, and cries out for it: “Seek your servant!”
This is not just a literary exercise, but the application, the correct use, of law and gospel in the Word of God. The law shows us our sins and the guilt we incur on account of those sins. The law pulverizes our value in the world; we become utterly worthless, ground to dust that cannot stand before God without being eternally condemned. The gospel restores us, saves us, shows us that God loved us so much that he gave his one and only Son to die for us, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, will not disappear into the terrible and lonely cell-chambers of hell’s punishment– dark, cold, lonely, burning, drowning, agonizing, and anguishing. We have not forgotten his word. We depend on it. We stray like sheep. We are not just lost sheep, or rebellious sheep, but dying sheep. The word is straight out of Deuteronomy 4:26, “You will quickly perish from the land.”
Our poet is aware that his achievement in writing a work of this length and magnitude is unusual. Epic. People will at times be intimidated by such things instead of being enriched by them. A song like this can become like one of the pyramids of Egypt: a thing to be noticed, and admired for its size and craftsmanship, but also a thing that people don’t know how to enter. But because it is a thing to be recited or sung, he has made it more accessible. He has made it into something to be pondered, and to be treasured up in the heart. For while he has shown us that the Word of God is many things, he has helped us to see and remember that it is most of all God’s communication to mankind about sin and grace. The Word of God displays, shows, beckons, soothes, and welcomes. It informs us that we are not forever condemned. We are brought instead by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Lord into the bright, warm, welcoming, green grassy hilltops of Paradise: We have everlasting life.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Psalm 119:175-176 Law and Gospel