GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 119:70-72
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70 Their hearts are fat and unfeeling,
but I delight in your law.
“Fat and unfeeling” is my attempt to bring “gross as lard” into English, since it is obviously a Hebrew idiom for someone who is uncaring, callous, and perhaps stupid. The wicked don’t care how their sins affect other people or how their sins bring down God’s wrath on their heads. In verse 69, David described being “smeared” with lies, and in the second line of this verse (70), he uses the verb sha’a’, which can mean “smear” (Isaiah 32:3) but here means “delight.” The pilpel stem is a version of the piel, which in this case has the force of a frequent or repetitious act, since the verb usually means “to play,” such as a child being “dandled on the knee” (Isaiah 66:12).
The verse is antithetic as a poetic line. The unfeeling, gross nature of the wicked is countered by the joy of the believer, who comes very close to saying, “Your law is my plaything.” Of course, the poet wouldn’t go that far, but he means that he takes joy in the word of God. He returns to it day by day, again and again, the way a child turns back to a favorite game or a cherished toy. God’s Word gives the believer the greatest delight, for there we find forgiveness, new life, the promise of the resurrection, and guidance for living and for carrying our crosses.
71 It was good for me to be afflicted
so that I might learn your statutes.
Let the wicked say, do, and think what they will, but it is God’s own judgment of me that I care about. If the Lord afflicts me, it is for my own good, and I will accept his chastisement, but I also pray that I will not complain about it.
The poetry here is simple or formal parallelism, in which the second line simply follows the first naturally. It is the closest that a Hebrew poetic line gets to prose. The affliction leads to learning. “Learning” in this case is the ordinary (qal) form of lamad, to learn as an exercise, or by repetition.
Sin leads to affliction, beginning with the conscience and its inner condemnation of guilt (Hebrews 10:22). If sinners persist in their sin, the affliction grows worse. As Solomon said: “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, and when they pray toward this temple and confess your name and turn from their sin because you have afflicted them, then hear from heaven and forgive their sin” (2 Chronicles 9:26-27). But it is the individual’s reflection on the affliction that also teaches. Why have I been so hard pressed by the Lord? Why has he kept peace so far away from me? Why do I struggle under burdens that should be light and easy to bear? Ah: I am impatient. And as I think about God’s law, I see that I am also sinning in other ways. Have I fallen into discontent? Have I fallen into the idolatry of thinking I know better than God knows? May his afflictions turn me back to the role I have in his kingdom, and not aspiring to do something I have not been given to do. His statutes, his permanent laws and commands, teach me his will. Augustine says: “to know these is the same thing as to keep them, to keep them the same thing as to know them.” God’s people have a certain knowledge of his holy will, but clouded by sin, but a poor reflection “as if in a mirror, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). We know in part, and although we will not know fully until the resurrection, we can still increase our knowledge, expand our understanding, and deepen our wisdom. “The Lord disciplines those he loves, like a father” (Proverbs 3:12). “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).
72 The law from your mouth is more precious to me
than thousands of pieces of gold and silver.
The final verse of this section proclaims the value of the Word of God, for “God will not deal with us apart from his external Word and sacrament.” There in the Old Testament Scriptures is Christ, prefigured in the words of Moses. He will be revealed in the New Testament, but even here in this Psalm for worship, the Word of God is recognized as the most precious gift God gives. For it is here in his Word that we learn who God is. None of the pagans know this. None of the heathen religions that surrounded Israel in David’s day knew the true God. None of the false religions that loom so large in the world today have any idea who the true God really is. They have rejected Christ because they condemn the Lord to be too small, for he only saved those who truly believe in him. They want salvation to be based on opinion and good intentions. They do not fear the Lord, who said, “What does the LORD ask of you except to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve the LORD with all your heart?” (Deuteronomy 10:12). So to be faithful to the Lord is not to have good intentions, or to be nice to people, but only this: to “fear the LORD your God, and serve him only.”
Here in the Word, and only here, we learn about the atonement made for our salvation. “He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:42-43). So apart from the Word of God, there is no real knowledge of God, nor of how we are saved from the guilt of our sins. In other words, in Scripture alone do we learn about salvation. The Scriptures are the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers must be judged, for our Psalm says: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105). And Paul declares: “But even if we or an angel from heaven would preach any gospel alongside the one we preached to you– we must curse him!” (Galatians 1:8). Therefore “other writings of ancient and modern teachers, whatever their names, should not be put on a par with Holy Scripture. Every single one of them should be subordinated to the Scriptures and should be received in no other way and no further than as witnesses to the fashion in which the doctrine of the prophets and apostles was preserved” (Formula of Concord).
God, salvation, atonement in Christ alone– these things remain mysteries to the world, but the Lord tells us with certainty: “The mystery of God will be accomplished, just a he announced to his servants the prophets” (Revelation 10:7).
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 119:70-72 In the Word we find forgiveness