Psalm 119 - Loving God's Word

I could never do justice to Psalm 119 in a short blog post. There are 176 verses! So below you'll find just some random thoughts and ideas to get you digging deeper and further exploring Psalm 119 on your own.

But I would say that the first few verses kind of summarize - or give the premise behind this magnificent psalm.

1 Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD. 

2 Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart— 

3 they do no wrong but follow his ways. 

It's not listed like this, but Psalm 119 is like a love poem. But it's not a poem of love between a man and woman or between a man and God. It's a love poem about the Word of God.

In the Hebrew there are 22 sections - one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Then in each section there are 8 verses that begin with that letter. 

Almost every verse has a synonym for God's Word: precepts, commands, law, etc.

Our pastor at Hilldale Baptist Church is doing a 22 part (Yes, you read that correctly - a 22 part) Bible study on Wednesday nights using a section of Psalm 119 as the scripture. You can go to our Facebook page and look through the Live Feed Videos and find these Bible studies. https://www.facebook.com/hilldalebaptist/

I knew two of the musical settings listed below. How many do you know?

Musical settings[edit]

• Psalm 119:1 was set to music by Charles Villiers Stanford.
• Psalm 119:18 inspired the hymn Open My Eyes, That I May See by Clara H. Scott.^[19]
• Psalm 119:33–38 was set to music by William Byrd as Teach Me, O Lord.
• Psalm 119:89 is a popular Nigerian praise song.
• Psalm 119:105 was set to music by Amy Grant.
• Psalm 119:1–176 was completed in 1671 by Heinrich Schütz.
• Czech composer Antonín Dvořák set verses 114, 117, 119 and 120 to music in his Biblical Songs (1894).

Here are the two I knew.