The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"declare," Hebrew mesapperim (מְסַפְּרִים), are recounting, telling out continually. Creation is a preacher that never stops speaking. "The heavens declare the glory of God", the participle means they are continually recounting it, day and night, age after age. Verses 2-4 press it further: "Day unto day uttereth speech... There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth." The sermon of the skies needs no translation; it is preached in every land, to every people, in a language all can understand.

"glory," kevod (כְּבוֹד), the weight and splendour of God. This is what theologians call general revelation: God has written a testimony to Himself across the whole face of creation, legible to every human being.

"firmament," raqia (רָקִיעַ), the expanse of the sky. The vast expanse of sky, the sun by day and the stars by night, is itself part of the sermon; the whole arch above us is pressed into the preaching.

"sheweth," maggid (מַגִּיד), declares, announces. It all "sheweth his handywork", announcing without a word what no one taught it to say. This is why Paul says the invisible things of God are "clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made... so that they are without excuse" (Romans 1:20). No one can plead ignorance of God, for the heavens have been preaching Him since the fourth day of creation.

"handywork," ma'aseh yadav (מַעֲשֵׂה יָדָיו), the work of his hands. The sky points away from itself to the God whose hands made it. To look up at the sky and not see the glory of God is not a failure of evidence but a hardness of heart.

Explanation

There is a paradox tucked into the verses that follow, and it is worth pausing over. In verse 3 the psalm says of the heavens, "There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard", a voice without words, a sermon in no tongue and every tongue at once. The skies preach without a single syllable, yet no nation on earth fails to hear them. But mark the limit of that wordless voice: notice which name for God it can reach. In this first half of the psalm God is called El (v1), the God of sheer power, the Maker. Creation can shout that there is a God, mighty and glorious, but it cannot tell you His name, and it cannot tell you His heart. That is why, exactly at the seam of the psalm (v7), the name changes: the covenant name YHWH, "the LORD," rings out and is repeated seven times through the rest of the song. The heavens give you "God"; only the word gives you "the LORD" by name. The sky can leave a man "without excuse" (Romans 1:20), but it cannot make him a son.

Gospel Focus

"The heavens declare the glory of God", and the heavens were made by the very One who came to be our Saviour, for "all things were made by him" (John 1:3), and "by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth" (Colossians 1:16). The Word who stretched out the starry firmament is Jesus Christ, God manifest in flesh; the hands that flung the stars into space were the hands that were nailed to the cross. Yet creation, glorious as it is, can only declare God's glory and power; it cannot save. It shows us the Maker but not the way back to Him; it leaves the sinner "without excuse" but not without sin. For salvation we need the second book, the word of God, and the living Word Himself. The glory the heavens declare from afar has drawn near in Christ, for "we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father" (John 1:14), and the God whose splendour fills the skies "hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). Look up and adore the Maker; then look to the cross and know Him as your Redeemer.

Word Study

"law," Hebrew torah (תּוֹרָה), instruction, teaching. Now the psalm turns from the silent sermon of the skies to the clear voice of Scripture, and the sun rises higher. David piles up six titles for God's word, law, testimony, statutes, commandment, fear, judgments, and to each attaches a quality and an effect.

"perfect," temimah (תְּמִימָה), whole, complete, flawless. "The law of the LORD is perfect", flawless and complete. Nothing in it is lacking and nothing in it is amiss.

"converting," meshivat (מְשִׁיבַת), restoring, turning back, reviving. Its effect is "converting the soul", reviving, restoring, turning the whole inner man back to God. Here is something creation could never do: the heavens declare God's glory, but they cannot convert a soul; only the word of God can do that.

"the soul," nafesh (נָפֶשׁ). God's word is not a burden but a treasure, doing for the soul what nothing else can, reviving, instructing, gladdening, enlightening.

"testimony," edut (עֵדוּת). David turns next to God's testimony, His witness to His own character and will: "The testimony of the LORD is sure."

"sure," ne'emanah (נֶאֱמָנָה), trustworthy, faithful. The word means utterly trustworthy. The following verses continue: the statutes are right, "rejoicing the heart"; the commandment is pure, "enlightening the eyes"; the word is "more to be desired... than gold... sweeter also than honey."

"simple," peti (פֶּתִי), the untaught, open, inexperienced. It is "making wise the simple", giving true wisdom even to the untaught and inexperienced. Where the book of nature leaves us without excuse, the book of Scripture leaves us without want, for it is able to make us "wise unto salvation" (2 Timothy 3:15).

Explanation

Watch where the six lines aim, for they do not simply pile up praise; they work their way through the whole person. The law converts "the soul" (the nafesh, the life itself); the testimony makes wise "the simple" (the mind); the statutes are "rejoicing the heart"; the commandment is "enlightening the eyes." Soul, mind, heart, eyes, the word reaches and restores the total man, inside and out, nothing left untouched. And one of the six titles is quietly startling. Five of them name the word directly, law, testimony, statutes, commandment, judgments; but the fifth reads, "The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever" (v9). Here Scripture is named not by what it is but by what it produces, the reverence it works in us, so that the book and the worship the book creates are called by one name. To take up the word rightly is already to be bowing; the fear of the LORD and the word of the LORD cannot finally be pulled apart. That is why David calls it sweeter than honey and more precious than gold (v10): a treasure that not only informs the head but bends the knee.

Gospel Focus

"The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul", the perfect law points beyond itself to the perfect Saviour, for the word of God in all its forms finds its centre and fulfilment in Jesus Christ. He is the living Word, "the Word was made flesh" (John 1:14), and He is the one of whom the Scriptures testify: "they are they which testify of me" (John 5:39). The law that is "perfect" reveals a righteousness we do not have and drives us to Christ, "for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Romans 10:4); He alone kept it flawlessly and fulfilled it for us. And the word that is "converting the soul" does its converting work by pointing to Him, for we are "born again... by the word of God" (1 Peter 1:23), and faith "cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). The Scripture is able to make us "wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15), so that the word's great purpose is to bring us to the Word made flesh. Sweeter than honey and more precious than gold, the word of God is a treasure above all treasures, because it gives us Christ. Love the Scriptures, feed on them daily, for in them you meet your Redeemer.

Word Study

"words of my mouth," Hebrew imre-fi (אִמְרֵי־פִי). Having gazed at the heavens and delighted in the word, David is brought to his knees. The word has shown him more than he can keep: "who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins" (vv12-13). The nearer the light of God's perfect law, the more he sees his own sin, both the hidden faults he cannot even discern and the presumptuous sins he must be kept from. So the psalm ends in prayer: "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight."

"meditation," hegyon (הֶגְיוֹן), the musing of the inner man. He asks that not only his outward speech but his inmost thoughts might be brought before God. The hegyon is the quiet running of the mind that no one else ever hears.

"acceptable," leratzon (לְרָצוֹן), well-pleasing, as an accepted offering. He asks that they might be pleasing to God, an offering accepted at the altar. He cannot make himself acceptable; he casts himself on the Rock who upholds and the Redeemer who ransoms.

"strength," tzuri (צוּרִי), literally "my rock." And he grounds the prayer on two great names: "O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer", my Rock, my unmovable stability.

"redeemer," go'ali (גֹּאֲלִי), my kinsman-redeemer, the one who buys back and rescues his own. The second name is my go'el, my kinsman-redeemer, the one who buys me back. Both books, creation and Scripture, lead here: to a humbled sinner pleading to be cleansed and accepted through his Redeemer.

Explanation

Notice the vast journey the psalm has travelled to arrive at this last verse. It began at the widest possible horizon, the whole starry heavens declaring God's glory to the ends of the world; it ends at the smallest possible point, one man's mouth and the private "meditation of his heart." From the cosmos to a single conscience, from what all men can see to what only God can see. And there is a lovely thread that ties the end back to the beginning. In verse 2 the heavens "utter speech" (omer), pouring out their wordless words to God day and night; here in verse 14 David asks that the "words" (imre) of his mouth, from the very same Hebrew root, be "acceptable in thy sight." He longs for his small human voice to join the endless anthem of the skies, to become one more line in creation's ceaseless praise. And the word "acceptable" (leratzon) is sacrificial language, the term for an offering God receives at the altar; so the psalm that opened with the heavens closes at an altar, with a sinner asking that his very thoughts be a sacrifice God will accept, and pinning that hope on his "strength" and his "redeemer."

Gospel Focus

"O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer", this is the name of Jesus Christ, our Rock and our Redeemer, in whom alone our words and hearts are made acceptable to God. The word go'el, redeemer, is the kinsman who has the right and the power to buy back his own; and this is exactly what Christ became, taking our flesh to be our near kinsman, and paying our ransom with His own blood: "ye were not redeemed with corruptible things... but with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19). Job cried the same hope, "I know that my redeemer liveth" (Job 19:25), and it lives for us in Jesus. Because He is our Redeemer, we who could never make ourselves acceptable are "accepted in the beloved" (Ephesians 1:6); our stammering words and wandering thoughts are received by God for Christ's sake, and our prayers and praises become "spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5). So Psalm 19, which began with the silent glory of the skies and rose to the sweetness of the word, ends at the foot of the cross, where the sinner finds his Rock and his Redeemer. The heavens declare His glory; the Scriptures reveal His grace; and the humbled heart rests in Jesus, our strength and our redeemer, in whom we are cleansed and made acceptable to God for ever.