A meditation on Psalm 119:97-104 (Ma ahavti torahteicha - 'O how I love your law').
When did you last write a letter by hand? And in ink? (“ink? - what's that?” I hear you ask!). It seems that electronic communication by emails, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc, have almost replaced letters written longhand.
So when we browse through the new emails in our inbox, which ones do we open first? Replies to emails sent yesterday? Requests for money? Emails that should have gone to our spam file? No! It's those from our loved ones; and those who love us.
The Bible has been called God's love letter to us. A letter from One who has shown such wonderful and faithful love for us should make us want to open it at once and read about them over and over again.
God’s Directives, Our Faith
Psalm 119 is such a letter, beautifully laid out in acrostic bite-sized pieces, with 8 verses for each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the language in which God chose to communicate His love to us. It reveals the writer's devotion to the Word of God as the Word of life, and is an invitation to walk in Torah (not as a rigid 'law' but, more accurately, as teaching, guidance, and direction – torah derived from the word yarah, to teach). It's from the One who, as no other, loves us and draws us to love Him.
Every verse has a synonym for His guidance (His Torah), and the psalm focuses both on God's directives for life, and on our faith in His faithful promises to those who follow them.
No wonder the psalmist says, “O how I love Your Torah: I meditate on it all day long” (v97). Do we also read and re-read this love letter?
Understanding Who God Is
The benefits of responding to this love letter are immediate. It makes me wise (chokmah) by keeping Your commands (v98), it gives me insight (sakal) through meditating on Your statutes (v99), and invites understanding (beyn) because I keep your precepts (v100) and seek to obey Your word (dvar) and Your laws (mishpat) (vv101-102). This is God's steadfast faithfulness (His chesed).
Note that the psalmist says: It is Your law (v97) - Your commandments (v98) - Your testimonies (v99) - Your word (v101) - Your laws (v102), for You yourself have taught me. All these elements of God's letter teach us about God Himself, and His love for us, and they are summed up in v104: In this “I gain understanding [of who You are]”.
No wonder the psalmist says, “They are sweeter than honey”. Who would not want these gifts from the One who loves us so?
And they please God, for He says to His people, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom...but let him boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight” (Jer 9:24). God is Immanuel and wants to dwell with us, in us.
Paul echoes this to believers in Philippi – “I count everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:7-10). Wow! That is a goal worth striving for. Torah is His way of loving us into receiving His promises and pleasing Him (1 Thess 4:1).
Knowing Him Better
As we mark Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22), this week, and celebrate Jesus' birth, let us dedicate ourselves to receive His miracle, the true Light (John 1:9), and meditate on His Word, His Torah, so we come to know and understand Him better through His love letter.
Author: Greg Stevenson