Psalm 119 Part 3

The Psalmist knows that if he loves what he should love and hates what he should hate, he will live as he should live. The various ways he referred to God’s written revelation shows us how much he knew, loved, and respected all of God’s word.
He begins by declaring the blessedness of those who walk according to God’s revealed will. Survey data constantly demonstrates that those who live lives in general conformity to God’s standards are happier, enjoy life more, and are more content. Yet the illusion remains for many that a ‘defiled’ life is more “fun.”

Yesterday’s Meditation charted the 10 words in scripture for Law. These laws can be grouped together in 5 categories. The moral law, the ceremonial laws, the rabbinic laws, the health laws, and the civil laws. The civil laws ended when Israel ceased to be a theocracy (Government directly by God.) The Rabbinic(priesthood) laws ceased when Jesus became our “high Priest” in the heavenly sanctuary. The ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ when type met antitype. They were the ‘shadows of the cross’ Paul declared in Col2:15-17. They contained the 7 annual ceremonial Sabbaths: Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of First Fruits, Feast of Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. It should be noted here, that the weekly 7th Day Sabbath (4th Commandment) was memorialized at creation, before sin entered the world and was never symbolic of anything and cannot be included in Paul’s ‘shadows of what was to come,” Col2:17. The 4th commandment looks back to creation, the 7 yearly ceremonial Sabbaths looked forward ‘to what was come.’ The health laws were never symbolic of anything either and today are just scientific common sense.

The ‘keeping’ and ‘walking’ vs1&2 is poetic parallelism and is a device that occurs throughout this psalm. The keepers and walkers are blessed because they come to an understanding of them; they love them and they continue to practice them. Before we can ‘keep’ something, we must first get a firm grip of it: we cannot keep in life that which we have not heartily embraced by the affections.