Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes (Psa 119.12).

A life of genuine piety can be summarized as praising God and learning from God. These two things are mutually symbiotic—they thrive together and need each other. A famous example is Egyptian plover and crocodile. The bird loves to eat the crocodile’s little parasites and the crocodile appreciates this so much it will open its jaws and let the plover in to hunt. The croc-dwelling bird enjoys a safe place as few of its predators would dare approach this fierce perch. So the bird and crocodile live happily together, mutually advantaged and dependent.¹

So it is with praising God and learning from God. As the soul rises to contemplate the glories of its God and thus gives vent to the praise of that glory, so it is induced a deeper hunger for His verbal self-disclosure and revealed will for the saint. Likewise, when the soul is genuinely taught of God, not just instructed by men, so this true knowledge of Him produces the compelling urge to praise Him. Where there is no heart for worship, there is a corresponding apathy to learn His statutes, and none would ever develop a disposition to praise apart from learning them.

Worship begets discipleship and discipleship, worship.

A BURST OF PRAISE

Psalm 119 opens with a benediction upon the righteous (119.1-3) as a prelude to prayer, an address directly to God (note shift from third person to second person pronouns in 119.4 ff.). The benediction also uses the word “blessed” (119.1, 2), but it is a different Hebrew word.

There are two verbs in Hebrew meaning “to bless.” One is bārak and the other˒ āšar. Can any differences between them be tabulated? For one thing bārak is used by God when he “blesses” somebody. But there is no instance where ˒āšar is ever on God’s lips. When one “blesses” God the verb is bārak, never˒ āšar. One suggestion to explain this sharp distinction, i.e, that˒ āšar is reserved for man, is that˒ āšar is a word of envious desire, “to be envied with desire is the man who trusts in the Lord.” God is not man and therefore there are no grounds for aspiring to his state even in a wishful way. Similarly God does not envy man, never desires something man is or has, which he does not have, but would like to have. Therefore God never pronounces man “blessed” (˒ašrê).²

In other words, God is uniquely worthy of all praise; man could never be in His position, contrary to Mormon heresy:

We can become Gods like our Heavenly Father. This is exaltation . . . They [people] will become gods . . . and will be able to have spirit children also. These spirit children will have the same relationship to them as we do to our Heavenly Father. They will be an eternal family. . . . They will have everything that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have, all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge. (Gospel Principles 1986 edition or older, p. 290).³

This worship-benediction is addressed directly to God: “Blessed art thou, O LORD.” It is good to speak well of God to others, but facing Him, as it were, and thus acknowledging His greatness and goodness is the highest form of verbal praise, and we should take care that we practice it, both by prayer (as here) and singing (as the Psalms were meant to be sung).

The psalmist calls God by His name: Jehovah or Yahweh. The other day I asked three Mormon missionaries about God’s name and they responded, “We call Him heavenly Father,” showing they do not know God. That is a biblical title for God, but it is not His name. Remember Moses’ inquiry about this in Exodus 3.13-15. God replied that His name is “I AM THAT I AM,” or simply, “I AM.”

In the modern world, a person’s name can be merely an identifying label; it does not reveal anything about the
person. Biblical names, however, have their background in the widespread tradition that the personal name gives
significant information about the one who bears it. The OT constantly celebrates God’s making His name known to Israel, and the psalms again and again direct praise to God’s name. “Name” here means God Himself as He has revealed Himself by word and deed. At the heart of this self-revelation is the name by which He authorized Israel to invoke Him—commonly rendered “the Lord” (for the Hebrew Yahweh, as modern scholars pronounce it; or “Jehovah,” as it is sometimes written). God declared this name to Moses when He spoke to him out of the bush that burned steadily without being burned up. God first identified Himself as the God who had committed Himself in covenant to the patriarchs; then, when Moses asked Him what he could tell the people who asked what God’s name was (the ancients assumed that prayer would only be heard if its addressee was named correctly), God answered first “I AM WHO I AM,” then shortened it to “I AM.” The name “Yahweh” (“the Lord”) sounds like “I am” in Hebrew, and God finally called Himself “the Lord God of your fathers.” The name in all its forms proclaims His eternal, self-sustaining, self-determining, sovereign reality.⁴

Thus with the eternal, covenant-keeping God in mind, the psalmist penned this verse with a burst of praise, but this leads to the expression of his deep desire.

A THIRST FOR LEARNING

“Teach me Thy statutes.” Again, the direct address to God is important and striking. This is not to deny the legitimacy of human religious teachers (cf. 1 John 2.27, written by a man; and (Eph 4.11-12, etc.), but rather to acknowledge that all who truly learn God’s truth are taught by God, though He uses human means (1 Cor 2.9- 14). Scripture is given by the Spirit in the first place, and a true and spiritual apprehension of its profound and life-changing sense, in a life-changing way, ONLY comes as God’s grace-gift to unworthy sinners. This is the “divine illumination” for which we pray often in private, and congregationally each Lord’s Day.

Sadly, too few realize this desperate spiritual need and the evidence is the absence of heartfelt prayer for it. Those who do pray at all will often beg God for earthly blessings like financial provision, safety from harm, and
recovery from illness or injury, but where are the explicit petitions for spiritual light? It is every bit as fitting and necessary for Christian believers to cry out to the Lord, as David did, “teach me Thy statutes,” because unless He teaches us, we shall remain in spiritual ignorance. Even though we may not be heretics like the cult members I mentioned, yet our hearts will be just as estranged from the true and living God!

This thirst for learning has a very practical dimension. The Hebrew word for “statutes” means “a clear, communicated prescription of what one should do.”⁵ The English word means “a law or decree made by a sovereign, or by God.”⁶ While in this context it seems to refer generally to all of Scripture, yet the particular word-choice of divine inspiration emphasizes that part of Scripture which directs us into
practicing God’s will.

A true knowledge of God, consistent with praising Him, will not only make us comfortable with trusting our daily lives to Him, but earnestly desirous that His wisdom would guide our steps. God’s commandments are not grievous
or burdensome (1 John 5.2-3). Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14.15). Adoring Jesus and following Jesus always go together. To love Him is to trust Him, and to trust Him is to obey Him, and to obey
Him is to know Him better and experience the blessedness of communion with Him, and thus to love Him even more!

See then how profound is the spiritual truth and theological realities in these straightforward words of the psalmist, “Blessed art thou, O LORD; teach me Thy statutes.” That is easily memorized and useful in meditation and prayer. Let it become a part of your whole mindset as a Christian, and may God give us all grace to live
according to its wisdom. Amen.

Notes:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis
2. TWOT #183f
3. Farkas & Reed, Mormonism : Changes, Contradictions, and Errors
4. Reformation Study Bible, in loc.
5. Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew, #2976
6 NOAD

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