Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right;
And I hate every false way (Psa 119.128).
The psalmist is praising God in prayer, and testifying of his fellowship with God, to the glory of God. Redemption is on display in this, for although the psalmist was a sinner by nature, he is beginning more and more to fulfill the end for which he was created in the first place—to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
The prophet Amos stated an axiom almost a truism, but very important to our salvation, when he wrote, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” (Amos 3.3). Companionship requires consent; cooperation needs consensus. In its context, this seems to stress the divine authority of the prophets to whom God’s Word came, as Calvin explains (in loc.):
The Prophet here affirms that he speaks by God’s command, as when two agree together, when they follow the same road; as when one meets with a chance companion, he asks him where he goes, and when he answers that he is going to a certain place, he says I am going on the same road with you. Then Amos by this similitude very fitly sets forth the accordance between God and his Prophets; for they did not rashly obtrude themselves so as to announce anything according to their own will, but waited for the call of God, and were fully persuaded that they did not by any chance go astray, but kept the road which the Lord had pointed out.
The beginning of human misery occurred when man dared to think independently of God, when man had been lured even to dissent from God. Satan questioned God’s Word first, “Yea, hath God said?” Like a second tuning fork set vibrating by the first, our first parents resonated with the same sinister wavelength. All pain and suffering in the universe ever since has ultimately been the manifestation of God’s just curse on this wicked departure from divine wisdom, this worshiping the creature rather than the Creator, who is forever blessed.
But instead of abandoning his creatures to their just desserts, God keeps entering the kingdom of darkness—men and demons following Lord Satan—and with God’s presence is the Truth’s presence. “In him” who is called the Word “was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Yet “this was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” And “as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1.4-5, 9, 12).
Salvation from intellectual and spiritual independence from God requires as a prerequisite that we have God and his Word come to us guilty ones again in grace, since we deserve it not. He must come to us blind and deaf ones with miraculous power to restore our senses, or we will remain estranged from him, however bright the outward light, however unmistakable the outward sound. He must break the spell of error upon us, and cause us to turn from it back to his truth, in the love of it. This Shepherd of souls must and does retrieve the wandering sheep and cause them to cease from straying, and to walk contentedly at his side, in true agreement and harmonious companionship with him.
When the Lord Christ has done that in a soul, that redeemed one can testify truly with a full heart that he holds all the words of God in the highest regard, as well as every departure from those words in the utmost contempt. That is a little bit of the spiritual dynamic behind our text from Psalm 119. In it we have a classic affirmation of the faith that is consistent with being in a state of grace and salvation—a faith that is decidedly in agreement with God and opposed to whatever opposes him.
Thus Amos’ dictum helps us appreciate the aim of preaching—to lead men toward reconciliation with God by presenting his Word for their hearty reception. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom 10.17). When sinners in dissonance against God embrace him who is the Word of God, their frequencies become adjusted more and more until they think and judge in unison with the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14.6). And in this agreement there is the most blessed walking together with the God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as well as companionship with that prophetic-apostolic band called the Church (1 John 1.1-3). It is in and through Christ, “the Amen” (Rev 3.14), that God’s elect come to say “the amen” themselves (2 Cor 1.20), and so are saved.1
Indeed, David sets forth his own testimony of agreement with God by grace as a confirmation of the righteous in their faith and as an enticement of those still outside the fold of God’s beloved ones. This is announcement and evidence that sinners may and should be reconciled to God.
FAITH AFFIRMS GOD’S WORD
A much poorer expression would have been “I agree with you, Lord.” Instead, David says essentially the same thing with appropriate extravagance.
If we translate in a word-for-word and literal way, the text reads, “Therefore [or, thus] all of the precepts—all [or, everything]—I esteem as right [or, approve], every way of them; a lie I hate”2 (emphasis mine). Here is an obvious intensity, with great stress laid on the comprehensiveness of his approval. “Precepts” means “directions or regulation, i.e., a principle instructing to do a certain action, which is to be obeyed by all in the same society of the covenant.”3 Here it stands as a designation of Holy Scripture, God’s Word as a whole. Since several different words function this way in Psalm 119, David’s choice of this one in this verse is not arbitrary. It may be that he deliberately alludes to our sinful reluctance to affirm specifically those parts of Scripture which lay upon us some moral obligations, or prohibit things to which our fallen nature is perversely and strongly attracted. “Even your directives, Lord, I do highly esteem.”
This attractive interpretive possibility is strengthened by realizing that the verb, here rendered “esteem,” can also have the sense of “observe carefully.”4 The psalmist’s professed esteem was not superficial or hypocritical; his high regard for the divine commandments was evident in his life, because he had made them the rule of his heart and conduct.
Further, the three-fold insistence is most striking that ALL of the precepts, absolutely ALL of them, with EVERY WAY that they command and commend, gained the psalmist’s hearty approval. In terms of grammatical construction and literary form, this may be in the OT an unusual form of expression, but there is no mistaking his meaning. There was not a jot or tittle in the all the minutiae of the Torah which did not elicit his heartfelt praise and awaken within him holy desires to conform to God’s revealed will. Sin makes us slower to affirm those parts of God’s law that especially pinch our conscience because of a particular incompatibility of our own personal shortcomings, but we must resist “cafeteria religion,” where we pick and choose those parts of the Bible we like best, passing by the rest.
Some Christians today, probably under the influence of modern Dispensationalism, have singularly low views of the nature of Old Testament piety. Reformed scholars readily admit that there is a fullness of the Spirit’s influences upon believers since Pentecost which was not generally characteristic of believers belonging to OT Israel. For example, in a discussion on the Spirit’s ministry in the OT and in the NT, Sinclair Ferguson teaches, “Any biblical theology of the Spirit’s work must recognize the progressive and cumulative character of historical revelation,” implying this NT fullness. Still, Ferguson cautions us to remember that
these [moral and spiritual characteristics produced exclusively by the Spirit] (i.e., the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23) are already exemplified by Old Testament believers. . . . Hence, Christian believers can turn to the Psalms . . . to find examples of wholehearted adoration and devotion that exemplify what it means to worship God by the Spirit.
Oh, may God graciously grant to us the heart of the Psalmist here, so that we can sincerely, from the depths of our being, say, “I esteem absolutely all thy precepts concerning all things to be right!”5
FAITH REPUDIATES EVERYTHING CONTRARY
As stated before, the second line of this verse is very brief compared to the first, consisting of only two words in the Hebrew: [A lie] + [I hate], or as commonly translated, “I hate every false way,” with sensitivity to the context perfectly bringing out the most likely sense.
We note here the importance of joining an emotional dimension to the intellectual. It is not enough for us to assent to God’s revealed will, and acknowledge that departures from it are wrong. We must truly hate every kind of sin, and he in whom grace is most powerfully operating will hate even the slightest omission of biblical duty or transgression of God’s law. Infinitely so, this is the very spirit animating Jesus Christ himself, and so when he lives in us by his Spirit, we partake of his holy love of righteousness and contempt of anything less.
Perhaps you never realized that such a complete agreement with God’s Word was so profoundly central to being saved and enjoying his sacred presence. Let the reader now say, “Amen!”
Notes:
1. “Amen” is a translingual word originating from Hebrew which means “truly” or “so be it,” expressing agreement with some other statement. It expresses certainty and confidence, and so it is the language of faith. Further, “amen” signifies the response of worshipers to God’s Word (TDNTA, p. 53).
2. I have used the Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible and Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament to produce this rendering.
3. DBLSD #7218.
4. LH-EIB, cited above.
5. The Holy Spirit: Countours of Christian Theology, p. 25.