Settled in Heaven

The Psalm

א ALEPH.

1. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.
2. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
3. They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.
4. Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.
5. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!
6. Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.
7. I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
8. I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly.

ב BETH.

9. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
10. With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
11. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
12. Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.
13. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth.
14. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches.
15. I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.
16. I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.

ג GIMEL.

17. Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word.
18. Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
19. I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.
20. My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times.
21. Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from thy commandments.
22. Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept thy testimonies.
23. Princes also did sit and speak against me: but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes.
24. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counsellors.

ד DALETH.

25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.
26. I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes.
27. Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.
28. My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.
29. Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously.
30. I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me.
31. I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to shame.
32. I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.

ה HE.

33. Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end.
34. Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.
35. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.
36. Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.
37. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.
38. Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is devoted to thy fear.
39. Turn away my reproach which I fear: for thy judgments are good.
40. Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness.

ו VAU.

41. Let thy mercies come also unto me, O LORD, even thy salvation, according to thy word.
42. So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me: for I trust in thy word.
43. And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments.
44. So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever.
45. And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts.
46. I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.
47. And I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved.
48. My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.

ז ZAIN.

49. Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.
50. This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.
51. The proud have had me greatly in derision: yet have I not declined from thy law.
52. I remembered thy judgments of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself.
53. Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.
54. Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.
55. I have remembered thy name, O LORD, in the night, and have kept thy law.
56. This I had, because I kept thy precepts.

ח CHETH.

57. Thou art my portion, O LORD: I have said that I would keep thy words.
58. I intreated thy favour with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy word.
59. I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.
60. I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments.
61. The bands of the wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten thy law.
62. At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.
63. I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.
64. The earth, O LORD, is full of thy mercy: teach me thy statutes.

ט TETH.

65. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O LORD, according unto thy word.
66. Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments.
67. Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
68. Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.
69. The proud have forged a lie against me: but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.
70. Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law.
71. It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
72. The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.

י JOD.

73. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.
74. They that fear thee will be glad when they see me; because I have hoped in thy word.
75. I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.
76. Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant.
77. Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight.
78. Let the proud be ashamed; for they dealt perversely with me without a cause: but I will meditate in thy precepts.
79. Let those that fear thee turn unto me, and those that have known thy testimonies.
80. Let my heart be sound in thy statutes; that I be not ashamed.

כ CAPH.

81. My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in thy word.
82. Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, When wilt thou comfort me?
83. For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.
84. How many are the days of thy servant? when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?
85. The proud have digged pits for me, which are not after thy law.
86. All thy commandments are faithful: they persecute me wrongfully; help thou me.
87. They had almost consumed me upon earth; but I forsook not thy precepts.
88. Quicken me after thy lovingkindness; so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth.

ל LAMED.

89. For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.
90. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.
91. They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.
92. Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction.
93. I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me.
94. I am thine, save me; for I have sought thy precepts.
95. The wicked have waited for me to destroy me: but I will consider thy testimonies.
96. I have seen an end of all perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad.

מ MEM.

97. O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
98. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me.
99. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.
100. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.
101. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.
102. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me.
103. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104. Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.

נ NUN.

105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
106. I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.
107. I am afflicted very much: quicken me, O LORD, according unto thy word.
108. Accept, I beseech thee, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD, and teach me thy judgments.
109. My soul is continually in my hand: yet do I not forget thy law.
110. The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I erred not from thy precepts.
111. Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart.
112. I have inclined mine heart to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end.

ס SAMECH.

113. I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love.
114. Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word.
115. Depart from me, ye evildoers: for I will keep the commandments of my God.
116. Uphold me according unto thy word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope.
117. Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually.
118. Thou hast trodden down all them that err from thy statutes: for their deceit is falsehood.
119. Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like dross: therefore I love thy testimonies.
120. My flesh trembleth for fear of thee; and I am afraid of thy judgments.

ע AIN.

121. I have done judgment and justice: leave me not to mine oppressors.
122. Be surety for thy servant for good: let not the proud oppress me.
123. Mine eyes fail for thy salvation, and for the word of thy righteousness.
124. Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes.
125. I am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know thy testimonies.
126. It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law.
127. Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.
128. Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.

פ PE.

129. Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore doth my soul keep them.
130. The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.
131. I opened my mouth, and panted: for I longed for thy commandments.
132. Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name.
133. Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
134. Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep thy precepts.
135. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; and teach me thy statutes.
136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.

צ TZADDI.

137. Righteous art thou, O LORD, and upright are thy judgments.
138. Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful.
139. My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten thy words.
140. Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.
141. I am small and despised: yet do not I forget thy precepts.
142. Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.
143. Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me: yet thy commandments are my delights.
144. The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live.

ק KOPH.

145. I cried with my whole heart; hear me, O LORD: I will keep thy statutes.
146. I cried unto thee; save me, and I shall keep thy testimonies.
147. I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried: I hoped in thy word.
148. Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word.
149. Hear my voice according unto thy lovingkindness: O LORD, quicken me according to thy judgment.
150. They draw nigh that follow after mischief: they are far from thy law.
151. Thou art near, O LORD; and all thy commandments are truth.
152. Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever.

ר RESH.

153. Consider mine affliction, and deliver me: for I do not forget thy law.
154. Plead my cause, and deliver me: quicken me according to thy word.
155. Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes.
156. Great are thy tender mercies, O LORD: quicken me according to thy judgments.
157. Many are my persecutors and mine enemies; yet do I not decline from thy testimonies.
158. I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word.
159. Consider how I love thy precepts: quicken me, O LORD, according to thy lovingkindness.
160. Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

ש SCHIN.

161. Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word.
162. I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil.
163. I hate and abhor lying: but thy law do I love.
164. Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments.
165. Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.
166. LORD, I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy commandments.
167. My soul hath kept thy testimonies; and I love them exceedingly.
168. I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee.

ת TAU.

169. Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD: give me understanding according to thy word.
170. Let my supplication come before thee: deliver me according to thy word.
171. My lips shall utter praise, when thou hast taught me thy statutes.
172. My tongue shall speak of thy word: for all thy commandments are righteousness.
173. Let thine hand help me; for I have chosen thy precepts.
174. I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD; and thy law is my delight.
175. Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee; and let thy judgments help me.
176. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.

Setting and occasion

There is no heading. Every other psalm in this October set opens with something — a collection, a choirmaster, a name, an occasion — and Psalm 119 opens with the letter aleph and a beatitude. No author is claimed, no situation is described, no tune is named. For a poem of this size that is a remarkable piece of restraint, and the earlier lessons in this series have taught how to read it: Psalm 62 and Psalm 130 both withhold their occasions on purpose, and the effect is the same here at twenty times the length. The psalm can be lent to anybody because it belongs to nobody in particular.

That said, it is not as situationless as its reputation suggests. Read it through and a shape keeps returning. Somebody with power is against him — “princes also did sit and speak against me” (v. 23), “princes have persecuted me without a cause” (v. 161) — and there are people described as proud throughout, who have him at a disadvantage and know it. He has been afflicted, and says twice that it did him good (vv. 67, 71). He expects to speak before kings (v. 46). None of that adds up to a datable event, and it does not need to. What it gives is a man under sustained pressure from his social superiors, over a long period, who answers every single time with the same thing.

The form is the other half of the setting, and it has to be described before the psalm can be read at all. Psalm 119 is an acrostic, and a merciless one. Twenty- two stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in order; and within each stanza, all eight verses begin with that letter. The other alphabetic psalms — 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 145 — give one letter a verse. This one gives each letter eight consecutive lines, which is a hundred and seventy-six constrained openings and is why nobody has ever reproduced the effect in English. What an English reader sees as repetition, a Hebrew reader sees as architecture.

That form tells you what the psalm is for. An acrostic this regular is a memory device, and a memory device is not built for private reading but for carrying about. Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible and it was made to be known by heart — which is worth saying to a congregation before they are asked to sit through any of it, because it changes what they think is being asked of them.

The shape of the psalm

Everything in this psalm is built on two things: an alphabet, and eight words.

The alphabet has been described. The eight words are the ones that make the psalm feel repetitive to anybody reading it in English, and they are not repetitive at all. They are eight different nouns for what God has said, each with its own shade, and the Authorised Version’s habit of rendering two of them identically as word hides a distinction the psalm keeps throughout.

How the counting was done, since the figures usually quoted vary. Searching the consonantal Hebrew of all 176 verses for these eight stems, each stands in roughly twenty to twenty-five verses, and 172 of the 176 verses contain at least one of them. The four that contain none are vv. 3, 37, 90 and 122. Lists in the commentaries often name five exceptions — 84, 90, 121, 122 and 132 — because they count מִשְׁפָּט only where it means God’s revealed ordinances and not where it means a judgment executed (v. 84), a just act done by a man (v. 121), or ordinary custom (v. 132). That is a defensible way to count and it is a semantic judgment, not a lexical one. Either way the point stands: there is almost nowhere in this psalm to stand that is not within a line of one of the eight.

Twenty-two stanzas, and the eight this lesson takes

A lesson cannot expound a hundred and seventy-six verses at the pace this series reads a psalm, and one that pretended to would be a worse lesson, not a longer one. So this one takes eight stanzas — and eight is the psalm’s own number: eight verses to a stanza, eight words for the word. The whole psalm is printed above; the table below is the whole architecture; and the eight the lesson stops at are marked, so that what has been left out is visible rather than quietly absent.

Read down the third column and the psalm’s range is plain, and so is the reason it resists summary. It is not a treatise on Scripture with a mood attached. It is a man praying about the same subject in every register available to him — delight, complaint, resolve, fear, exhaustion, gratitude — and the subject never changes and the mood never settles.

Which leaves the question of where its centre is, and the psalm answers that more precisely than it had to. Eleven stanzas of eight verses is eighty-eight; LAMED opens at verse eighty-nine. The exact midpoint of the psalm is also the one place in it where the psalmist stops talking about what the word does to him and says what the word is — for ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven — standing, fixed, in heaven, before anybody read it and whether or not anybody does. Everything else in a hundred and seventy-six verses is a response. That is the hinge, and the psalm put it in the middle.

Oratio, meditatio, tentatio

Most of this October set reaches the Reformation through a hymn, a slogan, an afternoon in a street or a chapter of Romans. Psalm 119 gets there by a shorter road: Luther says, in so many words, that this psalm teaches how to study theology, and then sets out what it teaches.

The place is the preface he wrote in 1539 for the first volume of the Wittenberg edition of his German writings — an old man’s introduction to books he says he would rather have seen left unpublished, on the grounds that they keep people from the Bible. Having said that, he offers something in exchange:

Note what he has and has not claimed. Not that Psalm 119 contains a doctrine of Scripture — though it does — but that it contains a method, demonstrated rather than stated, running the whole length of the poem. What follows is his account of the three, and in each case the psalm he is reading is the one printed above.

Oratio

Luther puts prayer first, and the reason is bracing. “You should straightway despair of your reason and understanding … But kneel down in your little room and pray to God with real humility and earnestness, that he through his dear Son may give you his Holy Spirit, who will enlighten you, lead you, and give you understanding.” And then he points at the psalm: “Thus you see how David keeps praying in the above-mentioned Psalm, ‘Teach me, Lord, instruct me, lead me, show me,’ and many more words like these.”

That is the HE stanza almost exactly. Seven imperatives in seven verses — teach me, give me understanding, make me to go, incline my heart, turn away mine eyes, stablish thy word, turn away my reproach — and the lesson noted that the letter ה supplied the causative prefix that made such a stanza possible. Luther, without any of that apparatus, heard the same thing: a man who knows the text asking to be taught it.

His warning attached to this is the sharp end. A man who skips the praying will “seize upon them pell-mell with his reason and become his own teacher”, and what that produces is “factious spirits who allow themselves to nurture the delusion that the Scriptures are subject to them.”

Meditatio

Second, and Luther is at pains to say it is not an interior exercise: “you should meditate, that is, not only in your heart, but also externally, by actually repeating and comparing oral speech and literal words of the book, reading and rereading them with diligent attention and reflection.” Out loud, repeatedly, on the words themselves. And do not stop early: “take care that you do not grow weary or think that you have done enough when you have read, heard, and spoken them once or twice … You will never be a particularly good theologian if you do that, for you will be like untimely fruit which falls to the ground before it is half ripe.”

He finds this in the psalm too: “David constantly boasts that he will talk, meditate, speak, sing, hear, read, by day and night and always, about nothing except God’s Word and commandments.” That is the BETH stanza — the word not merely learned but צָפַן, stored where it can be got at — and the MEM stanza, which the lesson lists rather than expounds: “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day” (v. 97).

And there is a sentence here that decides a great deal: “God will not give you his Spirit without the external Word.” Whatever illumination is, on this account, it does not bypass the book.

Tentatio

Third, and the one nobody asks for. “There is tentatio, Anfechtung. This is the touchstone which teaches you not only to know and understand, but also to experience how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how mighty, how comforting God’s Word is, wisdom beyond all wisdom.”

Here Luther’s reading of the psalm is at its most acute, and it explains something the setting section noticed without explaining. Psalm 119 keeps mentioning enemies — princes sitting and speaking against him, the proud, persecution without cause — and it is easy to treat that as background noise in a poem about Scripture. Luther treats it as the third rule: “David, in the Psalm mentioned, complains so often about all kinds of enemies, arrogant princes or tyrants, false spirits and factions, whom he must tolerate because he meditates, that is, because he is occupied with God’s Word … For as soon as God’s Word takes root and grows in you, the devil will harry you, and will make a real doctor of you.”

Then the line that only Luther would write: “I am deeply indebted to my papists that through the devil’s raging they have beaten, oppressed, and distressed me so much. That is to say, they have made a fairly good theologian of me, which I would not have become otherwise.”

What the confession says, and how carefully

October’s heading for this psalm is sola scriptura, and the psalm supports it — but as a practice rather than a proposition. It never argues that Scripture is the supreme authority; it simply never appeals to anything else. Where the argument does get made, the Westminster Confession’s first chapter makes it, and several of its sections read like summaries of particular verses.

Row 1.7 is the one to read aloud. The psalm says the opening of God’s words gives understanding to the פְּתִי, the untrained; the confession says the same thing and immediately fences it — not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all, and the unlearned attain a sufficient understanding in a due use of the ordinary means, which include the teaching this psalm keeps asking for. Neither the verse nor the confession says the Bible is easy. Both say that the person it was written for is not the specialist.

Singing Psalm 119

With this psalm the question a leader has to answer first is not which tune but how much, and answering it badly is the commonest way Psalm 119 gets sung — which is to say, once, at length, and never again.

Metre and settings

The check that matters here is different from the other psalms in this set. It is not stanza numbering but correspondence: make sure the portion your book calls Psalm 119 part 12 is in fact ל LAMED, vv. 89–96. Books divide this psalm differently, and a selection printed by number rather than by letter is how a congregation ends up singing about the wrong eight verses.

Tunes

Any sound common-metre tune will serve, and the psalm’s own length argues for using one the room already owns rather than teaching a new one.

• DUNFERMLINE or ST. FLAVIAN — plain, old, and they will not tire across eight verses.
• MARTYRDOM — for the darker stanzas: CAPH (vv. 81–88), or DALETH.
• ST. ANNE — for LAMED, which is a statement rather than a plea and should sound like one.
• BELMONT — warmer, for BETH or MEM.

Confirm the metre against your own book before printing; tune names travel between metres more often than anyone expects.

Leading suggestion

Sing one letter. That is the whole recommendation, and the psalm’s structure is what licenses it. Eight verses is not an excerpt from Psalm 119 in the way that eight verses would be an excerpt from Psalm 19; it is a complete unit that the poet built to stand alone, bounded by its own letter, and the 1650 prints it that way. A congregation that sings LAMED one Sunday and NUN a month later has sung Psalm 119 properly twice. A congregation that attempts all one hundred and seventy-six in a sitting has sung it once and will not be asked again.

Choose the letter to fit the occasion rather than working through in order. Verses 89–96 for a service about the authority of Scripture; 105–112 at the start of something uncertain; 129–136 wherever the Bible is being opened to people who have been told it is beyond them; 169–176 at the end of anything at all.

If you want the room to feel the acrostic — and it is the one thing about this psalm no English version can give them — read the eight opening words of a stanza aloud in Hebrew before singing it, or simply point at them on the page. Eight lines, one letter, twenty-two times over. That is a fact about the psalm that takes ten seconds to demonstrate and changes what people think they are looking at.

One last thing, for a lesson rather than a service. Somebody in the congregation has almost certainly been told, or has privately concluded, that Psalm 119 is the long boring one. Verse 176 is the answer to that and it takes twenty seconds: the longest chapter in the Bible, written by the person in Scripture who loved it most, ends “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant.” Whatever else this psalm is, it is not the work of a man pleased with himself.

This completes the six psalms gathered for October, and they are worth naming together now that they are all here. Psalm 46 is sung from inside a city that cannot be moved; Psalm 62 by a man being quietly pushed, who finds that only one thing bears weight; Psalm 130 from under the water, by a man whose trouble is himself; Psalm 124 by a whole people counting what did not happen to them; Psalm 32 by a man who stopped hiding and found he had been blessed before he opened his mouth; and Psalm 119 by a man whose every answer, for one hundred and seventy-six verses, comes from something he was told. A fortress, a rock, a debt, an escape, a verdict and a lamp.

The psalm’s own settings, recordings and music sheets are collected on its psalter page, with recordings here, as they are added.