Praying Psalm 119
Blessed are we when our way is blameless, and walk in the way of the Lord
We have been reading and praying our way through the longest Psalm, one that continually glorifies our Lord and His word, the Bible. This month, we are encouraging you to use this Psalm as a prayer guide for personal devotion.
This Psalm is called the Alphabet of Divine Love, the Paradise of all the Doctrines, the Storehouse of the Holy Spirit, the School of Truth, also the deep mystery of the Scriptures.
It has been arranged in a Hebrew acrostic pattern, meaning it uses each of the 22 Hebrew alphabet letters as a heading for each section. Each stanza in that section begins with that letter, each section contains eight verses, and 176 verses overall.
So, we have a prayer challenge. Since there are 22 weekdays in June, it would be an ideal opportunity to pray a section each Monday through Friday, and with just eight verses, there should be ample time to slowly read, consider and pray from through a section at a time.
Psalm 119 is unique also for its numerous references to God’s word, and refers to the Scriptures over and over in eight different ways, for all but one verse. To this Psalmist, awareness of and meditation on God’s written revelation was obviously a high priority. As was keeping His word.
Let us pray the same, may the Lord would open our eyes to behold wonderful things in it.
Those eight words are
law (tora) - instruction
testimonies (eda) - witness
precepts (piqqudim) - mandate
commandments (mitsvah) - ordinances
statutes (hoq) - decree
judgments (mispat) - right, just
word (dabar) - speech, utterance
word (imrah) - word of God
Each reference by the Psalmist to the words of God relates directly to God Himself, the God of the Word—the Author, and each verse affirms this. The singular theme throughout is the Word of Almighty God, and the writer mentions this in a range of ways, never repeating himself, but elegantly presenting his theme in a different light, and one can sense the maturing of the writer himself as the Psalm progresses.
It begins as a Beatitude, “Blessed are those whose way is…”and the writer has us consider that God’s blessings come for those who walk in His ways, keep His word, seek Him and follow after Him. So we study them, consider them and seek after them prayerfully, that we might be one of those who are blessed this way of the Lord.
Here is a schedule for the first three days
Thursday June 1 - Aleph, v 1-8
Friday June 2 - Beth, v 9-16
Monday June 5 -Gimel, v 17-24
We will include the schedule for remaining days in upcoming newsletters. We hope you will join us in praying through this longest chapter in all of Scripture, and pray it richly bless you and your prayer life.
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