Psalms 119:1-40

119:1-176 | This magnificent psalm, the longest chapter in the Bible, celebrates the law of the Lord – God’s special revelation and gracious direction for life.

119:1 | God’s gracious revelation (the law) shows the surest and safest way through life’s twisted highways and byways.

119:4 | Precepts are oral or written declarations of what God expects. The original meaning carries the idea of “fixed, appointed, designated,” suggesting that people must submit to the established expectations of a sovereign God or suffer the consequences.

119:5 | Statutes comes from a root word meaning “to hew, cut in, engrave, inscribe.” Therefore, the word statute came to mean what is “ordained, decreed, prescribed, or enacted.”

119:20 | The word translated breaks means “wears down.” The psalmist is being worn away little by little rather than crushed by a single blow.

119:32 | The heart is contracted or made narrow by selfishness, pride, vanity, ambition, covetousness; it is enlarge (“made free, stimulated, animated”) by noble and holy purposes such as charity, love, hope, benevolence. Sin narrows the heart; relationship with God enlarges it.