Psalm 119 is about loving God’s Torah, His statutes, commands and precepts. It is broken up into sections with strange looking words or letters which are the Hebrew alphabet. In the Hebrew Scriptures, each line of each section starts with a word beginning with this letter. This is called an acrostic poem. Each Hebrew letter also has a word picture associated with it giving greater meaning and symbolism to each line of the specific letter-ed section.
ג Gimel – Camel
Lift up or pride
“Deal generously with your servant; then I will live and observe your word. Open my eyes, so that I will see wonders from your Torah. Though I’m just a wanderer on the earth, don’t hide your mitzvot from me. I am continually consumed with longing for your rulings. You rebuke the proud, the cursed, who stray from your mitzvot. Remove scorn and contempt from me, because I observe your instruction. Even when princes sit and plot against me, your servant meditates on your laws. Also your instructions are my delight; they are my counselors.”
In our western culture founded on personal rights and freedoms, obeying God’s mitzvot makes us feel that we are losing our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, when we chose to become part of God’s Kingdom, we choose to give up our earthly rights to follow His commandments as His adopted children.
The ‘pride of life’ does not come not from the Father, but from the world (1 John 2:16). When we walk on the earth in pride, God’s needs to deal mercifully with us because we wander aimlessly following the lust of our eyes and flesh. We need the Spirit of God to open our eyes to the wonders in the Torah so the Word becomes a delight, and we receive the wise counsel desperately needed in this fallen world. Obedience to God’s instructions removes scorn and contempt from our lives; obedience sets us free from rebuke and draws us into deeper fellowship with our Father. Ultimately, we become more like Yeshua who humbled himself was obedient even to the point of death.
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