Aleph
Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the Lord!
2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek him with their whole heart,
3 who also do no wrong,
but walk in his ways!
4 You have commanded your precepts
to be kept diligently.
5 Oh that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
6 Then I shall not be put to shame,
having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
7 I will praise you with an upright heart,
when I learn your righteous rules.
8 I will keep your statutes;
do not utterly forsake me!
Beth
9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
10 With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
11 I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.
12 Blessed are you, O Lord;
teach me your statutes!
13 With my lips I declare
all the rules of your mouth.
14 In the way of your testimonies I delight
as much as in all riches.
15 I will meditate on your precepts
and fix my eyes on your ways.
16 I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.
The following excerpt from a Holyrood Church Congregational Letter (March 1981) makes plain the historical significance of the Psalm's emphasis on the Word. 'It is a remarkable and impressive fact that in the history of God's people before the exile, even in those times when renewal and reformation took place, there seemed to be so little emphasis on the Word, in the sense of allowing the exposition of the Law of the Lord to shape and fashion the life of the nation. Apart from the time of quickening in the reign of king Jehoshaphat, when that good king established a teaching ministry throughout the cities of Judah (2 Chronicles 17:7, 9), there seems to have been little awareness of the need for such a bulwark for national life. Rather, the renewals that did take place (as, for example, the reigns of Asa, Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Chronicles 15/16, 29/32, 34/35) were all effected in terms of the re-establishment of the great feasts, such as the Passover and Tabernacles - that is to say, the new consecration of the people was expressed in a renewal of worship and liturgy.
'There are those - and there always have been those - who would settle for that, in the conviction that it meets all possible needs. But the later history of the people of God - as well as the more recent history of the Church in modern times - makes it all too plain that the restoration of worship and liturgy without the Word to undergird, direct and inspire it, becomes all too quickly subject to the law of diminishing returns: the worship, and the liturgy too, accomplish less and less, and in the end become lifeless; and we have to confess, with Isaiah (26:18), that we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth.
'This, it would seem, was one of the lessons learned at bitter cost by the exiles in Babylon, and it explains their preoccupation with, and insistence upon, the centrality of the Word in their personal and corporate life when they returned to their own land once again, as may be seen from the important passage in Nehemiah 8, and particularly Psalm 119, in its absorption with the law of the Lord.'