While deploring my unfinished state, my hope is that you will bring your merciful dealings in me to perfection, until I attain that utter peace which all that is within me and all my outward being will enjoy with you, when death shall be swallowed up in victory.

—Augustine, The Confessions

Psalm 119 closes with the voice of entreaty. The psalmist asks God to accept his prayer. There is something uncertain and yet hopeful in his voice. His tone is one of optimism seasoned with humility. This is not a contradiction. It is an achievement. With this same hope, speak this last stanza.

169 May my cry come before you, O LORD; give me understanding according to your word.

170 May my supplication come before you; deliver me according to your promise.

171 May my lips overflow with praise, for you teach me your decrees.

172 May my tongue sing of your word, for all your commands are righteous.

173 May your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts.

174 I long for your salvation, O LORD, and your law is my delight.

175 Let me live that I may praise you, and may your laws sustain me.

176 I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.

Psalm 119 has no real closure. It just ends. I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands. These last eight verses could easily be substituted anywhere in the psalm and with little interruption to the flow.

Psalm 119 ends soberly.

And there is justice in such an end. I am not sure it should end any other way.

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My heart trembles at your word.

—Psalm 119:161

No one, I think, can sit down and at one reading exhaust the depths of meaning contained in a single psalm. What I find in a certain psalm on a certain day may be very unlike what I will find in that same psalm on a different day, and there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that, were I to write this book a dozen times over the next twenty years, it would be substantially different each time. Nor, even then would I have begun to sound the depths of the Psalter.

—Patrick Henry Reardon, Christ in the Psalms

HOREB TREMBLED when the glory of God descended upon it. The depths convulsed. “Tremble before him, all the earth! The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved” (1 Chron. 16:30). “He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble” (Job 9:6). “Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob” (Ps. 114:7).

It is the seasoned believer who says, “my heart trembles at your word.” In that hope, say the following verses out loud:

161 Rulers persecute me without cause, but my heart trembles at your word.

162 I rejoice in your promise like one who finds great spoil.

163 I hate and abhor falsehood but I love your law.

164 Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws.

165 Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.

166 I wait for your salvation, O LORD, and I follow your commands.

167 I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly.

168 I obey your precepts and your statutes, for all my ways are known to you.

Shalom

The word Sabbath (shabbath) begins with shin .  And shalom, peace. “Great peace (Shalom) have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.”(Psalm 119:165)

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I am the LORD, who heals you.

—Exodus 15:26

I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.

—Hosea 14:4

The Hebrew verb for heal (  rapha) begins with resh . In Exodus 15, God is known as Jehovah Rapha. “I am the LORD that healeth thee.” The word for spirit (  ruwach) also begins with this letter. It is the same word we find in Psalm 51 when David pleads, “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit” (Ps. 51:11–12). The resh or rosh is also the head, ( ro’sh or roshe) as in Rosh Hashanah, which means the New Year or the head of the year.

Jesus was asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (Matt. 18:1). In response, he called a little child to stand among them.

Resh is an interesting little letter that seems to suspend between greatness and smallness. With a notable ambivalence, it means “head,” and yet it stands toward the back of the line. Like the presence of a hidden spiritual law.

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I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

—Romans 12:1–2, KJV

Qoph or qof is the first letter in the word holy, holiness, or hallowed, that is   qodesh (ko’-desh). “And they made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote upon it a writing, like to the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD” (Exod. 39:30 KJV).

Kodesh, kodesh, kodesh. Holy, holy, holy.

In the moment of prayer, in that warm fluid synapse between you and God, he shares his holiness. Unity does its best work in those moments, and often it is not even about the words we speak, if, indeed, we have the power to speak them. As you feed on the Scripture daily, as it becomes your meat and drink, the line of communication stays open. It hums with life. The Word in you does the necessary work. With this hope in mind and with something upright in your voice, speak the following stanza:

145 I call with all my heart; answer me, O LORD, and I will obey your decrees.

146 I call out to you; save me and I will keep your statutes.

147 I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word.

148 My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.

149 Hear my voice in accordance with your love; preserve my life, O LORD, according to your laws.

150 Those who devise wicked schemes are near, but they are far from your law.

151 Yet you are near, O LORD, and all your commands are true.

152 Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last for ever.

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How loudly I cried out to you, my God, as I read the psalms of David, songs full of faith, outbursts of devotion with no room in them for the breath of pride! Uncouth I was in real love for you . . . How loudly I began to cry out to you in those psalms, how I was inflamed by them with love for you and fired to recite them to the whole world, were I able, as a remedy against human pride! Yet in truth they are sung throughout the world, and no one can hide from your burning heat.

—Augustine, The Confessions (book ix.8)

IT IS A LOVELY THING to be worn down by a passion, especially if that passion is directed heavenward. It weakens and it strengthens at the same time. Like being undone in a most delightful way. In Psalm 69, David wrote, “zeal for your house consumes me.” If the psalmist cries, “My zeal wears me out”, as he does in 119:139, he is saying his strength is gone: “I have emptied myself on your behalf, Lord.” And though it appears to be a condition of weakness, it is a place of strength. The reward is in the expenditure.

In God, these riddles have life—the mysteries, the odd paradox, the hard sayings, they are all charged with meaning, whether that meaning is conspicuous or hidden. They are all determined by a deliciously sacred math, and come under the jurisdiction of a wise, caring, thorough, deliberate, and all-knowing Father who gives what is needed in the time it is needed.

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