Psalm 119:17-24 | Gimel
Psalm 119:17-24 | Gimel
Milt Reynolds | Last updated: March 24, 2022
Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments. Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies. Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors. - Psalm 119:17–24, ESV
Lord, Deal Bountifully With Me!
DEAL BOUNTIFULLY: gaw-MAL, to treat a person (well or ill), to benefit or requite; to ripen or wean
This definition is odd. The original Hebrew word by itself does not convey a specific sense of positive or negative treatment, of good or bad treatment. Why does this translation use the word "bountifully"?
The English definition of "bountifully" conveys a strong sense of positive goodness: full of bounty, free in giving, liberal, plentiful and abundant. "Bounty" means liberality in giving, generosity, that which is given liberally, to yield, a reward. The word was taken from Old French, bonte, goodness, which was taken from Latin, bonus, good. - Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Fifth Edition, 1945
How did the translators get from a neutral word in Hebrew meaning "treatment", to an English word meaning "plentiful goodness"?
How does the context of this stanza define "bountifully"?
- A life of keeping God's Word
- Able to see wondrous things in God's Word
- Kept from becoming an object of scorn and contempt in the eyes of God
- Time and place in which to meditate on God's Word
- Delighting in counsel from God's Word
Gimel prays that God would treat them with unlimited access and delight in God's Word: all that God has declared and commanded. For Gimel, the very best kind of "treatment" that could be given by God is time in God's Word. Time to keep God's Word. Time to see wondrous things in God's Word. Time to remember and rely upon God's word, through thick and thin.
The worst sort of "treatment" that Gimel can imagine is that of being allowed to wander away from God's Word. To be so cursed by God that Gimel would no longer have neither time nor desire to read, rest and rejoice in God's Word.
This definition of "bountiful" treatment by God is radically different than that of the common culture that surrounds me. From birth I've been persuaded that "bountiful treatment" by God means health, wealth and happiness given now, on the earth, because of my satisfying his expectations. If I do everything "right", God will protect me and provide me more health, wealth and happiness now, on the earth, than others who did too many things "wrong".
I've written "now, on the earth" carefully. Gimel saw our life as belonging to God, living now, on the earth, only temporarily, only as a traveling stranger, as a "sojourner".
The common culture that has surrounded me since birth has only been focused upon health, wealth and happiness now, on earth. Any level of health, wealth and happiness now, on earth, that falls below that enjoyed by someone else seems a red flag that "something is wrong"! That "something wrong" is most often felt as being caused "someone or something" besides myself. My cause of my lack of health, wealth and happiness now, on earth, is usually first blamed upon other people around me, rather than upon myself. If a shallow, distorted self-worshipping view of a "higher power" can be blamed rather than blaming my self, that is our next step is assuaging our disappointment and disatisfaction with our life.
The fruit of being treated "bountifully" is experienced by Gimel in a way that is radically different than that which is experienced by insolent, accursed ones who wander away from God's Word.
Gimel holds firmly upon God's Word as the crucial key to the difference between a "good" life and a "bad" life. Gimel declares that our dependence and delight in God's Word makes all the difference. Dependence and delight in God's Word, daily, now, here on earth is truly the only way to live, at all times and in all circumstances.
Lord, deal bountifully with me! Allow me time and desire to depend and delight upon your Word, daily, now, here on earth, at all times and in all circumstances.
Lord, deal bountifully with me!
Life | Definition | Purpose
Gimel describes a definition of life, and a purpose of life:
- Eyes that are able to see
- A mind that delights in wondrous things
What is a "sojourner"?
SOJOURNER: gare, a guest, a foreigner - from goor, to turn aside from the road for a lodging or any other purpose, to soujourn as a guest, to shrink, fear as of a strange place, to gather for hostility as afraid
This helps to expand the definition of life:
- A mind alert, aware and considerate, as a stranger in an unknown place
- A heart that desires good things
- A heart that is teachable
I'm studying a foreign language: Welsh. The more I study the language, the more I desire to visit the land of Welsh-speakers: Wales. I imagine with pleasure traveling for an extended stay in a small, rural village, trying to be friendly and careful at the same time...trying to be considerate of the Welsh history and culture and cares of those who live there, without betraying or hiding my own history of culture and care.
A "sojourner" does not lodge in a strange place in order to change the culture and cares of the place. But, neither do they allow the strange place to change those of the sojourner. But the experience need not be one of isolation and distance, or dispassionate unconcern for one another.
Care and compassion for others crosses all borders, all languages, all religions, and all conditions. Wherever the "sojourner" lodges is a place in which to have eyes that see and a mind that delights in wondrous things..a mind alert, aware and considerate...a heart that is teachable and willing to teach other minds that are teachable and willing to teach.
Here is a purpose of life, according to this psalm: God has given us life on earth in order to delight in and depend upon what he has said and done.
Gimel identified as a sojourner, a traveler in a strange place, firm in purpose: I am to live a life that cares for others and delights in the the goodness of God.
What is Bountiful?
What is bountiful? "Bountiful" is that which keeps within God's Word.
BOUNTIFUL: gaw-MAL, to treat a person (whether well or ill), to benefit or requite, to ripen (as a result of work), to wean
KEEP: shaw-MAR, to hedge about (as with thorns), to guard, to protect, to attend to
It is biblically consistent to desire to be guarded and protected by God's Word. Hearing or reading God's Word, with a mind and heart that truly depends upon what God has said and done, is the way that God protects those who trust him.
Today I am feeling only slightly, sadly inconsistently, such a desire.
Lord, open my eyes and the eyes of my family to see your Word as wondrous. Our time on earth is short, made difficult with insolence and shallow gratification within and around, with scorn and contempt from high and low.
Lord, delight and counsel me today in your Word!
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