Psalm 119:49-56 | Zayin
Psalm 119:49-56 | Zayin
Milt Reynolds | Last updated: June 8, 2022
Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD. Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law. Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning. I remember your name in the night, O LORD, and keep your law. This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts. - Psalm 119:49–56, ESV
Remember Me
"Remember me."
The context connects "remember me" with the following:
- Hope
- Comfort in affliction
- God's life-giving, life-sustaining promise
- Singing while sojourning
- Constancy during the night
- Blessing
HOPE: yaw-CHAL [to wait, be patient, to hope - the English word "wait" means to stay put or delay action]
COMFORT: neth-aw-MAW [consolation] from naw-KHAM [to sigh, to breathe stongly, to be sorry in a favorabe sense, to pity, to console or rue, to avenge]
Without hope in God's Word, what actions would I pursue without delay? Into what darkenss would my hopelessness take me?
Does the context of this psalm imply that hopelessness can cause me to act upon my "hot indignation"? Would it make me express my hopeless frustration through violence and vengeance?
LIFE: khaw-YAW [to live, to revive]
"Life" seems the opposite of "hope": "Life" implies activity and change..."hope" implies stillness, waiting for action to begin.
Perhaps hope comfortably waits for the action that is best, that is yet to come?
SONGS: zaw-MEER [a song accompanied with insturmental music] from za-MAR [to touch the strings or parts of a musical instrument, to play upon, to make music accompanied by voce, to celebrate in song and music]
SORJOURNING: maw-GOOR [a temporary abode] from goor [to turn aside from the road, to sojourn as a guest, to shrink or fear as in a strange place, to gather for hostility when afraid]
"The house of my sojourning" implies circumstances contrary to all that hope in God's Word promises. "Sojourning" implies at best a temporary, uncomfortable or strange situation....at worst a fearfully dangerous circumstance.
To sing while sojourning seems not to be a natural expectation! To be in a place or predicament which poses painful anxiety or fear, yet to sing in celebration of God's Word and Work...that's not natural.
It's super-natural!
Give Me Life
Lord, remember what you have promised me...I'm trusting you to do it: Give me life! In worry and fatigue, give me life. In feeling isolated and divided from others, give me life. In feeling indignation at news of wickedness, give me life.
Make your promise to be a song in my heart.
Give me life.
Where is Comfort?
What hope have I in God's Word? What comfort in my affliction do I feel today in God's Word? Where in God's Word is promise of life?
Today, these are the questions that push me to read God's Word.
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