Hello again, Sweetwater friends! At this point in my blog series we have discussed some background information to Psalm 19 (Who wrote it? What is a Psalm? What is the overarching theme?) and dissected some of the messages within the first six verses regarding God’s revelation through creation (his general revelation). We can now dive into part 3 in which we will examine God’s revelation through His Law (verses 7-9), also known as His special revelation. Before we begin, I must add a disclaimer that, though I am investigating this section verse-by-verse, each stanza is not meant to stand on its own. Verses 7-9 are essentially one long run-on sentence describing various attributes of God that are revealed in his Law.
Throughout Psalm 19:7-9 there is a common poetic structure in each phrase that we should keep in mind as we dive into our discussion. In Matthew Henry’s commentary, he describes the pattern in this manner:
Here are six several titles of the word of God, to take in the whole of divine revelation, precepts and promises, and especially the gospel. Here are several good properties of it, which proves its divine original, which recommend it to our affection, and which extol it above all other laws whatsoever. Here are several good effects of the law upon the minds of men, which show what it is designed for, what use we are to make of it, and how wonderful the efficacy of divine grace is, going along with it, and working by it.
More simply, the pattern Henry perceived is: “the [title] of the LORD is [property], [effect]”. Though each sentence provides a different title, property, and effect of God’s law, the word “LORD” is consistent. The Hebrew word for Lord used in these verses is “yehôvâh”, or Jehovah: the “self Existent or eternal” God of Israel. Therefore, each verse may highlight different aspects of the Law, but David recognizes that all of it is established by and founded in Jehovah, who transcends space, time, and man’s opinion of the trustworthiness and interpretation of the Word of God.
With this pattern in our minds, we can begin our study of Psalm 19:7-9. This post focuses solely on the first phrase in verse 7.
19:7a. The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul;
Before addressing some of the deeper details of this verse, I want to illustrate the recurring pattern mentioned above. First, David tells us what part of God’s law the statement is addressing. Psalm 19:7a is specific to the “law”, in contrast to references in the verses that follow that refer to the “testimony” or the “commands” of the Lord. Next, he states an inherent attribute, or property, of the law: it is “perfect”. The perfection of God’s law is embedded in its very nature and it will remain perfect whether we choose to accept and believe it or not. When, by God’s gift of faith, we do choose to accept the law, we experience the “reviving [of] the soul,” which is the final component: the desired effect that the law will have on our lives.
It is critical to understanding this verse that we first understand what “law” David is referencing. The Hebrew word used here is “tôrâh” referring to the Old Testament Law written by Moses that encompasses the first five books of the Bible (also known as the Pentateuch). For the Israelites and in early Jewish culture, the Pentateuch was vital for understanding the who, what, why, and how of serving God. Young men in the Jewish tradition were expected to memorize the Pentateuch as part of their education, meaning that David, a young Jewish boy, would have been well-versed in the tôrâh. So what do we learn about God from the first five books of the Bible? The full answer to that question is too long to include in this post, but below I have included a short list of examples.
- Eternal (Gen. 1:1): God was present before the beginning of time and space. There is no account of when God came to be because He does not have a beginning like the world does[1].
- Creator (Gen. 1-2): God created the world and everything in it and His creation was “good” (see my other blogpost for an in-depth discussion about Creation pointing to its Creator).
- Redeemer (Exo. 1-12): God rescued His people out of slavery[2]. The story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt reveals God’s redeeming nature because He did not abandon his people in their time of need. Even when things appeared hopeless, God was still in control and in his perfect timing He lead the Israelites out of misery into the Promised Land.
- Judge (Exo. 20 & Deu. 5-6): God gave the Israelites the 10 commandments to teach them 1) how to live in relationship with Him and 2) how to live in relationship with each other. After the implementation of the 10 commandments Israel knew how they were expected to live and act, meaning disobedience had consequences. Since God established the rules, He was (and still is) the final authority for pronouncing judgement on His children.
- Relational (Exo. 40:34-38): All of the above attributes are tied into God’s relationality. Before the beginning of time, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all existed (see Gen. 1:1-2 and John 1:1). Before creation He was a relational being within the person of the trinity; He was a loving God before He ever created us. It was because of His great love that he created the earth and living beings to partake in and experience the joy of being in relationship with Him. Even when his people turned their back on him and rejected his teaching, He still desired a relationship with them and did not alter His plan to pursue and save His chosen people[3].
We now have some insight into what law David references in Psalm 19:7a and what this law tells us about the character and nature of God. Next, we need to examine what it means that the law, the tôrâh, is “perfect”. The Hebrew word for perfect used in this context is the word “tâmı̂ym,” which refers to something with “integrity” and “truth” – it is “without blemish, complete, full, sincerely sound, without spot, undefiled, upright, whole”. Matthew Henry boils this down to something that is “free from all corruption” and can stand in its own right without needing to be added to or taken away from. Therefore, by calling God’s law perfect, David is saying it is untainted by the sin that pervades everything in creation and also sufficient to fulfill the purpose for which it was written. We can trust in the truth of God’s law because all of it – every single word – came from the mouth of the Lord, rather than from the whimsical and sinful imagination of a human being. In the writing of his Law we also have another example of God’s relational character: He chose to use a human, Moses, as a vessel through which all His words were presented. Though Moses is credited with the penmanship of the Pentateuch, he did not make up the events as a fanciful story; he was instructed by God on what to write (see 2 Pet. 1:20-21 and 2 Tim. 3:16). Since God, not man, dictated the Law, its message is complete and does not require any man-made add-ons to make it so; nor are we at liberty to ignore or delete certain aspects of the law that we may find difficult or confusing. The tôrâh, or the Pentateuch – that is, “the law of the LORD” – as dictated by God and inscribed by Moses, is undefiled and wholly sufficient.
If the law of the Lord is perfect – able to stand on its own and without defect – how does the law pertain to us? According to David, it is “reviving [to] the soul”. How does the law of the Lord revive us? The answer to that question is two-fold: 1) it exposes our own sinfulness and imperfections, which then 2) drives us to see our need for a perfect Savior, found in the person of Jesus Christ. To expound a bit on the first point: the perfection of the law serves as a spotlight to reveal our own imperfections by providing a standard to which we attempt to live, but invariably fail to reach on our own because we are inherently sinful and imperfect. Question 114 of the Heidelberg Catechism address this issue:
144. Q: But can those converted to God obey these commandments perfectly?
A: No.
In this life even the holiest have only a small beginning of this obedience (Ecc. 7:20; Rom. 7:14, 15; 1 Cor. 13:0; 1 John 1:8).
Nevertheless, with all seriousness of purpose, they do begin to live according to all, not only some, of God’s commandments (Psa. 1:1, 2; Rom. 7:22-25; Php. 3:12-16).
That doesn’t sound very hopeful or reviving, though, does it? Why would God give His people a perfect law to live by if He knew they were incapable of living perfectly? Again, we can look to the Heidelberg Catechism for help, this time at question 115:
115. Q: Since no one in this life can obey the Ten Commandments perfectly, why does God want them preached so pointedly?
A: First,so that the longer we live the more we may come to know our sinfulness and the more eagerly look to Christ for forgiveness of sins and righteousness (Psa. 32:5; Rom. 3:19-26, 7:7, 24, 25; 1 John 1:9).
Second, so that we may never stop striving, and never stop praying to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, to be renewed more and more after God’s image, until after this life we reach our goal: perfection (1 Cor. 9:24; Php. 3:12-14; 1 John 3:1-3).
This, then, leads us to point 2: the Law itself is not responsible for our cleansing, but rather it is an instrument used by the Holy Spirit to expose our need for salvation, which we receive through the blood of Christ. It reveals to us the hopelessness of our situation and the extent to which we are enslaved by our sinful nature. It penetrates our hearts and minds, to the point that our “…soul and spirit…joints and marrow” (Heb. 4:12) are divided. Having all my imperfections and sinfulness brought into the light and being sliced by a double-edged sword sharp enough to divide my body and spirit does not sound too appealing. It sounds downright awful. Painful. Is it really worth it to trust in the law of the Lord if it means I must experience pain? According to David, yes, because the pain of our sinful exposure is the beginning of our soul’s revival, not the end.
To continue this discussion, we need to define another term. What does it mean to be “revived”? Revival refers to the bringing of something from death into life, or in less dramatic terms to refresh or restore to its rightful condition. It’s worth noting that the word “reviving” used here in Psalm 19:7 is the same word used in Psalm 23 where David says:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul
(Psa. 23:1-3a, emphasis mine).
We also see this language in the book of Ruth. After Boaz has agreed to be Ruth’s kinsman redeemer, marries her, and she becomes pregnant, a group of women come to Naomi to rejoice with her over Ruth’s pregnancy. As the women are surrounding and rejoicing with Naomi they declare to her these words of praise regarding the son to whom Ruth will give birth:
Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him (Ruth 4:14-15, emphasis mine).
We know from the concluding verses in Ruth that this son for whom Naomi’s friends are giving thanks and claim will be a “restorer of life” is King David’s grandfather. King David, as noted in this series’ introductory blogpost, is an ancestor of Jesus Christ. Naomi’s friends were prophesying about Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man, who would, approximately 1000 years from the writing of Psalm 19 and 1150 years from the time of Ruth, willingly take upon himself the sin of the world and conquer death so that we, through belief in Him, can enjoy eternity in fellowship with and worship of God! By believing in the person and work of Jesus, our souls are brought from eternal death and bondage to sin into eternal life and freedom in Christ — our souls are revived!
At this point, it is necessary to explain how and why I jumped from talking about the Old Testament “law,” the “tôrâh” that David refers to in Psalm 19:7, to the person of Jesus Christ. As mentioned above, Jesus’ work on the cross would not take place for another 1000 years. However, when we look at the story of the Bible as a whole, we find that everything points to the person of Jesus. Starting from Genesis 3, where the first Adam fails to obey the commands of the Lord, there is a promise of a coming Savior, an offspring of Eve, who will ultimately crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). This offspring is God’s Son, Jesus, who, by his life, death, and resurrection, defeated the power of sin and death over those who believe in Him. Jesus is also the offspring who, at the end of time, will destroy “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). Jesus is the Second Adam who perfectly accomplished what the first Adam failed to do – to fully and perfectly obey the commands of his Father, living a sinless and blameless life, so that the sacrifice of his body to death would be an acceptable offering to God (see Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 5:21-22).
This is just one of many Old Testament references pointing to the coming of a Savior who will rescue his people from death[4]. Another is found in Psalm 19:7. When David says “the law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul” he is pointing not only to the written Mosaic Law that exposes our need for a Savior but also to that Savior himself – the coming Word of God incarnate, Jesus. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said he came, not to “abolish [the Law and the Prophets] but to fulfill them”. This “Law” that Jesus fulfilled is the Mosaic Law, the tôrâh – the same “law” David references. Therefore, we can imagine David’s words: “the law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul” as also saying “Jesus, who fulfilled the law and is the Word of God incarnate, is perfect, reviving the soul”. What a beautiful truth!
Is Jesus perfect? Does he revive our souls? Yes and Yes!
If we recall the meaning of the word perfect described previously it is something with “integrity” and “truth” – it is “without blemish, complete, full, sincerely sound, without spot, undefiled, upright, whole”. Jesus lived a perfect life, experiencing every temptation and trial we face but doing so without sin (again see Rom. 5:12-21 and 1 Cor. 5:21-22). Yet a perfect life was not all that God required for Jesus to be our atoning sacrifice. He also suffered and died a sinner’s death. But because he lived a sinless and blameless life, the grave had no authority over him, and upon his resurrection both sin and death were conquered so that “all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). When we receive the free gift of Christ and believe in the work that he accomplished, we, who were previously enslaved to sin and destined for death are freed from our chains and brought into life Eternal, to live in relationship with our Heavenly Father forever! Our souls are revived!
Amen and amen.
We have waded into deep waters with this blogpost and I hope you enjoyed the swim! As this series continues, I am excited to share more ways that the Lord has been revealing himself to me through my study of Psalm 19 and I welcome any comments or insights that you have that will further my understanding of the Scriptures. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, every verse in Psalm 19:7-9 follows a similar poetic construction but references different aspects of God’s Law and the effect that it has on our lives. The blog posts that follow this one will continue in this piece-by-piece fashion, though not all will focus on only one sentence. This post dug deep into the first phrase of Psalm 19:7 in order to lay the foundation for the upcoming verses and to highlight the truth of my confession in the series’ introduction that my original approach to Psalm 19 was “shallow and misguided”. After diving into just one sentence of Psalm 19:7, you now have a small glimpse into the magnitude of the deception I had been telling myself for years that I could satisfy myself with only the opening verses. The creation verses at the beginning of Psalm 19 are important, but they are just the leading edge of the psalm, and certainly not more important than those talking about God’s law.
Praise the Lord for his perfect law and for the obedience of his precious and perfect Son that allows us to experience our soul’s revival!
*All scripture references used in this post were taken from the ESV translation unless otherwise noted.
[1] In the New Testament, God’s eternality is confirmed (see John 1:1-3 and Revelation 1:8).
[2] In this story, Israel is rescued out of physical bondage, but this was a foreshadow of when God would rescue all of His chosen people (both Jew and gentile) from a far worse slavery: our spiritual bondage to sin.
[3] With the New Testament, we now have a fuller understanding of how far God was willing to go to rescue His people: sacrificing His own son so that we could live with Him in eternity.
[4] Scholars disagree on the exact number of direct Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, but the typical range is 200-400.