7-8 God’s laws are perfect. They protect us, make us wise, and give us joy and light. 9 God’s laws are pure, eternal, just. 10 They are more desirable than gold. They are sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb. 11 For they warn us away from harm and give success to those who obey them.
After establishing that God’s glory is written in the heavens, the Psalmist turns to God’s purpose written in His Law (the first 5 books of the Bible). As does sunlight, God’s rule for living gives joy and light. It confers the wisdom and knowledge of God’s way: better than riches or pleasure, keeping us on the right path. God’s path. For Who could know better how we should go than the One Who made us?
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12 But how can I ever know what sins are lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. 13 And keep me from deliberate wrongs; help me to stop doing them. Only then can I be free of guilt and innocent of some great crime.
But humans are frail. Even knowing the law, even with the best intentions, we fail. The faults we hide from ourselves and others. The hurts we inflict, on purpose, or through negligence. Because we are all broken. We need all the help we can get. Only God can supply the help we need.
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The Psalmist ends with a prayer. Beyond knowing the God of nature and the God of the Law, with all sins and faults cast upon the Lord, the Psalmist now turns inward, to words and thoughts.
14 May my spoken words and unspoken thoughts be pleasing even to you, O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer. (Living Bible – TLB)
Me, too. Lord. Me, too.
We have not to do with a God who is off there above the sky, who can deal with us only through the violations of physical law. We have instead a God in whom we live and move and are, whose being opens into ours and ours into his, who is the very life of our lives, the matrix of our personality; and there is no separation between us unless we make it ourselves.
Rufus Matthew Jones, Quaker historian and theologian