February
25, 2004
Reading
“Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your
statutes” (33)
One of the desires on the heart of the psalmist was to learn the laws and principles of His Lord. On ten occasions in this psalm, he asks the Lord to teach him, and 8 of them include the words, “teach me your statues.” In other words, “Lord, teach me Your ways, teach me Your principles, how You operate.” In these verses, he is not interested in learning the laws of God verbatim. It was not enough for him to learn the ten commandments so he could repeat them by rote, as so many do today with the Lord’s Prayer and various liturgies.
David was surrounded by prophets, wise men, and priests, all of whom would count it a privilege to teach the king the ways of God, but his earnest prayer was that God Himself would be his teacher. One lesson he had learned, as did Job, was that there was no better teacher than God—“Behold, God is exalted by His power; who teaches like Him?” Job 36:22.
David uses two different words in his prayers for God to teach him. In Psalm 119:33 he uses ‘yarah’ which literally means to point. To day we often hear the words to point someone to Christ. This was the prayer of David, “Lord, point me toward Your principles. If someone asks direction to a certain place, we often use our finger to point the way they should go. School teachers often use a pointer to direct our eyes to words on the blackboard. This was the essence of David’s prayer. As we read and study the Word of God our prayer should be for Him to point us to His ways.
Of course, if we do not learn what we are being taught, it does us no good. This is why David often prayers for understanding of God’s Word. The very next verse (34) says, “Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart.” We do not benefit spiritually if we become a professional student of the scriptures. A professional student is one who spends his life in universities obtaining many doctorates but never applies what he knows. Unless we learn and apply what the Lord teaches us, it benefits us very little.
Sometimes we are guilty of ignoring the finger of God as He points us in the right direction. If we fail to learn, there is another way. In Psalm 119.26 we read, “Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end.” Here David uses ‘lamad’ which means to goad. A goad is a pointed stick used by farmers to prod a stubborn animal to move. When we become comfortable Christians and have no desire to grow in Christ and learn more of His principles, He may goad us out of our apathy. “Blessed is the man whom Thou dost chasten, O LORD, and dost teach out of Thy law” Ps 94:12. Here ‘lamad’ is associated with chastening or discipline. Deut 8:5 reads, “You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you.” “For whom the LORD loves He chastens” Heb 12:6.
It was David’s prayer that, should his heart be stubborn toward the gentle teaching of the Lord, He should discipline him until he learns what He is attempting to teach him. He was willing to be goaded into understanding—so much was his desire to know the principles of His Lord’s ways. Whether we learn the easy way or the hard way is our choice. May we be counted among those who say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach (yarah) us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths" Isa 2:3.