Biblion Bible Commentary
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I Have Gone Astray Like a Lost Sheep
Psalms 119:161-176
161 Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words. · WEB
A hundred and seventy-five verses about loving the law end with a man admitting he is lost and asking to be looked for.
Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words Psalms 119:161.
The fear is not of the princes.
I rejoice at your word, as one who finds great plunder Psalms 119:162.
The last of the psalm's comparisons to wealth, and it is the most vivid. Plunder is not earned or bought; it is come across, unexpectedly, in quantity, by someone who was not looking for it.
Seven times a day, I praise you Psalms 119:164.
Whether the number is literal or the usual figure for completeness, it describes a life organized around intervals.
Those who love your law have great peace. Nothing causes them to stumble Psalms 119:165.
The word is shalom and the claim is large. It is worth holding beside everything the psalm has already said about affliction, slander, persecution and eyes failing — the peace promised is evidently compatible with all of it.
Let my lips utter praise, for you teach me your statutes. Let my tongue sing of your word Psalms 119:171–172.
The final stanza is entirely requests, eight of them, and most begin the same way. He is asking for the ability to do what he has been doing for a hundred and seventy verses.
Let my soul live, that I may praise you. Let your ordinances help me Psalms 119:175.
I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I don't forget your commandments Psalms 119:176.
The last verse of the longest chapter in Scripture, and it is the one that makes the whole psalm honest.
After a hundred and seventy-five verses of loving the law, meditating on it day and night, keeping it before kings, memorizing it, weeping over those who break it and preferring it to gold — the man who wrote all that says he is lost. Not that he has forgotten the commandments; the same verse insists he has not. He knows exactly where the path is and he is not on it.
And what he asks for is not directions. A lost sheep cannot use them. He asks to be sought, which is the one thing that recovers an animal in that condition, and it is the last word the psalm has on the subject of the law: knowing it perfectly did not keep him from wandering, and what he needs at the end is a shepherd who will come out and look.
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