All the Paths of Yahweh
1 By David. To you, Yahweh, I lift up my soul. 2 My God, I have trusted in you. Don’t let me be shamed. Don’t let my enemies triumph over me. 3 Yes, no one who waits for you will be shamed. They will be shamed who deal treacherously without cause. 4 Show me your ways, Yahweh. Teach me your paths. 5 Guide me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. I wait for you all day long. 6 Yahweh, remember your tender mercies and your loving kindness, for they are from old times. 7 Don’t remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. Remember me according to your loving kindness, for your goodness’ sake, Yahweh. 8 Good and upright is Yahweh, therefore he will instruct sinners in the way. 9 He will guide the humble in justice. He will teach the humble his way. 10 All the paths of Yahweh are loving kindness and truth to such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. 11 For your name’s sake, Yahweh, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. 12 What man is he who fears Yahweh? He shall instruct him in the way that he shall choose. 13 His soul will dwell at ease. His offspring will inherit the land. 14 The friendship of Yahweh is with those who fear him. He will show them his covenant. 15 My eyes are ever on Yahweh, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. 16 Turn to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted. 17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged. Oh bring me out of my distresses. 18 Consider my affliction and my travail. Forgive all my sins. 19 Consider my enemies, for they are many. They hate me with cruel hatred. 20 Oh keep my soul, and deliver me. Let me not be disappointed, for I take refuge in you. 21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you. 22 God, redeem Israel out of all his troubles.
An alphabetical prayer for guidance that turns out to be a prayer for forgiveness, because the writer knows what is blocking the road.
By David. To you, Yahweh, I lift up my soul.
An acrostic, each verse beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet — a form that is invisible in translation and that shapes what the psalm can do. An alphabetical poem cannot develop an argument in a straight line; it moves in circles, returning to the same few concerns, and this one returns to two: teach me, and forgive me.
The requests for instruction come first and they are insistent. Show me your ways, Yahweh. Teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth, and teach me Psalms 25:4–5. Four imperatives in two verses, all about direction.
Don’t remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions. Remember me according to your loving kindness, for your goodness’ sake, Yahweh.
The two uses of remember in one verse are the psalm's method. He is not asking God to forget in the sense of losing information; he is asking him not to hold, and to hold something else instead. And the sins named are old ones. A man asking to be taught the right road is haunted by turnings taken decades earlier.
Good and upright is Yahweh, therefore he will instruct sinners in the way.
The logic of that sentence is worth stopping on. Because God is good and upright, therefore he teaches — sinners. The expected conclusion is the opposite one, that an upright God would have nothing to do with them. The psalm treats instruction as what goodness does when it meets failure.
He will guide the humble in justice. He will teach the humble his way.
The one qualification named for being taught is not intelligence or record. It is humility, twice, and the collection is consistent about this: what disqualifies a person from guidance is being sure of the route already.
For your name’s sake, Yahweh, pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
The strangest argument in the psalm and one of the boldest in Scripture. He does not ask for pardon although his sin is great; he asks because it is. The size of the debt is offered as the reason for canceling it, and the ground is God's own reputation rather than any claim of his own.
The friendship of Yahweh is with those who fear him. He will show them his covenant.
The word rendered friendship describes confidential conversation — the circle in which plans are discussed rather than announced. It is an extraordinary thing to say about the fear of God, and it says that reverence is the door to intimacy rather than the wall against it.
Turn to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted.
Only here, two thirds through, does the psalm mention that the man praying is alone and in trouble. The teaching and the pardon came first.
settled What this mark means