In Psalm 119, we have a lot of beautiful statements. Let’s just highlight a few. Verse 18 here’s a prayer: “Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.” The Hebrew word for wondrous is incomprehensible, meaning too difficult to understand. Now class, let’s be honest. There are things difficult to understand in this Bible. Lots of it—very hard to understand! Then what’s the secret? Go to the Lord and depend upon Him. “Open mine eyes that I may behold difficult, incomprehensible things out of Thy law.”
There’s a prayer to understand. Look at verses 26 and 27. “I have declared my ways and Thou heardest me. Teach me Thy statutes. Make me to understand the way of Thy precepts. So shall I talk of Thy wondrous works.”
Do you ask God, “Teach me Your statutes?” Do you say, “Make me understand?” To say, “Make me understand”—and it’s because of a grammatical form of the word that it’s translated “make me to understand”—it suggests that there’s a natural tendency on our part not to do this. Somehow God needs to give us these gentle nudgings and proddings to make us understand. The psalmist was recognizing his own depravity and resistance when he says “make me to understand.”
Psalm 119:33-34. “Teach me [again the prayer] Teach me O Lord, the way of Thy statutes.” Notice back in verse 26 he said, “Teach me Thy statutes” and here he says, “Teach me the way of Thy statutes.” See when you come to study the Bible and find out the interpretation, some times it’s not just the content that you get down, but it’s the point of the content. It’s the direction in which God wants you to go by what you have learned. And sometimes we see people who are very intelligent in the Bible, but they don’t know what it means. They don’t know how to apply it. They don’t know the direction they should walk because of it. And that comes as a result of dependency upon God as well.
The above post has been adapted from a class titled the Historicity and Authenticity of the Bible. It is one of the most popular classes available exclusively at the Blue Letter Bible Institute. The BLB Institute offers a growing list of free classes, provided by the ministry. For more information, check out http://blbi.org today, or visit the Blue Letter Bible to learn how you can help us continue to provide free classes worldwide.