Psalm 119:16

Psalm 119:16

I will not neglect Your Word

We suggested before that the “decrees’ of the Lord are those rules and laws that are written down or engraved either on parchment or even on stone! Maybe, our writer was contemplating here, the two stone tablets that rested within the Ark of the Covenant. It is highly unlikely that he had ever seen these tablets, it was just the knowledge of their existence that gave him so much delight. The stone tablets carried of course, the 10 Commandments, which were the mainstay of Israel’s relationship with their God. You see, once again, it was not so much the content of the Commandments that excited the psalmist, but that God had written these words and that He had entrusted them to His Chosen People and appointed them to guard them and to uphold them. The high value of the Lord’s decrees was not so much in their content as in their Author!

As a consequence of the above, anyone, be he Jew or Gentile, would be foolish to ignore or neglect the commands of the Lord. The 10 Commandments are still vital to our understanding of God’s sacred Law not least in that they instruct us to put Him first. Whilst personal sin hindered the walk of many of the saints of old, it was the people who rejected the Lord and who worshipped other gods who were punished the most. God can forgive us when we sin against one another, even though all sin is against Him, but He cannot restore those who refuse to believe in Him and whose faith is wrongly placed in other gods. That is one of the many lessons that the Commandments teach us. Let’s continue to highly value these precious decrees, they have stood the test of time, and they still speak with the voice of God. 

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