Psalm 119:24

Psalm 119:24

Delight in the Law?

Remember that “statutes” are the covenant regulations that were given through Moses to the whole nation of Israel. The writer of this Psalm expresses delight in these statutes, they are his counsellors. Even the Apostle Paul delighted in the law of God in his heart. (Romans 7:22.) Most Christians would find it very hard to get excited about the Law! We tend to think of the Law and all its 613 commands as being quite oppressive, as being a tool to produce guilt and to point out to the Israelites, and to us, that it is impossible to keep all those rules and thus to please God! 

However, we need to think about the Torah more positively, many of its laws deal with a man or woman’s personal relationship with God, there are also many rules about worship and about the holy place – the Tabernacle. Other laws have to do with sex, business transactions, property ownership and relationships with others. None of these were commanded by God as a means of earning salvation and many of these rules are at the heart of modern western legal systems. All Israelites knew that faith in God was at the heart of their covenant relationship with Him, and it was when they did not believe and therefore disobeyed Him, that disasters fell upon them. Total disobedience led to total isolation and abandonment by the Lord, and the people were driven out of the land and many of the tribes were lost for ever. Thus, for the Jews, the Law and their keeping of it became central to their inheritance and their occupation of their inheritance. After the return from Babylon most believed that their covenant relationship with the Lord God was based on their determination to fence themselves off from pagan gods and foreign influences by strictly obeying the Law. It was their protection and their motivation for existence. It was their comfort blanket! For these reasons, Hassidic Jews are still fanatical about the Law to this very day. 

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