Who Speaks of the Lord?

I have always thought Psalm 19 to be an especially beautiful psalm. With its two-fold emphasis on the testimony of nature and the testimony of the Law, it has a certain symmetry that is appealing to me. The imagery, also, is powerful. It speaks of majesty and power. It speaks of influence and justice and goodness. It is just a beautiful psalm.

This morning as I read it again, I suppose the question of Tuesday's blog was still on my mind - what was David thinking or feeling when he wrote this psalm? What motivation lies behind it and to what end/purpose was it written.

Almost as soon as I asked that question, I thought of the last verse, the closing phrase of the psalm. It is a powerful phrase and one that I have long had memorized. I have prayed it often, and I have led others to do the same. But this time it struck me that this phrase, of all the beautiful and powerful phrases of the psalm, is a little bit different. It doesn't quite fit the symmetry in the rest of the poem. It stands out. It stands alone.

What would account for this?

What explanation can we give?

What was David up to when he included this phrase into a song that otherwise neatly divided into two parts?

As I read the psalm again, in light of the last phrase - a prayer that he, David, might speak and think in ways that are acceptable to the Lord - I saw that in the rest of the psalm David is praising two things that speak "acceptably" of the Lord: the heavens and the Law. David is not writing a theological essay about the two-fold nature of God's revelation in the world. Instead, David is hearing the truth of the greatness of God from two very different sources. His contemplation begins with "the heavens." He is talking, here, about the sky and about the clouds and about the sun, moon, and stars. In the beauty of the sky, he hears a witness about God's power and beauty.

Thinking about a true witness concerning God's character, his attention then turns to the Law. Here God has clearly revealed his will for humanity. The Law speaks truly of God, and is therefore more desirable than gold and sweeter also than honey.

And as David contemplates the trustworthiness of these two witnesses, it leads him to a very practical consideration. He wishes to be a trustworthy witness of God as well. The heavens speak truthfully of God's power. The Law speaks truthfully of God's righteousness. And David wishes to speak truthfully about God who is his rock and his salvation.

The whole of this poem leads to David expressing his desire to be accounted among those who speak faithfully of the Lord. He wishes to stand alongside the heavens and the Law as one who speaks truthfully about the God he has come to know in his daily experiences. Looking at the example of these other faithful witnesses, David prays:

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in Your sight
O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

May we share David's passion to be numbered among the faithful witnesses of God today! May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable witnesses of God's beauty, God's mercy, and God's power!