Psalm 119:17 is both a little request and a world of insight. \u201cDo good to your servant, and I will live; I will obey your word.\u201d That first verb, \u201cDo good,\u201d brings one element of the verb gml <\/em>to the surface: it can mean \u201cto deal kindly\u201d or even to \u201cdeal bountifully.\u201d What seems to be a little request \u2014 \u201cGod, do good to me\u201d \u2014 covers up a world of intention. Psalm 119:17 is both a little request and a world of insight. \u201cDo good to your servant, and I will live; I will obey your word.\u201d That first verb, \u201cDo good,\u201d brings one element of the verb gml to the surface: it can mean \u201cto deal kindly\u201d or even to \u201cdeal bountifully.\u201d What seems to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1753],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psalm-119"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe psalmist asks God, after the psalmist realizes that he has spent time learning Torah, to be good to him so he can spend plenty of days \u201ckeeping the word (dbr<\/em>).\u201d Like the student who has spent years of studying to get degrees, like the apprentice who has spent hours toiling under a master, like a minor league baseball player who has spent the dog days of summer grinding out his game, like parents who have spent decades nurturing children \u2014 and who each want to see the reward of their efforts \u2014 like teaching for decades, or working wood on one\u2019s own, or playing in the big leagues, or seeing kids come of age with wisdom and righteousness.
\nThat\u2019s the longing of the psalmist: he has dedicated himself to the Torah and got it down, and he now simply asks God to have a long life of praxis.
\nThat request, by the way, is a serious one: this psalmist is being hunted down. We\u2019ll get to that next week.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"