Sweeter also than honey

The last few days I've been camping out in Psalm 19. Musing on it and memorizing it. I don't know Hebrew, but even in English I can recognize that it's a sublime piece of poetry. I'm in good company. C.S. Lewis, who knew a thing or two about poetry, considered it "the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world." (Reflections on the Psalms)

It's a perfect three part structure. Part one is a hymn to the glory of God in creation, what theologians would come to call "general revelation" -- that beautiful book which reveals to everyone the eternal power and divine nature of God. Part two is a rhapsodic love song to "special revelation" -- the Torah, written down in the language of one particular tribe, rooted in culture and history. Whether the poet designed it that way we can't know. Lewis speculates that he passed effortlessly from meditating on God's creation to meditating on his law. The transitional phrase rendered in the ESV as "there is nothing hidden from its heat" (verse 6) can apply both to the sun and the commandments of Yahweh. The law, like the sun, brings light. Lewis: "It pierces everywhere with its strong, clean ardour."

I think we get the first part of Psalm 19 pretty easily. Just look up at the sky on a clear night in the country or watch the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. But what of the extravagant language used to describe the law/the precepts/the commandments? Who talks this way about rules? Contemporary Western society celebrates the absence of rules and restrictions. Like Lewis, we may first find it "utterly bewildering." Lewis illustrates the difficulty by using the example of a penniless, hungry man left alone in a bakery with the smell of fresh bread filling the air. In his case "thou shalt not steal" is not a cause of delight. The man may follow the command to not steal bread out of fear or obligation, but it will be anything but pleasant. The law may seem more like "the dentist's forceps or the front line than to anything enjoyable and sweet."

Lewis begins to understand the emotional state of Psalm 19 by seeing that this is the language of a man ravished by God's moral beauty. He looks around at the "filthy" and "cruel" paganisms surrounding Israel and notes the contrast between that and the "beauty" and "sweetness" of the Law. Moreover, the psalmist studies the law as more than mere ethics. Lewis writes that the ancient Jews came to the law "knowing better than they know."

They know that the Lord (not merely obedience to the Lord) is "righteous" and commends "righteousness" because He loves it. He enjoins what is good because it is good, because He is good. Hence His laws have emeth "truth", intrinsic validity, rock-bottom reality, being rooted in His own nature, and are therefore as solid as that Nature which He has created.

This isn't the priggish self-righteousness of Jesus' rabbinical accusers who knew the law backwards and forwards but whose hearts were far from God. The language of Psalm 19 is of a man with "holy affections" (to borrow a phrase from Edwards). The more the psalmist studies and delights in the law the more he's driven to articulate the prayer which is part three of the poem. The closer he gets to God the more he becomes aware of his propensity to "hidden faults" and "presumptuous sins." He asks God to put a guard on his mouth and heart. He feels the law "searching out all the hiding-places of his soul." As it does so it revives the soul, makes wise the simple, rejoices the heart, and enlightens the eyes. And it's sweet. Sweeter even than honey.

. . . or if that metaphor does not suit us who have not such a sweet tooth as all ancient peoples (partly because we have plenty of sugar), let us say like mountain water, like fresh air after a dungeon, like sanity after a nightmare.

If these ways of relating to God's law seem strange, probably one reason is because we aren't spending enough time in the Psalms. Ambrose was right. The Psalter is a "gymnasium for the soul."


Quotes from Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (Chapter VI)