Psalm 119:97-104 || Ep. 933 When You Need Refreshment

"How to Study the Bible" Ep. 933

In this episode, we explore the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, mem, and its connection to water, symbolizing the ebb and flow of Psalm 119. We'll read through verses 97-104 and discuss how delighting in God's law can make us wiser than our enemies, teachers, and elders.

Consider ‘mayim’—living water—and how immersing yourself in God’s word can revive your spirit. Hungry for a deeper connection with God? This episode on Psalm 119:97-104 will inspire you to meditate on His word and experience its life-changing power...

Read the Blog post: "When You Need Refreshment" here.

Did you see the exciting news? I discovered a great treasure! A collection of cassettes from 1981 containing recordings of my dad's messages through the Bible! Read about that here.

Also, keep an eye out for our upcoming series, "So Glad You Asked," where we'll tackle your burning questions about the Bible and life. Submit your questions through the link below, and let's dive deeper together. Thanks for being part of this amazing community. See below...

If you'd like to read the Hebrew/English version...https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt26b9.htm

Look for new Episodes Wednesdays and Saturdays. Listen to the Dwelling Richly podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify - your favorite app! Sharing, liking, commenting is a free and easy way for you to help me grow this ministry. I don't charge for any content, don't use any ads - so any organic interactions are really helpful. Thank you!

Dwelling in the Word and letting the Word dwell in us richly is different than reading the Bible or reading a devotional with Bible passages. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly and return the favor by dwelling in the Word - not "doing" Bible study, not simply reading - but moving into the Word with heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's being intentional in making a shift from treating the Word of God like a self-help book to letting it dwell in us as the living Word of God that it is.

Growing Deeper...

• Meditate on God’s Word Daily: Don’t just read the Bible—take time to meditate on it throughout your day. Reflect deeply on what you read, allowing the Scriptures to influence your thoughts, actions, and decisions.

• Commit Scripture to Memory: Memorize passages like Psalm 119:97-104 to keep God’s word close to your heart. This will help you have His wisdom readily available whenever you need guidance.

• Apply Scripture to Life’s Challenges: Use God’s word both offensively and defensively in your life. Let it guide your decisions and actions, and rely on it for strength and protection in spiritual battles.

• Compare Teachings Against Scripture: As you learn from others, whether in secular or biblical settings, always compare what you hear with the truth of God’s word. This ensures that your understanding aligns with the Bible.

• Delight in God’s Word: Approach your Bible study with joy and anticipation. Let Scripture be a source of delight and refreshment, something you look forward to each day, knowing it will satisfy your soul like nothing else can.

Questions about the Bible?

I'm working on a new series! "So Glad You Asked" which will take your questions about the Bible, living the Christian life, dealing with difficult situations/people/life issues, ...really anything on your mind and I'll share my thoughts and responses. I'd love to hear from you. No question is off-limits - Submit questions about this or any topic to [e-mail] or https://www.jennifergrichmond.com/podcast/#question

Share with others and thanks for saying Hi! Leave a Comment ⤵

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, welcome back. This is Jennifer, and this is the Dwelling Richly podcast.
We are continuing our study through Psalm 119, 119, and with a focus on how
to study the Bible. And of course, it's more than studying the Bible.
We don't always have time to sit around and it's like the idea of studying the
Bible, but we do want to know God, and so we go to his word.

(00:23):
We want to grow in our faith, so we go to his word.
We want to grow in our self-discipline and being in fellowship with God, and so we go to his word.
And so the whole focus of this summer series, How to Study the Bible,
has been not just to study the Bible, that's a succinct title,

(00:44):
but to take the word from Colossians 3.16, let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly, and to return the favor by redwelling in the word.
We go back into the word and we dwell in it. We don't just do Bible study.
We what? We dwell. Exactly. Good job.
So I'm excited to continue on in our movement as we've gone through Psalm 119

(01:09):
and the ebb and the flow and the rhythm of being in the word together,
and just even the ebb and the flow and the movement of this psalm in particular,
as David, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, whoever wrote this, we decided we don't know for sure.

(01:30):
As he has written this out for us and we see his joy and his delight,
we've also seen his anguish and his fear and his longing.
And so there is this ebb and this flow all resolved in the delight that we talked
about last time of his word.

(01:50):
And I love this verse from Psalm 119.92, which is our last passage.
If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
I would have been overwhelmed and died from my misery.
But if not were, if it not were for your law.

(02:12):
And so that brings us to the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, an interesting letter.
It is the letter mem, and again, 13th in the Hebrew alphabet.
It has a value of 40 in Hebrew understanding.
And this particular letter is interesting because it can be written in two ways.

(02:34):
There's two forms of the letter mem, okay?
It can be an open or a closed letter.
When it's an open letter, it's in the middle of the beginning,
and when it's a closed, it's at the end of a word. or hopefully I'm getting
my Hebrew right on that, but that's just kind of a helpful way to see it.
And maybe you're like me and you're enjoying writing out this psalm in Hebrew,

(02:58):
and that's been helping me learn my Hebrew alphabet a little bit better.
A lot to go on that. But this is a great section of scripture as we participate
in understanding it and as the Holy Spirit's guide through it.
So I'm going to go ahead and read this whole section first.
To you from the King James, no, from the English Standard Version,

(03:20):
and then we're going to go talk about it.
All right, so grab your Bible, and let's go ahead and read Psalm 119, verses 97 through 104.
Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.

(03:45):
I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts.
I hold back my feet from every evil way in order to keep your word.
I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.

(04:05):
Through your precepts, I get understanding. Therefore, I hold every false way.
Love it, love it, love it, love it, love it. Okay, here we go.
So mem, like I said, is the 13th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
It has the numerical value of 40.
And the idea of mem is the idea of founding the word mayim or water, mayim or water.

(04:28):
And so I opened with this visual of the ebb and the flow of all sum 119 on purpose,
because it's in the same way that water ebbs and flows in the sea or in a lake
or in a river or even in your cup?
The emotion and the movement of Psalm 119 has that feeling of mayim,

(04:50):
of water, as it moves and it flows.
And we're going to close on that idea in just a minute as well,
the idea of the water imagery here.
There's no water pictured in
this psalm that begins, each letter of the alphabet begins with the mem.
But the idea of the word mayim, beginning and ending with M,

(05:12):
just gave me that flowing feeling as well.
But let's take a look at Psalm 119, verse 97.
And again, the idea of this series isn't to exegete or break down or do a deep
dive Bible study on Psalm 119, although I'm very inspired to possibly do that
with you sometime in the future.

(05:32):
The whole point of this particular study is simply to take the word that we're
reading and use it to help us better study the word, delight in the word, grow in the word, right?
And so we use Psalm 119 as a tool to help us and give us inspiration on how
to add to our understanding.
And so as we're reading through this, I want us to key in on certain aspects

(05:56):
that will help us to be better at studying the Bible on our own.
Let's take a look at that first verse. verse, love.
Oh, how I love your law.
And it connected me back to verse 92 from Psalm 119, that the law had been his delight.
And if it hadn't been for delighting in the law, he would have perished, he says.

(06:19):
Well, then we get to verse 97 and he continues this idea. and he says, I love your law.
It's everything to me. Ma habeti.
This is the idea of loving and his focus on is in his law.
I love your law. It's my meditation all the day.

(06:39):
And then he says, as a result of that, of course, previously,
he would have perished if it hadn't been for that.
But then he talks about three groups of people that as a result of delighting and loving God's law,
But he sees himself as gaining wisdom and understanding even above what could
have taken him over. Number one, his enemies.

(07:01):
His enemies could have overtaken him, could have been defeated by him.
But he's wiser. He can outsmart his enemies. Why?
Because he has this law. Now, for me, as I go into God's word,
I want that to be my focus.
Lord, you know what? I'm in your word today. I want to study it because I have
enemies. Now, I don't literally have someone in the I hate Jennifer club out to kill me, right?

(07:24):
But I have an enemy. I have an actual adversary.
And we've talked about this before that we're not doing battle against flesh
and blood, of course, from Ephesians 6.
We are in a spiritual battle.
And to have wisdom, to be above our enemies, is to go back to God's word and

(07:45):
to know it and to love it and to delight in it exactly as we've been learning
to do. So how do we study the Bible?
We study it offensively as well as we study anticipating the offensive advantage
it gives us, but also the defensive advantage.
In other words, offensive, going out there against what's out there in the world
and defensive when I'm hunkered down and I'm using it protectively against the world coming in at me.

(08:10):
And the psalmist writes that his commandment, the commandment of God has made
him wiser than his enemies for it's ever with me. What else could be always with us?
Nothing, nothing. We talked about this last time, how transient the rest of
the world is. It ebbs and it flows and it goes and it comes, right?
And enemies might come and go, no, but God's word is with him forever,

(08:34):
he says. And so as a result of that, he knows he's wiser than his enemies.
Why? Because the enemies of God don't use God's word, right?
To protect them, to gain wisdom from, oh, they might use it to trip people up
and make them not understand how things work.
But we have God's word right in us and alongside of us as our ever protective

(08:57):
guide throughout through the world. And in verse 99, he says,
I have more understanding than my teachers.
I could be sitting down and listening to teachers, but I'm going to have more
understanding to them. Why?
Because I have let God's testimonies, his testimonies, I've meditated on them.
It says in verse 99, not just read casually, you know, like we can do,

(09:18):
read to the Bible in a year, not just read.
Thinking through a sermon as we're listening to God's word, but we are meditating on it, right?
And so, as a result, we have more understanding than our teachers.
That's a good thing. We should sit there and listen to a teacher and weigh everything

(09:38):
a teacher says against the truth of God's word.
Now, no matter who that teacher is, whether it's in a secular setting or in
a biblical setting, the teachers are just the people giving us information.
We are the ones who have our responsibility to truly be in the word and meditate
on the word. So it comes back to inform us.
And then he says, I have more understanding than the aged. That could be,

(09:59):
you know, you could think of that as like old people.
The idea here is the elders in our life.
So in other words, people who should know more, they're older than me,
but I know more because I've been in God's, on God's word.
I'll tell you right now, as I teach a Sunday school with the kids in the, in Sunday school,
you'll hear me say, if you ever peek in or get to be a fly on the wall in there,

(10:20):
I constantly am telling the kids this don't think
that just because you're young doesn't mean you couldn't know
more than this is grown-ups old people in your life elders right in your life
if you're in God's word you're you're equipped to know more than elders and
have more understanding than they have why because we keep your precepts we

(10:40):
meditate on his precepts our God's word is.
Ever with us. We always have it with us and we obey it.
We keep his precepts. In verse 101, he says, I hold back my feet from every
evil way in order to keep your word.
Every evil way is available to me, but I hold back from that because I want to keep your word.
Verse 102, I don't turn aside from your rules. You've taught me.

(11:04):
You've been my correction. Like in the previous letter of the alphabet,
the Lamed, you've been the shepherd's step to guide me and nudge me and poke
me and prod me and keep me where I need to be.
I don't turn aside from your rules for you have taught me. And then verse 103, I love this.
How sweet are your words to my taste? They are so sweet. They're sweeter than honey.

(11:27):
And of course, in that day and age, honey and things like dates would have been
their forms of sweetness and sugar, right?
And so sweeter than anything that possibly could exist in that day and age is your word.
It tastes delicious to me. It's so sweet. It's so delightful.
And then he says, verse 104, through your precepts, I get understanding.

(11:52):
Therefore, I hate every false way. I long for your word. It's sweet.
It tastes like honey to me.
And I spit out, I have a hate for anything that is false in the way.
You know what? If I don't delight in God's word. If I don't have joy in God's
word, then God's word is just a burden to me.
It's just something I could tick off my list and be done with.

(12:13):
But when I delight in it, I love it. I rejoice in it. It's sweet to me.
And everything else I can discern, I can spit out because it's.
It doesn't satisfy me, right? Well, I'm not going to have that sense of discernment
between what's true and what's false if I don't have that delight in God's words.
I love this psalm, this mem, this mayim, this water,

(12:37):
because it reminds me also of something else that is beautiful in God's word,
that Jesus himself set himself up as the what? As the living water.
We are only satisfied when we are satisfied in Christ.
John 7, verse 38 says this, Whoever believes in me, as it is written in the

(12:59):
scripture, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water, right?
We have that mayim, that water in us when we are in Christ, when we're delighting
in Him, when we're delighting in His Word.
And not only do we have God's word written down and recorded for us as it is

(13:22):
in Psalm 119, but we have access to the living word himself, Jesus Christ.
And everything that is recorded in the New Testament is that teaching of Christ,
a reminder of the delight that we have in knowing him personally as our shepherd.
As our savior, as our guide, as our Lord, and as the living water dwelling in us.

(13:45):
And I pray as you go back through and meditate again on this psalm, that number one,
you will meditate again on this psalm and that you will find your delight in
Jesus as our living water and delight in his commandments, his precepts, his laws,
his testimonies, his rules, and his word today as well. realm.

(14:05):
So God bless you as you continue in your study and enjoy being in God's word
together with your church, with your friends, with me.
Thank you for sharing and leaving a comment and saying hi, letting me know that
you listened to this word today.
And I look forward to being back here again with you real soon.
Know that you are loved and prayed for. Bye-bye for now.