Bible Commentary - Psalms 19

This psalm can be neatly divided into two parts.  The first part, from verse 1-6, describes God’s glory in creation.  This is clearly summarized in verse 1, which says that “the heavens are telling of the glory of God”.  The second part, from verse 7-14, suddenly changes course and praises the word of God, which “is perfect” according to v. 7.  I will discuss each section in turn, but for now I want to focus on the structure of the psalm as a whole.

It’s such a sudden divergence from the first topic to the second, so sudden and yet so absolute, that one of two possible conclusions seems inevitable.  The first possibility is that these two sections came from originally separate psalms and, at some point in antiquity beyond memory or written record, they were combined together into the psalm we now possess.  This is possible but unlikely for various reasons which I will not discuss.  The second possibility is that, in spite of their apparent differences, there is a deeper symmetry or connection between these two sections.  This will be my present focus: how do we find a connection between these two halves of the psalm, if such a connection exists?

The glory of God and the word of God.  The glory of God is reflected in natural creation, in the things that God has made.  Verses 2-4 are instructive: in verses 2 and 4 we see the “speech” and “utterances” of the heavens filling the whole world.  In verse 3, dividing them, we see that “there is no speech”.  This is an apparent contradiction with a simple explanation.  David is saying that the sun and moon and stars aren’t saying anything, we don’t hear the sun cry out “glory to God!” or anything at all.  However, it “speaks” to us in the metaphorical sense that art or music or a movie of any kind can “speak” to people about something.  This is still a common figure of speech in english, and David is using this figure of speech in a similar way.

The natural world and the heavens speak to us about the glory of God because they teach us about God’s nature, and they are a reflection of God’s nature.

Going right into verse 7, David says “the law of the LORD is perfect”, or to put it differently, the word of God is perfect.  Before David was saying that natural creation speaks about the glory of God, and now he is saying that the word of God is perfect.  One clear thread is speech.  Before it was the natural world speaking, and now it is God speaking, and David exults in that word.

In verses 7-9 David makes six declarations in turn.  Depending on the translation, he describes the law, the testimony, the precepts, the commandment, the fear and the judgments of the LORD.  Each one is good, and four of them are described in terms of how they positively affect the people who adhere to them, giving us wisdom, joy and enlightenment.  David places a particular emphasis on the value of God’s word to guiding our lives.  In verse 10, they are “desirable”, more so than gold (wealth) and honey (sweetness or food).  In verse 11 David sees “great reward” in following the law of God, and he also sees the avoidance of catastrophe.

Verses 12-14 shift to a tone of prayer, but it has obvious connections to the preceding description of God’s law.  David seeks to be blameless, to be pleasing in God’s sight, by living in accordance with God’s law.  David desires to live with God’s blessing as a consequence of his obedience to God’s law.  As such, David’s prayer in verses 12-14 is essentially, “help me to live in a way that pleases you by obeying your laws and commands”, such that David might receive all the blessing he just described.

I would like to return to the subject of the connection between the two halves of this psalm.  I already mentioned one connecting theme is the concept of speaking.  Nature first speaks, and then God speaks.  There is another connecting theme that is somewhat more obscure, but still quite powerful.  For those who have been following my commentary, remember back to the book of Job.  In Job 38-39 I mentioned that God was using the power and glory of nature creation as an argument by proxy.

Job was questioning God’s justice and fairness, because Job felt punished for some sin that he didn’t believe he committed.  Job was demanding for God to prove Job’s guilt, to show what he did wrong.  God, in turn, answered in a very indirect way, by pointing out the complexity and the glory of the natural world, that far exceeded Job’s power, understanding and wisdom.  It’s not clear to most modern readers, but this is an argument by proxy.  By showing his wisdom and understanding in the natural world, God was establishing in a tangible way his wisdom and understanding of the intangible realm of justice and fairness.  Since we can see God’s great wisdom in the natural world, we can understand by extension that God is also wise and understanding in matters of justice.

The point is that this chapter shares very similar dynamics.  First David shows the glory of God in the natural world.  Admittedly, it is vastly different in style and vocabulary compared to Job, but the general concept is similar.  Then in the second half, he is logically extending from the glory of God in creation to describe and affirm the wisdom and goodness of God’s law.  To put it another way, we see the glory of God in creation so that we can understand and believe the glory of God is also manifested in his laws.

The context is completely different, and the conclusion is different, but the structure of the argument between here and Job is remarkably similar.  In both cases, the nature of God manifested in creation becomes the logical predicate of some conclusion about an intangible, abstract concept that is otherwise difficult or impossible to prove.  With Job, the logic is “we see the wisdom of God in creation, and therefore believe the wisdom of God in justice and fairness.”  In Psalm 19, the logic is “we see the glory of God in creation, and therefore believe in the perfection, truth and beauty of God’s laws.”  While one could never mistake the first sentence for the second, the similarities are striking nonetheless.

The similarities are all the more striking given the obvious linguistic and historical differences between Job and Psalm 19.  It suggests an undercurrent of philosophy or theology that remained over potentially hundreds of years across two books that have no overt literary connection.  While I don’t want to overemphasize the point, one of the most likely reasons why we find the argument repeated between such different historical works is that it is leveraging a well-understood, if not common, cultural trope regarding creation.  More specifically, that creation is a source of truth regarding God’s nature.  This belief is still present in modern society, but not nearly to the same extent or in the same deeply intuitive nature as what is implied by the biblical text.

On the other hand, adoration of the law of God is one of Psalms’ unique characteristics, beginning from the very first psalm.  In that sense Psalm 19 is a quintessential Psalmic text.  The only way it cuts differently from the other psalms is by the structure and implicit argument presented.

In conclusion, Psalm 19 is clearly consistent with the other psalms throughout the book, but its structural connection to Job shows an implicit cultural argument that is undoubtedly much older.  In this way, Psalm 19 shows itself to be a mixture of both new and old, with the old argument from creation redesigned to emphasize the perfection of God’s law.