I have inherited Your testimonies forever, for they are the joy of my heart. Psalm 119:111 NASB Inherited – Two or three words matter here. The first is nāḥal (to inherit), the second is the familiar ʿēdût (testimony), and the third is joy (śāśôn). First, nāḥal. “The verb nāḥal basically signifies giving or receiving property which is…
May Your compassion come to me so that I may live, for Your Law is my delight. Psalm 119:77 NASB Compassion – “Go for it!” Yes, that’s the sense of the “May come to me Your compassion.” You’ll notice I rearranged the syntax to match the Hebrew which begins with yebō’ûnî (from the verb bôʾ. Of course,…
I will delight in Your commandments, which I love. Psalm 119:47 NASB Commandments – Before we look at the word bemiṣvotĕ’kā, we should note the unusual verb for “I will delight.” That verb is šāʿaʿ. It’s unusual because here and in verse 16 it is a Hithpalpel. What does that mean? It means that the subject of…
Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it. Psalm 119:35 NASB Make me – What do you suppose would happen if you asked God to make you do something? If He responded to that request, do you think there is any chance it wouldn’t happen? Could you resist the ultimate omnipotence…
I shall delight in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word. Psalm 119:16 NASB Statutes – The vocabulary of God’s torah wouldn’t be complete without one other word, ḥōq. Why? Because this word represents the ancient practice of permanence. It is the word that means to engrave something on stone. If you want to be sure…
Sarah laughed ]to herself, saying, “After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” Genesis 18:12 NASB Pleasure – By this time you know the definition of hapax legomenon. You also know that such words are extremely difficult to translate. Context helps. Guesswork is good. But in the end, we don’t…
“With reproofs You chasten a man for iniquity; You consume as a moth what is precious to him; surely every man is a mere breath.” Selah. Psalm 39:11 NASB Precious– By now we should have noticed that David’s vocabulary pushes us back into the history of Israel. From allusions to Moses, we returned to Egypt. From Egypt we made our…
Praise the LORD! How blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in His commandments. Psalm 112:1 NASB Blessed – Congratulations! You who follow God’s instructions are blessed. Of course, that doesn’t mean you have all the measures of success in this world. The psalmist might go on to say that those…
“but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord. Jeremiah 9:24 NASB Delight – The psalmist declares that YHVH will provide us with the desires of our hearts….
Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 NASB Delight – Now we know that this verse is not about getting what you want, at least not until what you want has been transformed by what God wants. But that still leaves us with a question….
