Today’s reading of the eighth strophe of Psalm 119 is brought to you by the letter “heth” or “het.”   regarding verse 64, Spurgeon summons this poem

“Why bursts such melody from tree and bush,
The overflowing of each songster’s heart,
So filling mine that it can scarcely hush
Awhile to listen, but would take its part?
It is but one song I hear where ever I rove,
Though countless be the notes, that God is Love.
“Why leaps the streamlet down the mountainside?
Hasting so swiftly to the vale beneath,
To cheer the shepherd’s thirsty flock, or glide
Where the hot sun has left a faded wreath,
Or, rippling, aid the music of a grove?
Its own glad voice replies, that God is Love!”
“Is it a fallen world on which I gaze?
Am I as deeply fallen as the rest,
Yet joys partaking, past my utmost praise,
Instead of wandering forlorn, unblessed?
It is as if an unseen spirit strove
To grave upon my heart, that God is Love!” Thomas Davis, 1864

Psalm 32 is a psalm of thanksgiving for God’s forgiving grace. David speaks in verses 3-4 of how heavily the burden of guilt weighed upon him before he acknowledged his sins to the Lord (verse 5), and he praises God’s steadfast love and forgiveness.  He then turns in verse 8 to those he would instruct, to rejoice and trust in the Lord.  Spurgeon wrote of the forgiveness which David refers to here:

“We may lull the soul asleep with carnal delights, but the virtue of that opium will be soon spent. All those joys are but stolen waters, and bread eaten in secret—a poor sorry peace that dares not come to the light and endure the trial; a sorry peace that is soon disturbed by a few serious and sober thoughts of God and the world to come; but when once sin is pardoned, then you have true joy indeed. ‘Be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee (Matthew 9:2).'”

Read or listen to audio of ESV version of this selection from this link.

/Bob’s boy

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some images © V. Gilbert & Arlisle F. Beers

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