Devotional Short Note on Psalm 19:  Half of Psalm 19 is dealing with nature as evidence of God as Creator. The other half is dealing with the Bible as the revelation of God as Savior. Our few notes will focus here on the second half. Revelation through nature and revelation through His text goes hand in hand. One cannot study the one without the other. This does not mean that the garbage of the axioms of modern science and the glasses that the Victorian geologist Charles Lyell gave the modern world should be used to superimpose Uniformatism over all bio-data. All but. The Bible is the key to understand Biology and the sciences and when it is in that correct perspective, Biology can help us understand the text better as well. As we learn why pigs and other animals cannot be eaten in Leviticus 11. Their digestive systems are designed by God to get rid of toxins in the life cycle and thus toxic waste processing animals are not to be eaten. That simple. Science is able to prove it.

Psalm 19:8-15 is dealing with the Revelation of God through the text in the first place and then what to do with this world's deficit, sin as explained in Psalm 19:13-15.

There are some interesting concepts here. Humanity is served and helped by the text or Revelation of God through the text in the following ways:

1. The Torah or Law of the Lord brings the soul back (meshibat). This conversion role of the Law was also seen by dr. LaRondelle in his book Deliverance in the Psalms, page 92.

2. The Testimony of the Lord works on our IQ. It makes us wise (mahkimat).

3. The Precepts of the Lord works on our EQ. It makes our hearts happy (mesamhe).

4. The Commandments of the Lord gives a sparkling to our eyes. How does it give a sparkling to our eyes? In this way: sleepy eyes means that people could not sleep enough since they did not have the Sabbath rest the night before worship. Those who rest on the Sabbath have sparkling eyes. Mitchel Dahood in his Anchor Bible commentary on this verse draws our attention to an Amarna Tablet 142 lines 6-7 where the man from Byblos wrote a letter to the Pharaoh of Egypt, in my understanding, Pharaoh Thutmosis IV who went through the 5 years of the entry of the Israelites in Canaan between 1410-1405 BCE when the conquest was completed. This is when this letter of Ammunira of Byblos or Gubla was written. He said in typical Psalm 19:8 style:

"Moreover, [I have hea]rd the words of the tablet that the king, my lord, sent (thr)ough [Han]i and when I [he]ard the words of the tablet of the king, my lord, my heart rejoiced and my eyes [sh]one brightly". Byblos is not that far from Israel. It is one of the Phoenician cities just above the Lebanon range of mountains. Of course the Psalm was collected or put together by David between 1014-974 BCE. How archaic the Psalm is we do not know and whether David was original here in his material we do not know either.

5. The Fear of the Lord is clean. In our day and age there is no such thing as clean fear. Dictators rule by fear and disguise, trick and treat. But the Lord rules with a fear that is clean. It is rather holy respect that is in mind here. There is no time limit to this kind of fear.

6. The Judgments of the Lord is truth. Together with Judgment they are righteous. Since 1844 the Lord has provided a special truth about Himself to the world through the ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist church that the hour of His Judgment has come, the investigative Judgment in heaven. The righteous are in a process of cleansing the heavenly sanctuary of stigma objections by the heavenly jury who need to see in opened life records whether the holy ones is fitting to join them in heaven. Christ is our Righteousness. It should be successful. The saints do not appear in court since Christ is their Representative Advocate.

In Psalm 19:10 the writer gave his own personal evaluation of the Revelation text of the Lord that it is sweet and precious.

In Psalm 19:11 the writer is saying that the Revelation text of the Lord has a valuable function to him/her as a servant. He is warned and in keeping it there is great reward.

Psalm 19:12 explains that a human is composed of hidden sins. "Errors, who can discern them?" The word shegiot is used for errors. No one can understand them. They are not always known. He asked to be acquitted from hidden ones (menistarot). As LaRondelle repeatedly pointed out, as also many other Systematic Theologians, we are sinful human beings even without any sinful act, however, the biblical position is that we are judged by our sins and acts. Adam’s sin cannot be accounted for my destiny simply because Ezechiel 18 says that the sins of the son is not that of the father and that of the father is not the sins of the son. Then again, a baby cannot be sinful and only when children reach the age of knowing good and evil in maturity, the sins are theirs by their own actions. Peccatum orginale or original sin is not biblical. Infant baptism was designed to counteract superstitiously this skew doctrine of original sin superimposed over the Bible. The Bible says that because of Adam’s sin, all men died but it does not say all men are sinners because of that. It so happen that due to the environment of sin that we are all born into, that no-one succeeded to be perfect and the perfected faithful mentioned in the Bible, became so with the relationship through Christ and assistance to overcome by the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit is not weak but successful and efficient.

In Psalm 19:13 he adds to this request of atonement of hidden things, another list, this time he wants to be kept back (hoshok) from presumptuous sins [mizedim]. According to BDB 267 at 2102 the word means "to boil up", "to act proudly", "to act rebelliously". He asked to be kept from rebellious sins [mizedim]. When a wrong is hidden in you and it boils up and out as severe acts that hurts and damage others around you and especially the cause of God, then that is mizedim or presumptuous sins. To be rebellious is to plan beforehand to be rebellious and to resist. The premeditated rejection is ordered in the brain to such a convenient arrangement that should someone confront you about it, you have counteractions of rebellion to utter publicly, no longer hidden. This is mizedim. Jesus wants us to pray: Lead us not into temptation. The temptation to act what is sometimes our weakness in secrecy. The writer in this Psalm asked that these premeditated thoughts should not rule over him/her [yimshelu]. As long as it is thoughts they are not yet sin but when they form themselves in acts they are accountable sins. That does not mean the thoughts are overlooked. God reads the thoughts and that is why the writer pleads to be acquitted from his thought sins in Psalm 19:13.

It is then [az] says the writer, that he shall be blameless [eytam from tamam = perfect] and he shall be acquitted [wenigeti] from many transgressions [miphesha] (Psalm 19:14). If he/she can get to the point that he/she is not acting out what he/she is thinking, then at that point the person does not phesha or transgress (Psalm 19:14). Satan leads us into temptation but the Lord keeps us from presumptuous sins or actualizing of premeditated thoughts, if we seek help. Some people do not want to be helped. The writer is praying for this help in Psalm 19:14.

His prayer is asking that the words of his mouth may be acceptable and the meditation of his heart may be before the Lord, his rock and his redeemer (Psalm 19:15).

This Psalm has medicine for everyone and victory as well.