Psalm 119 Bible study: Your word is a lamp to my feet

In Hebrew, Psalm 119 is built on the alphabet. Its 176 verses come in 22 groups of eight, one group for each letter, in order, and every verse in a group begins with that group's letter. The first eight verses all begin with aleph, the alphabet's first letter; the psalm's first word is ashrei, Blessed (119:1). The next eight begin with bet, starting with bammeh, How (119:9). The last eight begin with tav, the last letter, starting with tiqrav, the verb of "Let my cry come before you" (119:169). The Hebrew text these notes use doesn't name the letters; it simply begins each verse with one. The WEB prints each letter's name in capitals, ALEPH at the start of 119:1 and each of the others at the end of the verse before its group. Those names are headings, not words of the psalm, and these notes don't quote them as Scripture. In one group the letter is also a word: all eight verses from 119:41 to 119:48 begin with ve-, and, joined to their first word. In the shin group the letter is sounded s at the start of three verses (119:161, 119:162, 119:166) and sh in the other five; it is one letter. Psalms 111 and 112 run through the alphabet one letter at a time (Psalm 111:1, Psalm 112:1), and Psalm 111's notes set its letters out. Psalm 119 gives every letter eight verses. The psalm doesn't explain its letters, and these notes go no further than what the letters show.

Psalms 119:100→leads toJohn 7:17

Teaching in the temple (John 7:14), Jesus said of his teaching, "If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God or if I am speaking from myself" (John 7:17). Psalm 119 puts understanding and doing together more than once. The psalmist prays, "Give me understanding, and I will keep your law" (Psalm 119:34), and says, "I understand more than the aged, because I have kept your precepts" (Psalm 119:100). Jesus doesn't cite Psalm 119, so setting the two side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, doing God's will and coming to understand what he teaches, not on a shared word. One reading hears in Jesus' words what the psalm prays and says: knowing comes with the will to do what God says. Another reads John 7:17 as Jesus speaking of his own teaching and whether it is from God (John 7:16-17), a question the psalm doesn't raise, and sees no link to this psalm. These notes don't choose between them, and they don't make the psalmist a picture of Jesus.

חָיָהchayahsay kha-YAH

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "live", and in the form used in Revive me, "quicken, revive, refresh". Strong's: "to live, whether literally or figuratively; causatively, to revive". "My soul is laid low in the dust. Revive me according to your word!" (119:25): Revive me is one Hebrew word, chayyeni. The psalm prays it nine times (119:25, 37, 40, 88, 107, 149, 154, 156, 159), and the verb comes 16 times in the psalm in all, as in "I will live and I will obey your word" (119:17) and "Let my soul live, that I may praise you" (119:175). Psalm 85 asks it for the people: "Won’t you revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?" (Psalm 85:6).