Psalm 119:1
"Aleph. How blessed are those whose way is blameless,
Who walk in the law of the LORD."
‘How blessed’ hearkens back to Psalm 1:1-2, yet this verse moves us right to the parallels of Psalm 1:3 to what such a man does. ‘Blessed’ is the Hebrew אֶשֶׁר, ’ešer: A masculine noun meaning a person's state of bliss. In America, we use the word ‘happiness’, which I find to be too shallow. Bliss is to be justly satisfied in the soul, not lustfully satiated in one’s flesh. It has a depth and permanence about it, resilient in all circumstances. Blameless is the Hebrew תָּמִים, tāmiym: An adjective meaning blameless, complete. When used in a moral sense, this word is linked with truth, virtue, uprightness, and righteousness (Jos 24:14; Psa 18:23 [24]; Pro 2:21; Pro 11:5). It appears 12 times in Psalms, and one other in Psalm 119, Psalm 119:80 of a blameless heart. ‘Walk’ is the Hebrew הָלַךּ, hālaḵ: A verb meaning to go, to come, to walk. Like a similar verb dāraḵ (H1869), meaning to tread, this word is also used metaphorically to speak of the pathways (i.e., behavior) of one's life. Such a walk is also described in Psalm 119:3 (‘in His ways’) and Psalm 119:45 (‘at liberty’). May I experience an indescribable bliss, an inner wholeness as my pathways follow Your eternal paths (Proverbs 4:18)! Unspeakable bliss is found in greatly delighting in Your commandments (Psalm 112:1), of walking with Christ by faith (1 Peter 1:8-9)!
“Blessed are the undefiled!” meaning thereby, that we eagerly desire to become such ourselves, and wish for no greater happiness than to be perfectly holy.’
‘Purity in our way and walk is the truest blessedness.’
‘Settle it in your hearts as a first postulate and sure rule of practical science that holiness is happiness, and that it is our wisdom first to seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.’
‘Outward evil would little hurt us if we were entirely rid of the evil of sin, an attainment which with the best of us lies still in the region of desire, and is not yet fully reached, though we have so clear a view of it that we see it to be blessedness itself; and therefore we eagerly press towards it.’
‘‘He whose life is in a gospel sense undefiled, is blessed, because he could never have reached this point if a thousand blessings had not already been bestowed on him. By nature we are defiled and out of the way, and we must therefore have been washed in the atoning blood to remove defilement, and we must have been converted by the power of the Holy Ghost, or we should not have been turned into the way of peace, nor be undefiled in it.
‘The blessedness which is thus set before us we must aim at, but we must not think to obtain it without earnest effort. David has a great deal to say about it; his discourse in this Psalm is long and solemn, and it is a hint to us that the way of perfect obedience is not learned in a day; there must be precept upon precept, line upon line, and after efforts long enough to be compared with the 176 verses of this Psalm we may still have to cry, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.”’[1]
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