Make Me Understand - Psalm 119:27 (3 Min Read)

Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works. - Psalm 119:27

In the history of God’s people, it has always been that the Lord has desired them to be wise and knowledgeable. He has always desired for his people to see and comprehend why he does what he does (Isaiah 1:18). He has likewise always given reason for what he does (Genesis 2:17), and proper motivation for obeying him. Blind obedience strikes no beauty in the world and so naturally, nor does it with almighty God. He desires our eyes to be fully open, to obey not merely out of duty, but out of right understanding. The Psalmist previously asked that the Lord would teach him his statutes, and now he continues. Here, the Psalmist asks with sincerity: “make me understand…” the statutes you teach me as if to say, “please show me the practical meaning of your word and give me deep insight into it.” But, here he is not concerned with prophetic visions or those subtle points of the law, but rather he is concerned with those general rules that regulate behavior and thought, here described as “the way of your precepts.” The Psalmist asks the Lord to give him an understanding of how to live a life that will please his God. 

And, as we would expect, the Psalmist ends by declaring that he will meditate on the wonders of God, but here meditation takes a different meaning than what we might expect. The psalmist has been taught and now understands, so what follows is natural. Now he is to go and speak of God’s wondrous works. The word translated as “meditate” is translated elsewhere as “speak”(Psalm 105:2), and what is implied is that the Psalmist's meditation is done aloud, to both himself and others. He is offering a meditation of God’s word to those who would hear it. And it is fitting, that after we have understood God and his law, and are no longer ignorant to it, that we would go and proclaim it! We would go and proclaim the Gospel of God to the world. As God has opened our hearts to understand his word, we should be ready to open our lips to proclaim it, as a natural progression of what God has done in our hearts and minds.   

S.D.G.