Word Search

Psalm 1:6 (New International Version)
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,

I read a daily devotional book by Amy Carmichael and in today's reading she mentioned that Psalm 1 is the perfect psalm for the first day of the month because of the fact that it speaks of God knowing and watching over the way of the righteous.

Being a bit of a word detective, I hauled out my big Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and looked up the root words translated "way" and "righteous," in the Hebrew language.

Amy said that "way" in her Young's concordance meant "trodden path"-- that it is untrodden for us--but a Leader always goes before and so the path has already been trodden.

In Strong's I found that the root of "way" was "course of life," or "mode of action," "journey through--toward." I thought that was cool in the context of Psalm 1:6.

The Hebrew word translated "righteous," means "just," "lawful" "to be right (in a moral or forensic sense). It means "cleanse" "clear self." It made me realize that we cannot fit that description without claiming Christ's righteousness as our own and acknowledging that we are far from righteous in ourselves.

Finally I looked up the word "delight" as in "his delight is in the law of the Lord," (verse 2).
The word contains the meaning, "pleasure--hence desire," "purpose, willingly."

So, for those who take pleasure in and desire his ways, and are made clean--justified through Christ, he treads the path ahead of us, watching over our journey always!


Psalm 1:1-3 (New International Version)
1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

Comments

Belinda, I particularly liked this post. I totally 'got' your journey through the meaning of the words and how that journey brought clarity to the verse. One senses the intensity with which you pursued the goal ... and the joy with which you shared it ... you trod the path for us, made the way clear for our understanding. Cool. Thanks. Dave

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