“Before the dawning…[I] cry for help;…through the night…I…meditate on Your word” (Ps 119:147-148).
“Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage” (Ps 119:54). After the Reformation, Metrical Psalters were produced by many poets in many languages. The attitude of some believers was, “Why sing songs that men wrote when you can sing the ones the Lord wrote?” But we’re given liberty not only to sing psalms, but also hymns and spiritual songs (Eph 5:19). And many wonderful truths are revealed in the New Testament that the psalmists never imagined. I have an old split-leaf Psalter with various tunes on the top of the page and the words below. You could turn the upper half to any appropriate tune to fit the words. You might enjoy finding some of these metrical psalms. To my mind, Isaac Watts wrote the best poetry, although he didn’t keep as strictly to the text. Here are a few lines from his rendering of Psalm 119: “How shall the young secure their hearts, And guard their lives from sin? Thy Word the choicest rules imparts To keep the conscience clean. When once it enters in the mind, It spreads such light abroad, The humblest souls instruction find, And raise their thoughts to God. ’Tis like the sun, a heav’nly light, That guides us all the day; And through the dangers of the night, A lamp to lead our way.” Now with reluctance we turn the page on this amazing mega-psalm. But a few final suggestions. Here are some excellent memory verses (vv 9, 11, 18, 37, 63, 89, 105, 130, 164, 165). And for more study? Twelve times the idea of “love” occurs. Nine times is the request, “Teach me.” Sixteen times the word hâyyâ, “to live,” “to restore to life” or “revive,” appears. There’s more gold to mine in this mother lode! May you “rejoice at [God’s] word as one who finds great treasure” (v 162).