The first verse seems to give sense to the entire stanza.
Consider first the last half of v49.
God caused him to hope in His word.
To hope in God’s word involves a no-holds-barred kind of trust in
God. Consider, from the rest of the
stanza, the extent to which the saint commits his way to God and both the
commands and promises of Scripture.
·
v50: the life-giving Word is his comfort in affliction.
·
v51: the law of God is his path in the face of
derision.
·
v52: he affirms his comfort is based in God’s
ancient Word.
·
v53: he is indignant against those who forsake
God’s law.
·
v54: he has built his home-life around God’s
statutes.
·
v55: his night meditations center on God’s law.
In the end (v56) he can say he is so immersed in the Word in which God
has caused him to hope that “it is mine”.
His life is becoming more and more the life of the Word. As Spurgeon would say of John Bunyan, “Prick him
anywhere; his blood is Bibline; the very essence of the Bible flows from him.”
This is the hope the Psalmist has.
He does not question the Word when doubts arise. He has an absolute trust in the path laid out
for him in Scripture.
But what happens when he rounds the next corner and his trial throws
something else at him? How does he
respond? Since God has caused him to
hope in the Word he simply prays, “Lord, remember the word to your servant!”
It is not as if he were concerned that God would forget. He is, in a sense, praying God’s word back to
Him. This is the surest way to pray in
the will of God. The Psalmist himself
remembers God’s word for his present situation and then prays, “God, do as You
said You would.”
He does what the Lord Jesus Himself did when tempted by Satan. He simply quotes Scripture for which Satan
has no answer (Matt. 4:1-11). He is
using the believer’s prime offensive weapon, the “sword of the Spirit which is
the word of God” (Eph. 6:17).
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