THY WORD IS A LAMP … AND A LIGHT

This section of Psalm 119 continues the psalmist’s appreciation of God’s word. If the previous stanza expounds the delights of understanding the word, this one extols the virtue of its guid­ance. The opening verse is one of the best known in scripture, comparing God’s word to a ‘lamp unto my feet’ and ‘a light unto my path’. We will consider these analogies as portraying the suitability of the divine illumination for night and day as well as for the next step and the whole journey.

The ‘lamp’ is the idea of a candle which one holds to light up the ground at night to guide one’s steps. In these ancient times the track would be beside open drains, obstacles would litter it and refuse often be dumped on it. The traveller would face the threat of those who might rob or harm him as illustrated in the story of the Good Samaritan. It would be easy to take a wrong turn and stumble or fall. Similarly, our journey is through a dark world where, unless we use the ‘lamp’ of scripture to pick out our footsteps, we can so easily encounter dirt, danger and delay or go in the wrong direction.

The ‘Light’ is more the idea of the sun shining by day in front of us illuminating the path as a whole. So, for believers, though our journey is through this dark wilderness below, yet the scrip­ture lightens our path, even revealing the ‘things that shall be’. Journey’s end is no mystery to us; the Lord Jesus has revealed His plans to His ‘friends’ through His word, ‘even unto the end’ as this section of the psalm concludes.

Another thought from these words is the way God enlight­ens the next step and the path right to journey’s end. But what of all the points in between? What of the valleys, the bends and even the mountain tops on the way. It seems God in His good­ness reveals to us our next steps and our ultimate destination but spares us the advanced knowledge of the many testing grounds along the way. Some would be so daunting we could never face them, some so discouraging we might leave the path. But our Father knows that when the journey is finished we will be able to look back upon them all from the place of perfect light and understand fully even the darkest sections.