Commentary by Dr Noel Donnelly

Psalm 18.8-15   Commentary

Have you ever consulted a Thesaurus when you’re looking for a different word for something? The writer of this psalm of course didn’t have a Thesaurus as we do but he seems highly chuffed in finding a variety of words to describe God’s teaching or Law. He expresses these in giving his first six lines the same pattern and rhythm. They are like rays bursting out from the Law, all giving advice for our good and happiness. For the psalmist God’s guidance does not consist in heavy impositions:   “they revive the soul” and  “give wisdom to the simple” in verse 8. “They gladden the heart and give light to the eyes” in verse 9;  and “they are sweeter than honey fresh from the comb” in verse 11. All very positive ways for living out our relationship with God which we call the Covenant.

But this psalm is not just about outward behaviour: it is an inner melody that goes on and is expressed as “the music of the heart” as verse 15 puts it.

The singer moves through his sense of unworthiness to an ending which acknowledges God as his redeemer or go’el as the Hebrew puts it. Like many Old Testament words this word go’el has its roots in the understanding that if someone through poverty has gone into slavery to pay off his or her debts, then the go’el or redeemer would pay off the debt to restore the debtor into freedom. A bit like the old pawn shops some of us may remember! God had done this in redeeming the Hebrews from their slavery in Egypt or Babylon.

St Paul reminds us that Jesus has completed this in redeeming us from the slavery of sin. In response, we are encouraged to live the life of a free and responsible people in a New Covenant relationship established by the crucified and risen Lord; he is THE WORD par excellence. THAT is a dimension we can value when we pray of sing this song: “the redeeming WORD of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul!” That’s a huge responsibility for all ministers of THE WORD! Can we too be revived redeemers when the music in our heart calls us towards the poor and the migrants and the isolated who surround us? That psalm is a wake-up call for me anyway!

Setting 1: Ps 18 Words (c) The Grail, England.  Music (c) Francis Duffy; recorded by Bro Julian Harrison