If we were to open the music charts of the top 100 songs on Spotify or iTunes right now, we would undoubtedly find many of the most popular songs feature love and devotion. Where there are people there will always be music, and people will always create songs and poetry about that which they adore.
The Psalms are music written from the heart to express love and devotion to the Creator God. Like a song that gets stuck in your head, Psalms have the potential to echo in our soul. I can see Jesus, filled with love for His Father, humming these songs wherever He went. He sings Psalms several times throughout the Gospel accounts. Often they came out at times of pain and suffering. Most of His recorded sayings on the cross are Jesus singing Psalms. The Psalms were the songs stuck in His head.
It is worth hearing the words of these songs often and letting them sink deep into the soul. One song (of many) that has resonated in the hearts of those who love God is Psalm 19.
Its concluding words are a prayer: “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer” (verse 14). David adores God and the words of this song show what devotion to Him feels like.
David’s remix (Read Psalm 19:1-6)
Look at the universe around you and discover the God who made it all. Over millennia these words have filled the hearts of many who loved God. It has the effect of changing the way people see the world. Paul’s challenging words to the Romans bring the words of this song to his mind. Their voice is to go out to the whole world telling everyone about Jesus (Romans 10:18). It’s meant to be a catchy song that gets shared around. Music has a charm that turns the monochrome world to full colour and just wants to be shared.
Johannes Kepler’s groundbreaking study of planetary motion “Harmonies of the World” quotes Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God.”
This song has been on the heart as lovers of God broadened their understanding of the world they lived in. Wanting to discover the one God who made it all, they explored nature.
Like Psalm 19, other popular songs were written about nature, but instead of discovering the God above nature, they are written in devotion to the gods of nature. The great hymn of Shamash contains words that sound like Psalm 19: “Regularly and without cease you traverse the heavens . . . You Shamash, direct, you are light of everything” (WG Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 1960). The rest of the hymn continues to show how justice and truth radiate from Shamash, the sun god.
David’s nineteenth Psalm is a remix of this well-known genre. It is a blend of something familiar with something people had never heard before. His invitation is the same: go listen and learn from nature, but the message is unique—discover the Creator God who made it all. It’s as if David took the well-known songs sung by other cultures and infused it with the theology of Genesis 1, making a beautiful new song.
Why would David compose a song that sounds like other songs? I think it’s for the same reason Paul used an inscription in the Areopagus “To the Unknown God” (Acts 17:23) or why he quotes the poetry of Aratus of Soli who writes about Zeus “For we are also his offspring” (Acts 17:28). Paul and David both saw the longings of their wider culture around them to be full of real and true aspirations but never able to achieve these aspirations.
Our world around us is the same today. Through the Holy Spirit God can remix the songs of society to create a new beautiful melody. In Australia we talk of “a fair go for all”.
I don’t see this kind of fairness and justice when I look around. Only in the gospel message can we ever experience such a justice that sees equality shared across our beautiful nations of the South Pacific (Matthew 5:6; 25:31-46).
My heart is yours (Read Psalm 19:7-14)
In the second chorus David connects six ways the word of God changes a person’s life. Using six synonyms for God’s revealed word David describes them as perfect, certain, right, pure, clean and true. Each lyric highlights the positive effect of the law or what makes it worth your attention.
1. “Converting the soul.” As we listen, it changes us for the better.
2. “Making wise the simple.” It helps us know the best way to live.
3. “Rejoicing the heart.” Applying the word of God brings us joy.
4. “Enlightening the eyes.” Knowing what choices to make comes easier.
5. “It endures forever.” God’s word endures and can be relied upon.
6. “True and righteous altogether.” When God speaks, He speaks only that which is right.
David describes God’s word as more valuable than gold, sweeter than honey, a warning worth following, and containing a valuable reward (verses 10,11).
God’s word is good, and it’s good for you
A seventh and final point brings the song to an end. Just as the days of creation end with the Seventh-day Sabbath—God’s gift of sacred time purely for relationship and connection to His creation—here the Psalm ends with a final relational theme. The coda of this Psalm is a relational plea from David:
“How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:12-14, NLT).
What does it feel like listening to God’s word? David answers this in a few ways. It makes you search your heart and question the bad things inside your heart bringing you down. It inspires you to something higher and more beautiful. It sifts your priorities to see God as the best and most important Person in your life. Most importantly, it connects your heart to God’s.
Good news of Psalm 19
This Psalm invites us to discover God’s beautiful way to live, but the reality is that we have all fallen short of this beautiful glory described. Like David, if you are looking at your heart and seeing the secrets and sins, this Psalm will make you cry out to God too.
Here is the good news David was looking forward to: Jesus was perfect, right, pure, clean, true and righteous altogether. He kept the law of God perfectly and chose only God’s way. Yet for Him there was no reward like that promised in Psalm 19. Instead, He went to the cross and died a horrible death. He was blameless and innocent of great transgression, yet He was not acceptable in God’s sight.
This was not a mistake or failure on God’s part. In what is without a doubt the most beautiful variation on the song, the music moved to a new and beautiful melody. That same tune is transformed. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). He endured the cross for us. We failed to follow the law, but He did not. He takes our wages; we receive His reward. He takes the bitterness; we experience the sweetness. He takes our poverty; we attain His riches.
He is forsaken, so that now we can sing: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight” (Psalm 19:14).
Jacob Ugljesa is the pastor of Gold Coast Central church in Queensland, Australia.
