I stashed your sayings in my heart
in order to not go astray from you.
—
Lots of Christians know this verse in its King James Version form, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” One of my professors was particularly fond of it. Every semester, he’d sing a hymn, Ernest O Sellers’ “Thy Word Have I Hid in My Heart,” in chapel.
Thy word have I hid in my heart
That I might not sin against thee
That I might not sin
That I might not sin
Thy word have I hid in my heart
He was not blessed with a pleasant singing voice. He sounded, as one of my fellow students commented (and which I uncharitably published in the school paper), like Chewbacca. But he was entirely earnest about it.
However, his interpretation of this verse—same as plenty of Christians—was that by “thy word” the psalmist meant bible verses. Now, I’m all for memorizing verses. (It’s kinda the point behind these Memory Verses posts.) But the Hebrew word emretékh means “[thing] said [by] you.” It refers specifically to something God said: A statement he made. Might be a statement recorded in the bible; might be a statement he made to you personally.
The context of Psalm 119 is the Law. It’s a massive 176-line acrostic: There are 22 groups of eight lines, and in each group all the lines begin with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. (The Knox Bible, Msgr. Ronald Knox’s translation, cleverly does the same thing in English.) So when the psalmist was writing about God’s sayings, statements, decrees, precepts, charges, commands, and promises, she was talking about the Law, the commands God gave Moses at Sinai.
The psalmist rightly believed God is revealed in his Law. Lots of Christians claim they wish to know God’s will: What does God want of me? What does he expect of me? How does he want me to live? Well, God definitively answered that question through the Law, and through Jesus. He told the ancient Hebrews exactly how he expected them to behave towards one another. And Jesus told his followers likewise—regularly referring to the Law, and showing us how to look at it through the lens of love, grace, forgiveness, and persistence. Not, as the Pharisees so often spun it, by inventing loopholes to get themselves out of it; nor, as the “New Testament Christians” of today spin it, by claiming none of it applies to us anymore. You wanna know what God desires? Read his Law. Study Jesus. Follow Jesus.
The psalmist felt the route to know God best is to tuck his sayings in her heart. To the ancients, the heart was what you thought with. Nowadays we’d say put it in your mind; or we’d figure we were talking about a spiritual heart. Either way: We need to embed God’s sayings in us. They can’t just be things we’ve heard, then forgot; nor words in the bible which never work their way into our lifestyles. If we don’t know God’s will, which he’s not hiding—it’s easily available for anyone who wants to find it—we’re gonna constantly stumble into error and sin. We have no excuse for not knowing it.
So stash it in your heart. And while you’re at it, stash this verse in there too, as a useful reminder.
Meditations on Psalm 119.11.
• Read the entire psalm. Then think on verse 11.
• Consider the other translations of chafantí/“I stashed.” There’s “I hid,” or “I laid up,” “I stored,” “I kept close,” “I treasured,” “I kept,” “I banked,” or “I took [to heart].”
• Why is it important to focus on God’s sayings, instead of just his word? Or is there any relevant difference?
• Which of God’s sayings are the best at keeping us back from sin?
• Which of God’s sayings to you, as opposed to just statements from the bible, ought you treasure?
• Are there ways to stash God’s sayings in our heart, other than rote memorization?