Week 5 Monday — Walking with The Word
Monday: Mem (מ) — Psalm 119:97-104
Monday: Mem (מ) — Psalm 119:97-104
INTRODUCTION
Last week was hard. We sat with the psalmist in his affliction, brought our honest cries to God, wrestled with faith that doesn’t require an answer in our lifetime, and ended standing before the staggering truth that the Word firmly fixed in the heavens became flesh and dwelt among us.
This week begins somewhere entirely different.
Mem (מ) is the Hebrew letter that means “water” — flowing, life-giving, refreshing. And this stanza flows with it. The psalmist who was barely holding together in Kaph, who cried “how long?” from the wineskin-in-the-smoke place, has arrived somewhere new. The affliction hasn’t disappeared. The enemies haven’t gone away. But something has happened in him over the long journey of obedience and trust — something that can only be described one way.
He has fallen in love.
Not with an idea. Not with a religious duty. With God’s Word itself — as the living expression of the God he has come to know through it. And when you read this stanza you can feel it. This isn’t obligation. This is overflow.
SCRIPTURE
⁹⁷ Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. ⁹⁸ Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. ⁹⁹ I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. ¹⁰⁰ I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. ¹⁰¹ I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. ¹⁰² I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me. ¹⁰³ How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! ¹⁰⁴ Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.
— Psalm 119:97-104 (ESV)
REFLECTION
Oh How I Love
The stanza opens with a burst of pure, unrestrained joy: “Oh how I love your law!” No preamble. No throat-clearing. Just a declaration of love that spills out before anything else can be said. The Hebrew carries real emotional force here — this is the language of passionate, personal affection. The psalmist isn’t reporting a theological position. He’s expressing what he feels right now, in this moment, about the Word of God.
And notice what love produces: “It is my meditation all the day.” He can’t stop thinking about it. A lover finds it natural and effortless to think about the one he loves — the mind drifts there without being pushed. The psalmist has arrived at a place where meditating on God’s Word isn’t a discipline he has to enforce. It’s the natural overflow of a heart that has grown to love what he meditates on.
This is the fruit of everything Week 4 put him through. The “how long?” of Kaph, the almost of Kaph, the faith that keeps holding on through Hebrews 11, the firmly fixed Word of Lamedh — all of it has been slowly forming something in him. You cannot cultivate love for God’s Word without spending time in it. But you also cannot spend time in it — really spend time in it, through the hard and the dry and the long — without eventually finding that love has taken root without your noticing.
Wiser Than My Enemies
Verses 98-100 contain some of the most confident claims in the entire psalm: God’s Word has made the psalmist wiser than his enemies, given him more understanding than his teachers, and more maturity than those who have lived far longer. These aren’t boasts of arrogance. They are testimonies of astonishment.
The psalmist isn’t claiming to be smarter than everyone around him. He’s crediting God’s Word for something no human teacher, no accumulated experience, no length of years can fully provide — the wisdom that comes from knowing the mind of God. His enemies plot without it. His teachers instruct without it. The aged reflect without it. But he has something they don’t: “Your testimonies are my meditation.” The Word has been his constant companion, and it has done its work in him.
This connects directly to what we saw in Week 4. When he abided in the vine, when he clung to the promises in affliction, when he lifted his eyes to the firmly fixed Word — he was being formed. Wisdom isn’t just accumulated information. It’s the fruit of a life shaped by God’s truth over time.
Sweeter Than Honey
The stanza closes with one of the most sensory declarations in all of Psalm 119: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” In the ancient world honey was the supreme standard of sweetness — the richest, most delightful thing the palate could experience. And the psalmist says God’s Word surpasses it.
This is not the language of duty. It’s the language of delight. Time in God’s Word has become for him not an unpleasant obligation to fulfill but a sweet experience to be savored and returned to. And then he makes a connection that ties it all together: “Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.” Understanding leads to discernment. Delight in truth produces a holy distaste for what is false. The person who has tasted the sweetness of God’s Word doesn’t reach for the counterfeit — not because they are forced to refuse it, but because they have tasted something better.
The psalmist had far less of God’s Word than we do — perhaps only the five books of Moses and a few additional writings. We have the full canon, the completed testimony, the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ. We have more of the honey than he ever did. The question his delight puts to us is simple: are we tasting it?
“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” — This is the way.
PRAYER PROMPT
Lord, I confess that I don’t always come to Your Word with the delight the psalmist describes. Too often it feels like obligation — something I should do rather than something I long to do. Forgive me for that. But I also know that love can be cultivated, and I am asking You today to cultivate it in me.
Your Word has already done more in me than I fully realize — forming wisdom I didn’t know I had, keeping me from paths I didn’t know were dangerous, giving me life in seasons when I would have perished without it. Open my eyes to see what Your Word has already done. And as I see it — let gratitude become delight, and delight become love. Make Your Word sweeter to me today than it was yesterday. I want to be someone who meditates on it all the day — not out of discipline alone, but because I have tasted it and cannot get enough. Amen.
RESPONSE
Oh How I Love: The psalmist’s love for God’s Word was the overflow of time spent in it through every season — the sweet and the hard. Honestly assess where you are right now: is God’s Word a duty, a discipline, or a delight? Write one sentence describing your current relationship with Scripture. Then ask God specifically to move you one step further toward delight.
Wiser Than My Enemies: The psalmist credited God’s Word for wisdom his enemies, teachers, and elders didn’t have. Think of one decision, relationship, or situation in your life right now where you need wisdom that goes beyond what your own experience or other people can provide. Open God’s Word today and bring that specific situation to it. Write down what you find.
Sweeter Than Honey: The psalmist had far less of God’s Word than we do — and loved it far more passionately than most of us do. This week go back to the passage you chose last week — Psalm 23 or John 1:1-14 — and read it again with one question in mind: what have I not yet tasted here? Ask God to show you something sweet you’ve been passing over. Share what you find with a friend you trust.
Here is a link to all the posts in this devotional series:
https://www.thisistheway.live/t/psalm-119