This is a good psalm, believe it or not, for Ash Wednesday. It’s the longest psalm of all — 176 verses filling 10 pages in my study bible. It’s basically all of the psalms balled in one long song.
After wading through this plodding composition, I’m ready to give up reading all psalms for Lent. No, just kidding. There are a few good lines — like a song with rotten verses but a great chorus.
When I was a child, my folks signed me up for the Bible Memory Association; but since I spoke as a child, I called it Bible Memorization. That was easier to say and made perfect sense to me.
Now, being a grown man, I’ve put away childish malapropisms, but I still remember, “Your word have I hidden in my heart, / That I might not sin against You” — which is this psalm’s 11th verse.
Then there’s the evergreen comprising the 105th verse: “Your word is a lamp to my feet / And a light to my path.” Those were two verses I heard when I whined about memorizing Bible verses.
Knowing what I do now, I would have picked other lines to learn — verse 83, for instance: “For I have become like a wineskin in smoke….” Imagine a fresh-faced six-year-old reciting that simile!
Another good line is in verse 90: “You established the earth, and it abides.” That sounds just like the verse in Ecclesiastes that inspired the title of the best post-apocalyptic novel ever published.
Yes, the earth abides, and so does The Dude, even though this fellow has become not so much like a smoky wineskin, as, like, a soiled Persian rug that, you know, tied the room together, man.
Still, most of this longest of all psalms is the same old shazbot — David’s self-righteousness and paranoia about enemies lying and scheming against him. He was the King, but he was no Dude.