Psalm 119

English Standard Version

Your Word Is a Lamp to My Feet

Aleph

Before the first verse of Psalm 119, which is a very long psalm, we will find a marker identifying each section. In this case it is Aleph. Just for curiosities sake, since I did not know what it meant, I looked it up in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.

Aleph: a’-lef (‘): The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is nearly soundless itself and best represented, as in this Encyclopedia, by the smooth breathing (‘), but it is the direct ancestor of the Greek, Latin and English “a” as in “father.” In either case this beginning of the alphabet happens to be near the very basis of all speech-in one case the simple expiration of breath, in the other the simplest possible vocal action-the actual basis from which all other vowels are evolved. It became also the symbol for the number one (1) and, with the dieresis, 1,000. It is the symbol also for one of the most famous of Greek Biblical manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus.

Nearly soundless. Open your mouth slightly and exhale. That is the sound of breath, the first indicator of the existence of life. When you call 9-1-1 because of a medical emergency the first thing the operator asks is “Are they breathing?”

Genesis 2:7 English Standard Version (ESV) then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Our system for finding scriptures is numerical. Romans 3:30 tells us God is One which implies that the Triune God is in harmony, of one mind, in agreement. Here in Psalm 119 the identifiers are not numerical, they are alphabetical. The first letter tells us of something significant in what God does by breathing life into the scriptures.

Praise God for all the resources that came before us.