February 23 Scripture Commentaries

Psalm 119:33-40

Psalm 119 is a Psalm about the importance of obeying God's laws and commands. It is written in an acrostic form with each letter of the Hebrew alphabet beginning each of the twenty-two sections of this Psalm. Our reading today begins with the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Each verse in this section begins with the Hebrew letter, “Hey.” I’ve also seen it spelled, “Hei.”  This letter means breath or spirit. The idea is that by obeying God’s commandments, we experience new life. We don’t often think of the law as bringing life. We tend to think of commandments and obedience in negative terms. What if we think of it in these more positive terms of new life?

Notice all of the synonyms that are used for the law in each of these verses - “statutes”, “commandments”, “decrees”, “ways”, “promise”, “ordinances” and “precepts”.

The Psalmist asks God to orient him towards the Law, to avoid love of personal gain, and to turn him away from all that is futile (v. 37a) and to help him ignore the taunts of those who see keeping the Law as misguided (v.39a).

Matthew 5:38-48

Our Gospel reading is from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus has been teaching to the crowds. Like Psalm 119, Jesus is emphasizing the importance of obeying God's laws and commands so we can be the people God has created us to be.

The Sermon on the Mount teaches us to watch what our Heavenly Father is doing and then do those things ourselves. Jesus offers a new sort of justice to follow. The Old Testament commands were designed to not allow revenge to rule the day. Jesus goes one step forward and says that we should seek to love others even those who harm us.

Turning the cheek – Being hit on the right cheek, meant you were hit by the back of the right hand. That implies the person who was hit was an inferior. Turning the other cheek means that you see yourself as an equal.

By giving your cloak, this brings shame on the person who is suing you for your  shirt because those were the only two garments you owned. You would be naked and would make the person suing you look shameful for doing such a thing!

The Romans could make you walk a mile for them and carry their equipment. Jesus tells them to go an extra mile to show the Romans how generous God is.

[Note: The resources used for these scripture reading commentaries are based on the Everyone series by NT Wright, The Wesley Study Bible, and the “Montreal-Anglican”lectionary commentaries.]