Delight in the Lord

 Delight in the Lord

March 15, 2025

Psalms 1

1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,

Nor stand in the path of sinners,

Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

And in His law he meditates day and night.

3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,

Which yields its fruit in its season

And its leaf does not wither;

And in whatever he does, he prospers.

4 The wicked are not so,

But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the wicked will perish.

Delighting in the Lord is a prevalent theme in the Psalms. The word delight is used 26 times in the Psalms. (Ps 1:2, 16:3, 37:4, 37:11, 40:8, 40:14, 51:17, 51: 19, 62:4, 70:2, 109:17, 111:2, 119:16, 119:24, 119:35, 119:70, 119:77, 119:92, 119:143, 119:174, 147:10).

Delighting in the law is a particular theme of Psalm 119

Psalms 119:47

47 I shall delight in Your commandments,

Which I love.

The Jewish interpretation of Psalm 1 and Psalm 119 is the constant study and meditation on the Torah. I prefer a modified interpretation based on Romans 10:

Romans 10:4

4 ForChrist is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Where “end” is to be taken not in the sense of termination, but in the sense of goal or fulfillment. Christ is the fulfillment or completion of the law, so we could read Psalm 1 as “His delight is in Christ and he meditates on Jesus day and night”. This makes more sense to me in the New Testament context. Yes we still study the written word, but our real delight and constant meditation is on the love of Jesus and the mighty things He as done for us.

Isaiah gets more to this meaning in his great messianic prophecy in chapter 11:

Isaiah 11:1-3

1Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,

And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him,

The spirit of wisdom and understanding,

The spirit of counsel and strength,

The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.

3 And He will delight in the fear of the LORD,

And He will not judge by what His eyes see,

Nor make a decision by what His ears hear;

In this prophetic text, Isaiah proclaims the attributes of the coming Messiah. Because He is filled with the Holy Spirit, He delights in the fear of the Lord. And as Jesus fulfilled this prophecy, we too can delight in the Lord when we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus also gives us wisdom and understanding, counsel and strength, and enables us to delight in the fear of the Lord, which is a relationship with the Lord, not fear as in being frightened.

But back to the Psalms, we see in Psalm 40 how King David delighted in the Lord. He sings here of delighting to the the will of the Lord which is not a dry thing from the written law, but is the will of the Lord written on his heart.

Psalms 40:8

8 I delight to do Your will, O my God;

Your Law is within my heart.”

We need to have a heart like David so that we can delight to do the will of the Lord. Indeed, the Proverbs tell us that when we are faithful to do the will of the Lord, He delights in us as well!

Proverbs 11:20

20 The perverse in heart are an abomination to the LORD,

Butthe blameless in their walk are His delight.

The end of the matter is this, when we delight in the Lord and meditate on him day and night, we are blessed and prosper like a tree planted by the water that bears its fruit in its season. How blessed is the man who delights in the Lord!