Former Louisiana College professor and current Bethlehem College and Seminary professor Dr. Jason Meyer has written a great post over at the Desiring God Blog.
Regarding Psalm 119, Meyer writes:
The psalmist cries out in anguish that his “soul melts away for sorrow” (Psalm 119:28). His struggle, however, is not simply sorrow. The psalmist confesses that his soul “clings to the dust” (Psalm 119:25). “Dust” here is not a generic metaphorical way of saying that he is struggling. It is a pointed theological reminder of the brokenness that comes from humanity’s fallen state. This word for dust appears as part of God’s pronouncement of curse upon the human race: “till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). The psalmist, like us, finds himself struggling with the effects that flow from his own fallen, broken state.
But the fall is not the final word. We can find hope to delight in God again, even in a fallen world. This stanza opens with the psalmist “clinging to the dust,” but it ends with the psalmist running in the way of God’s commandments because God has enlarged his heart (Psalm 119:32).
Read the entire devotional here.
