Corn Stalks in a Bean Field

       It was customary in the state of Indiana to plant about four different crops. They usually planted Oats, Wheat, Corn or Soybeans. The soybeans would be planted usually after a field had been planted with corn. One of my jobs was to walk through the soybean field and find any corn stalks that had come up in the soybeans and to cut them down. They didn't belong there and would be a problem when the beans were to be harvested. I would walk up and down every row with my machete, looking for the lone corn stalk. In one way, you were actually looking at every bean plant and looking for anything that was not a bean. I came to the end of one row of beans and discovered a line of corn plants about 20 feet long with no beans in sight. Thinking I had discovered a lot of corn to be cut down, I took my machete and cut down every stalk only later to find out that the farmers wife had planted two rows of sweet corn at the end of the field. Psalm 110:1 says, “ALEPH. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.”

      Psalm 119 is a very special Psalm and you usually find a Hebrew character at the beginning of each 8 verse section. It goes through the Hebrew alphabet having eight verses for each of the 22 characters. It was a good device for the children to learn their alphabet at the time. Of the 176 verses in the Psalm, only five do not mention the Word of God in one way or another. Today's verse uses the word, “law” of the LORD. The rest of the Psalm will use words like “commandment,” “precept,”, “way,”, “testimony” etc. There are five verses in the Psalm that do not mention a synonym for the the Word of God. One task I had was to go through the entire Psalm and find those five verses. It is an exercise to find that which is different and stands out from all the rest. The good part of this exercise is to find out what the Psalmist thought about God's Word. The benefits then come from a greater appreciation for the Scriptures than before. We learn that the result is peace for the believer, “Great peace have they that love thy law.” We also learn that the Psalmist committed the Word to memory when he said that he hides them in his heart. Another reference refers to Word as a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. While the exercise seems to be a tad time consuming and may not care about the results anyway, it does create in us an appreciation for the Word of God. In thinking about the five verses that do not mention a synonym for the the Word of God, the verses themselves are still important but in a different way from the other 171 verses. I may ask you to find the corn stalks in the bean field in this case which are the five verses in Psalm 119 that do not mention the Word of God. It is a task to do so, but the reward is great as you learn how the Word of God is an important part of the life of the believer. Praise God today for the fact that has given us a copy of His Word.