What Does Psalm 119:70 Mean?
Their heart has thickened like fat; but I delight in your instruction.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law.THE KEY
The verse places a heart thickened shut beside delight in instruction: the difference is not access to the word, but openness to receive it.
THE MEANING
You can have instruction near you while your heart remains dull to it; delight marks a different kind of receiving. Here, instruction is not merely something possessed but a direction the heart can welcome.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Having access to sacred instruction does not automatically make the heart receptive.
THE ROOT
תּוֹרָתְךָ
toratkha
GROWS FROM
ירה
yarah
To throw or cast; by extension, to point out or instruct.
Instruction shares its root with the idea of pointing or directing: it carries a way forward, not merely a rule to possess. The contrast is between a heart that has thickened shut and one that delights in being directed.
ALSO GROWS
yarah: To throw, cast, shoot, or direct.
יָרָה
The sense of direction in this verb illuminates instruction as something that points the heart toward a way.
moreh: Teacher or instructor.
מוֹרֶה
The teacher is one who directs; the verse’s delight is in receiving that guidance.
torah: Instruction or teaching.
תּוֹרָה
This is the word’s uninflected form: the verse’s delight rests in instruction received as direction.
THE PATTERN
A heart’s response to instruction reveals its openness: delight receives and holds it, while hardness leaves it unperceived.
But his delight is in the instruction of the LORD; and over his instruction he murmurs day and night.For I delight in the instruction of God according to the person within.For they did not put the loaves together, for their heart had turned to stone.THE THREAD
If your instruction were not my delight, I would perish in my affliction.This verse repeats the same instruction word and the same delight root. It shows that delight in instruction is not a passing preference: it keeps the heart from being swallowed by affliction.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us