Today’s Passage: Psalm 111
This is a psalm of pure thanksgiving, and it lays out its reasons one after another. Great are the works of the LORD. He has sent redemption to His people. Holy and awesome is His name. Then, when it has gathered up everything God has done, it comes to rest on one sentence that the wise have never stopped repeating: the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. It is the same good news the whole of Scripture tells, and it asks to be sung rather than merely studied.
As you read, hold this: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.
Context A pair
In Hebrew this psalm is an acrostic, its lines walking in order through the letters of the alphabet, one line to each letter, from the first to the last. Psalm 112, the one that follows it, is built the very same way, only there the poet turns to describe the person who fears the LORD. Today we stay with this one, and this one keeps its eyes on the works of God.
Psalm 111:1-4 (BSB)
Hallelujah! ¹ I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart in the council of the upright and in the assembly. ² Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them. ³ Splendid and majestic is His work; His righteousness endures forever. ⁴ He has caused His wonders to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and compassionate.
The psalm begins where thanksgiving always begins, with the whole heart, offered out loud among the people of God. Then it lifts up His works, so great that all who delight in them never tire of turning them over and pondering them. His righteousness, it says, endures forever, and the God whose hand does all of this is gracious and compassionate.
Psalm 111:5-9 (BSB)
⁵ He provides food for those who fear Him; He remembers His covenant forever. ⁶ He has shown His people the power of His works by giving them the inheritance of the nations. ⁷ The works of His hands are truth and justice; all His precepts are trustworthy. ⁸ They are upheld forever and ever, enacted in truth and uprightness. ⁹ He has sent redemption to His people; He has ordained His covenant forever; holy and awesome is His name.
Now the reasons come in one after another. He provides food for those who fear Him. He remembers His covenant forever. He gave His people a land and an inheritance. The work of His hands is truth and justice, and His every precept can be trusted, upheld forever and enacted in uprightness. He has sent redemption to His people, and holy and awesome is His name. The longer the psalm goes, the more the evidence for its thanksgiving keeps arriving.
Psalm 111:10 (BSB)
¹⁰ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts gain rich understanding. His praise endures forever!
And here the psalm reaches its resting place. The yirat YHWH, pronounced yir-AHT yah-WEH. Strong's H3374, the fear of the LORD; reverent awe of God. This is a word with weight enough to reorder a whole life around the God who is worthy of it. The psalm calls it the beginning of wisdom, and it means beginning in earnest, for everything else a person comes to know starts here. of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Not one virtue set among many others, but the doorway the rest must pass through, the very place where a wise life starts. And it closes as it began, with praise, for His praise endures forever.
Study notes The same beginning
The wisdom writers were not content to say this only once.
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Proverbs 9:10 (BSB)
Two different books, and one and the same foundation. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.