I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love.
I hate them that are of a double mind; But thy law do I love.
SAMECH. The double-minded have I hated; but thy law do I love.
Samech. Doubting ones I have hated, And Thy law I have loved.
Psalms — The canon's longest book — 150 Psalms edited into five doxology-bookended books, composed across a millennium, attributed to David, Asaph, Korah's sons, Moses, Solomon, Heman, Ethan, and anonymous voices. A ''Torah of David''; the Bible's longest continuous liturgical-devotional corpus.
The Psalms were not written to be read silently. They were sheet music. David set aside whole families of Levites to lead the singing, and 1 Chronicles 23:5 counts four thousand of them praising the LORD with instruments David had made. Three great guilds carried the work — the sons of Asaph, of Heman, and of Jeduthun — and their names still sit at the top of psalms we sing today.
The little lines above many psalms are performance directions left in the text. "To the chief Musician" points to the worship leader. "Neginoth" means stringed instruments. "Selah," scattered seventy-one times, is most likely a musical pause or a swell. The temple had trumpets, harps, lyres, and cymbals, and the sound of them carried across the city.
Three times a year every Israelite family that could travel went up to Jerusalem for a feast. Psalms 120 through 134 are labeled Songs of Ascents — short, portable songs sung on the climb up to the city, which sits high in the hill country. Other groups had fixed places too: Psalms 113–118, the Egyptian Hallel, were sung at Passover, which is almost certainly the hymn Jesus and the disciples sang at the Last Supper.
Because the book grew over centuries, it carries the whole history of the nation inside it. Psalm 90 comes from the wilderness. Many psalms come from David's years running from Saul and reigning in Jerusalem. Psalm 137 was written by people sitting beside the canals of Babylon with their harps hung up in the trees. The hymnbook outlived the temple that first sang it.
For the first hearers, the Psalms were the words God gave them to say back to Him. A farmer who could not read still knew these songs by heart, because he had sung them at the feasts since he was a child. When his crops failed or his enemies closed in, he already had the language for it.
They also taught Israel that God could take honesty. Almost a third of the Psalter is lament — complaint, grief, even anger, brought straight to God instead of swallowed. The book teaches the worshiper to carry everything to the LORD and leave the settling of scores with Him, and then it ends with five straight songs of pure praise, so that the last word of the human heart is praise.
The verses this one reaches12
He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.
Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do.
A foolish scheme is sin, and a mocker is detestable to men.
Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.
Oh, how I love Your law! All day long it is my meditation.
I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.
For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
We tear down arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
The LORD knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile.
3 more linked verses are grouped by book below ↓
Every other verse the study tradition links to this one, in the Bible’s own order. The first links in each book carry a line of their text; every reference opens its full verse page.
1 Chronicles1
Cross-reference data: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge; OpenBible.info (CC-BY).
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
Voices2
ס, SAMECH.--The Fifteenth Part. SAMECH. I hate vain thoughts,.... Or thoughts: evil thoughts are undoubtedly meant, no other can be the object of hatred to a good man; they are such as are contrary to the law of God, and forbidden by it, mentioned in the next clause as the object of love, in opposition to these; and which are abominable to God, and defiling to men; should be forsaken, need pardon; and, if not pardoned, will be brought into judgment, and there exposed, and men punished for them.
John Gill· Exposition of the Entire Bible, 1771reformed
. Ver. 113. I hate vain thoughts: but thy law do I love. In this paragraph the Psalmist deals with thoughts and things and persons which are the opposite of God's holy thoughts and ways. He is evidently in great fear of the powers of darkness, and of their allies, and his whole soul is stirred up to stand against them with a determined opposition. Just as he began the octave, Ps 119:97, with "O how I love thy law, "so here he begins with a declaration of hatred against that which breaks the law.
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, 1892reformed
The walk8
Two steps out along the cross-reference floor, votes-ranked — destinations reached by more than one path rise (the text's own hubs). Every stop is a page, and every stop travels with its words.
Through
James 1:8He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
leads to
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
Then Elijah approached all the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him. But if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people did…
No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and…
Through
Isaiah 55:7Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely…
leads to
He who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy.
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
But if the wicked man turns from all the sins he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die.
In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.”
The whole web at once: see the Arc.
I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like a mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you.