Psalm 119 is the longest psalm in the Bible, and its structure is as remarkable as its length. It is a song celebrating the greatness and glory of God’s word. Each of the psalm’s twenty-two stanzas correspond to a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, from aleph to taw, like our A to Z. Every line within each stanza begins with that same letter, forming a beautiful and deliberate acrostic. Psalm 119 is a carefully crafted meditation on Scripture. Throughout the psalm, the writer employs eight primary Hebrew terms to describe the word of God. This repetition does not dull the message but deepens it.

Before we began our Women’s Bible Study through Psalms 73-150, I came across a passage in the Memoir of the Rev. Philip Henry, written by his son, the great commentator Matthew Henry. There, reflecting on Psalm 119, Henry recounts how his father urged believers, including his own children, to take one verse of the psalm each morning and meditate on it. “And that,” he said, “will bring you to be in love with all the rest of the Scripture.” He often added, “All grace grows as love to the word of God grows.”

Matthew Henry made meditating on Psalm 119 his regular practice. Along with several women from our Bible Study leadership, I chose to take up the same challenge. We began in September and finished in March. Since Psalm 119 contains 176 verses, meditating on one verse each day takes just under six months, allowing us to walk through the entire psalm twice in a year. The practice is simple, yet as you will see, it is deeply transformative.

The 176 brief entries that follow are the fruit of that journey. Each reflection is intended to help you think deeply about, pray through, and personally apply one verse of Psalm 119 at a time. Along the way, you will hear the voices of faithful teachers such as Spurgeon, Henry, Calvin, and others, whose words both encourage the heart and sharpen the mind. Their insights keep these entries practical and devotional, reminding us that Scripture is not only to be analyzed, but to be loved, trusted, and obeyed. I am especially grateful for the careful exegetical work of Allen Ross in his commentary on the Psalms, which I leaned on more than any other resource throughout this study.

My hope is that as you slowly walk through these verses, you will learn to delight in the word of God. I pray that you will find yourself returning to Psalm 119 again and again. More than that, I pray this psalm will lead you not simply to admire Scripture, but to treasure it, and in treasuring it, to treasure the God who graciously gave it.

If you are ready, begin today. Invite your small group, a friend, your husband, or your children to join you. Ask the Lord to increase your love for Scripture, deepen your confidence in it, and help you live it out with joy. May we learn to delight in God’s word as we walk through Psalm 119, one verse at a time.

All Scripture quotations are from the ESV.