Twenty-Two Pearls on One String

Is Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the longest book of the Bible, comprised of twenty-two parts and 176 verses, as Matthew Henry said, "like Solomon's proverbs, ... a chest of gold rings, not a chain of gold links," or is it, as Charles Bridges said, "pearls upon one string"?

It is not always easy to trace the connexion between the several verses; at least not beyond the several divisions of the Psalm. Probably nothing more was intended, than the record of the exercises of his own heart at different periods, and under different circumstances. If, however, they are not links on the same chain, in continuous and unbroken dependence; they may at least be considered as pearls upon one string, of equal, though independent, value.

In praise of Psalm 119:

Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, pp. 201-202:

I know of no part of the holy scriptures, where the nature and evidences of true and sincere godliness are so much of set purpose and so fully and largely insisted on and delineated, as the 119th Psalm; the psalmist declares his design in the first verses of the Psalm, and he keeps his eye on this design all along, and pursues it to the end. But in this Psalm the excellency of holiness is represented as the immediate object of a spiritual taste, relish, appetite, and delight of God's law, that grand expression and emanation of the holiness of God's nature, and prescription of holiness to the creature, is all along represented as the food and entertainment, and as the great object of the love, the appetite, the complacence and rejoicing of the gracious nature, which prizes God's commandments above gold, yea, the finest gold, and to which they are sweeter than the honey and honey comb; and that upon account of their holiness, as I observed before.

David Dickson, A Commentary on the Psalms, p. 342:

...in this psalm, as in a bundle, [David] hath collected the sum of his holy meditations, and of the profitable uses which he made of the revealed will of God in Scripture, in all the conditions wherein he was, to teach all the faithful after him, to have the word of God in special regard, and to have respect to it, as the only rule whereby they might find direction, consolation, and salvation, however matters went. To this end, for memory's sake, he hath filled the Hebrew alphabet with twenty-two meditations, every one of them beginning with a several letter of the alphabet, and every section having eight verses, beginning with the same letter, and every verse almost of every section under some expression, making mention of the Scripture.

William Binnie, The Psalms: Their History, Teachings and Use, p. 145:

Its two-and-twenty clusters yield the wine of the kingdom as copiously as any to be found in the Bible.

Bishop William Cowper, A holy alphabet for Sion's scholars: ... delivered by way of commentary upon the whole 119 Psalme (1613):

[Psalm 119 is a] holy alphabet, so plain that children may understand it -- so rich and instructive that the wisest and most experienced may learn something from it.

Edmund Calamy the Elder, The Godly Man's Ark, pp. 1-2:

This psalm, out of which my text is taken, exceeds all the other psalms, not only in length, but in excellency, so far, in the judgment of Ambrose, as the light of the sun excels the light of the moon. As the Book of Psalms is styled by Luther an epitome of the Bible, or, a little Bible; so may this psalm fitly be called an epitome of the Book of Psalms. It was written, as is thought, by David in the days of his banishment under Saul; but so penned, that the words thereof suit the condition of all saints. It is a public storehouse of heavenly doctrines, distributing fit and convenient instructions to all the people of God; and therefore should be in no less account with those who are spiritually alive, than is the use of the sun, air, and fire with those who are naturally alive. It is divided into two-and-twenty sections, according to the Hebrew alphabet, and therefore fitly called a holy alphabet for Zion's scholars, the ABC of godliness. Sextus Senensis calls it an alphabetical poem. The Jews are said to teach it their little children the first thing they learn, and therein they take a very right course, both in regard of the heavenly matter, and plain style fitted for all capacities. The chief scope of it is to set out the glorious excellences and perfections of the law of God.

Matthew Henry, The Life of Philip Henry, p. 133:

Once, pressing the study of the scriptures, he advised to take a verse of Psalm cxix. every morning to meditate upon, and so go over the psalm twice in the year; and that, saith he, will bring you to be in love with all the rest of the scripture; and he often said; -- all grace grows, as love to the word of God grows.

John Ker, The Psalms in History and Biography, p. 145:

[This Psalm] drew the special admiration of [Blaise] Pascal, who, as his sister Madame Perier says, often spoke with such feeling about it, 'that he seemed transported,' 'qu'il paraissait hors de lui même.' He used to say that, 'with the deep study of life, it contained the sum of all the Christian virtues.' He singled out ver. 59, as giving the turning-point of man's character and destiny: 'I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.'

Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 3, p. 243:

In our German version it has the appropriate inscription, "The Christian's golden A B C of the praise, love, power, and use of the word of God;" for here we have set forth in inexhaustible fulness what the word of God is to a man, and how a man is to behave himself in relation to it.

Johannes Paulus Palanterius, Illustris Psalmorum Davidicorum (1600):

This psalm is called the Alphabet of Divine Love, the Paradise of all the Doctrines, the Storehouse of the Holy Spirit, the School of Truth, also the deep mystery of the Scriptures, where the whole moral discipline of all the virtues shines brightly. And as all moral instruction is delightsome, therefore this psalm, because excelling in this kind of instruction, should be called delightsome, inasmuch as it surpasses the rest. The other psalms, truly, as lesser stars shine somewhat ; but this burns with the meridian heat of its full brightness, and is wholly, resplendent with moral loveliness.

Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 6, pp. v-vi:

This marvellous poem seemed to me a great sea of holy teaching, moving, in its many verses, wave upon wave; altogether without an island of special and remarkable statement to break it up....Other psalms have been mere lakes, but this is the main ocean....This great Psalm is a book in itself: instead of being one among many psalms, it is worthy to be set forth by itself as a poem of surpassing excellence.

Martin Luther, Preface to the 1539 Wittenberg edition of Dr. Martin Luther's Works:

Moreover, I want to point out to you a correct way of studying theology, for I have had practice in this. If you keep to it, you will become so learned that you yourself could (if it were necessary) write books just as good as those of the fathers and councils, even as I (in God) dare to presume and boast, without arrogance and lying, that in the matter of writing books I do not stand much behind some of the fathers. Of my life I can by no means make the same boast. This is the way taught by holy King David (and doubtlessly used also by all the patriarchs and prophets) in the one hundred [nineteenth] Psalm. There you will find three rules, amply presented throughout the whole Psalm. They are Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio.

We Flew As If With Wings

There is an eloquent statement about how the Camisards loved the psalms and how they inspired and refreshed their souls under the most severe persecutions. I have read it before in Robert Louis Stevenson's travelogue of the Cévennes, and two historical guides to the Psalter. But none of those writings cited the actual source of this quote, although they gave me clues to follow. Those interested in the Camisards or the psalms may find the path of my research to be of interest.

John Ker (1819-1886), The Psalms in History and Biography (1886, 2006 ed.), p. 96:

An old Camisard, as the hunted Protestants of the Cevennes were called, says, 'We flew when we heard the sound of the psalms, we flew as if with wings. We felt within us an animating ardour, a transporting desire. The feeling cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing that must have been felt to be known. However weary we might be, we thought no more of our fatigue, and grew light as soon as the psalms reached our ear.'

Rowland Prothero (1851-1937), The Psalms in Human Life (1903, 2008 ed.), pp. 165-166:

Upon [the] excited minds [of the Camisards] the Psalms exercised an almost supernatural power. "As soon," says Durand Fage, "as we began to sing the chant of the Divine Canticles, we felt within us a consuming fire, an ecstatic desire which no words can express. However great our fatigue, we thought of it no more. The moment the chant of the Psalms struck our ears, we grew light as air."

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879, 1897 ed.), p. 181:

'We flew,' says one old Camisard,' when we heard the sound of psalm-singing, we flew as if with wings. We felt within us an animating ardour, a transporting desire. The feeling cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing that must have been experienced to be understood. However weary we might be, we thought no more of our weariness and grew light, so soon as the psalms fell upon our ears.'

The Wikisource annotated edition of this work attributes the quote to "Les Pasteurs du Désert. N. Peyrat."

Napoléon Peyrat (1809-1881), Histoire des pasteurs du Désert: depuis la révocation de l'édit de Nantes jusqu'à la Révolution française, 1685 - 1789 (1842), Vol. 1, p. 271:

Nous volions, continue Durand Fage, nous volions, quand nous entendions le chant de ces divins cantiques; nous sentions audedans de nous une ardeur qui nous animait, un désir qui nous transportait : cela ne se peut exprimer. Quelque grande que fût quelquefois notre lassitude, nous n'y pensions plus, dès que le chant des psaumes frappait nos oreilles: nous devenions légers. C'est une de ces choses qu'il fautavoir éprouvées, pour les connaître.

A brief footnote by Peyrat lead me to François Maximilien Misson (c. 1650-1722), Le Théâtre sacré des Cévennes (1707), which was translated almost immediately into English by John Lacy (1664-?), an enthusiast who was also a wealthy member of the congregation pastored by Dr. Edmund Calamy the Historian, as A Cry from the Desert; or, Testimonials of the Miraculous Things Lately Come to Pass in the Cevennes, Verified Upon Oath, and By Other Proofs (1707). I found an 1847 French edition entitled Les prophètes protestants. Réimpression de l'ouvrage intitulé Le théatre sacré des Cévennes; ou, Récit des diverses merveilles nouvellement opérées dans cette partie de la province du Languedoc. Avec une préf. et des notes de A. Bost. The deposition of M. Durand Fage, given in London in January 1707, begins on p. 109. The particular quote in question is found on p. 113:

A cinq cents pas plus loin, la mélodie des psaumes nous attira. Nous volions quand nous entendions le chant de ces divins cantiques. Nous sentions au dedans de nous une ardeur qui nous animait, un désir qui uous trans-portait: cela ne se peut exprimer. Quelque grande que fût quelquefois notre lassitude, nous n'y pensions plus, dés le moment que le chant des psaumes frappait nos oreilles: nous devenions légers. C'est une de ces choses merveilleuses qu'il faut avoir éprouvées pour les connaître.

Of Durand Fage, a Camisard known to have been fighting Dragoons in 1702, submitted to French authorities in 1705, was escorted to the German frontier, traveled to Geneva and Holland before arriving in London in 1706, we know little. He was born in 1681 at Aubais, in Languedoc, but the date of his death, presumably in the mid-18th century, is unknown. His deposition is a vivid first-hand account of life among the Camisards, and we are thankful to have his testimony. Although he may have been an enthusiast, the quote that led me down this path bears witness to his piety and eloquence as well.