Statutes into Songs
By Hugh Black

      "Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage"
      (Ps. 119:54).

      Statutes need to be turned into songs before their work can be completed. The note is struck in the very first Psalm, which speaks of the blessedness of loving the Law and the curse of hating it. The Psalter is the blossom of the Law, preparing for its perfect fruit in obedient and joyful hearts. When the law of God is turned into songs in this the house of our pilgrimage, it has reached its destined end. Thus this verse is really typical of the whole Psalter. Our text, then, is spiritually set in the very center of the Psalter, and in the very center of the Old Testament. The law is really obeyed, when it is no longer mere rule and precept, and no longer something to be feared as when it flashed out its solemn warnings from Sinai, but when it becomes a delight, as music to the soul, changed into inner harmony, when it is a flooding passion of love for the Law of God, when the statutes are turned into songs in the house of man's pilgrimage. It ceases to be law in the rigid legal sense, and becomes perfect freedom.