HOW PRECIOUS!

HOW PRECIOUS!

Ps 139:17-24

17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

           That God should think of us at all is an amazing thing. The Psalmist says that those thoughts toward us are “precious” or “rare, excellent, weighty and noble. The word “precious” does not appear at all prior to the book of First Samuel but afterward they are scattered throughout the Bible but just what does this word mean?

           First yagar means precious in the sense of being rare and valuable. These are wonderful things that are hard to find and worth keeping. “And he took their king's crown from off his head, the weight whereof was a talent of gold with the precious stones: and it was set on David's head” (2 Sam 12:30). Again, the word means rare like something that does not happen often and, when it does, needs some special attention. “And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision” (1 Sam 3:1).

           Next, the word “precious” focuses on the value of a thing. “How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings” (Ps 36:7). The word “excellent” here is that same Hebrew word yagar that is elsewhere translated precious. The lovingkindness of God toward us is of great value.

           A third meaning of “precious” is that which is “weighty or noble!” “The precious [noble] sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter” (Lam 4:2)? Even the death of a lowly saint of God is a noble thing.

Ps 116:15

15 Precious (important and no light matter) in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (His loving ones). AMPLIFIED

Dear Lord, your thoughts and actions toward me are indeed precious. AMEN