Joshua 1:8

Hebrew Bible

7 Make sure you are very strong and brave! Carefully obey all the law my servant Moses charged you to keep. Do not swerve from it to the right or to the left, so that you may be successful in all you do. 8 This law scroll must not leave your lips. You must memorize it day and night so you can carefully obey all that is written in it. Then you will prosper and be successful. 9 I repeat, be strong and brave! Don’t be afraid and don’t panic, for I, the Lord your God, am with you in all you do.”

Psalm 1:2

Hebrew Bible

1 How blessed is the one who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand in the pathway with sinners, or sit in the assembly of scoffers. 2 Instead he finds pleasure in obeying the Lord’s commands; he meditates on his commands day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by flowing streams; it yields its fruit at the proper time, and its leaves never fall off. He succeeds in everything he attempts. 4 Not so with the wicked! Instead they are like wind-driven chaff.

 Notes and References

"... A law given by God invites meditation and study as well as obedience. The meditation enjoined in Joshua 1:8 (“This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it”) has obedience as its explicit goal. But when meditation on the law (again carried on “day and night”) is paralleled with “delight ... in the law of the LORD” in Psalm 1:2, it is clearly viewed as a good in itself. Psalm 19 praises the perfections of God’s commandments and finds them “more to be desired ... than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb” (19:7–11, here verse 10).The psalmist of Psalm 119 refers not only to the “keeping” and “observing” of God’s commandments (verses 2, 4, 5, 8, etc.), but also of “learning” them (verse 7), “treasuring” them (11), “meditating on” them (15), “delighting in” them (16), “longing for” them (20), “clinging to” them (31), “hoping in” them (43), even “loving” them (47). To seek and delight in God’s commandments is to seek and delight in God (119:2, 10, 12, etc.) ..."

Westerholm, Stephen Law and Ethics in Early Judaism and the New Testament (p. 35) Mohr Siebeck, 2017

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