Here is an excerpt from the book on the commentary included for Psalm 119:1.
א Aleph (1) – Theme: The importance of having the right desire
- “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless,
who walk according to the law of the YHWH.” (NIV)
Hebrew Literal: “The blessed [are] blameless in their ways
Who walk in the law of YHWH.”
Meditations and commentary:
- These first two octets (vv. 1-16) comprise a sort of introduction where Jesus states His intent and proclaims the main themes of what and how He will run this race of His incarnation. In these two octets He is proclaiming the ways and means whereby He will accomplish His mission, which is in part, demonstrating the reasonableness of God’s proposition that He should be the One who declares what is good (in contrast to Satan’s proposition to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:1-7).
- Jesus, in this His prayer to His Father, YHWH, is extolling blamelessness. He says it comes (to Him) through walking according to the word/Law of YHWH, but a lot of things come from walking according to the word of YHWH. That is, a lot of character claims can be made of anyone (although there has only ever been Jesus Christ) who consistently (without fail) walk according to the Law of YHWH. So, what does it mean to be blameless and why start this monumental psalm, this longest prayer in Scripture,–why start it off by focusing on blamelessness? Why such a big deal about being blameless?
I do not think Jesus, at least as an adult, ever lost a continual conscious awareness that the reason for His incarnation was to be the pure unblemished Lamb of God who would be the propitiatory sacrifice for our sin so that we, the Church His bride, would be redeemed (John 12:27).
For Jesus, achieving and maintaining blamelessness was missional. And in this verse, He proclaims the truth that being blameless is predicated on walking according to the Law of YHWH. He is saying (among other things) in this first verse, “Father (YHWH), in order for me to accomplish my mission, the mission for which You sent me, then I must remain blameless, which means I must continually walk in accordance with Your Law (as it was spoken by You in the Scriptures).”
In other words, Jesus is recognizing, proclaiming, and as we shall see more about this later in this psalm, pleading with His Father for His help in ensuring Jesus is successful in His incarnate mission by constantly walking in accordance with the Law of YHWH. This is the theme of this entire psalm and Jesus begins by proclaiming it in this first verse.