The word that means a promise you can hold Him to

Among the eight terms Psalm 119 uses for Scripture, one behaves differently from the rest, and English usually hides it.

Imrah. It comes from the ordinary verb to say, and it means an utterance, a saying — but in practice, across the Psalms, it means something narrower and more useful: a promise. A thing God said that can be brought back to Him.

Which is why it turns up constantly in petitions.

Be gracious to me according to Your promise. He is not asking for a favor. He is presenting a document.

And again, in the verse most people know from a different translation:

That is imrah hidden in the most-quoted verse of the psalm. What he hid in his heart was not a category or a doctrine. It was a saying — something God had said, stored where he could get at it.

Now watch what the psalmist does with the word, because it amounts to a way of praying.

Sustain me according to Your promise, that I may live. Uphold me according to Your promise. Let Your unfailing love come to me, O LORD, Your salvation according to Your promise. My eyes fail, looking for Your promise; I ask, when will You comfort me?

That is not presumption in the psalm’s own terms; it is the intended use. A promise is issued so that it can be produced. The alternative — praying without reference to anything God has actually committed to — leaves a man guessing about what he may ask for.

And note the verse where he tests the promise rather than assuming it:

Your promise is completely pure, and Your servant loves it. The verb is the refining word from Week Five — tried, tested, put through the fire. He loves it because it has been tested, not instead of testing it.

So the day comes down to a practical question. When you pray, what are you holding?

There is also a discipline in this that is worth naming. Praying according to Your promise requires knowing what was actually promised, which requires reading. It rules out both presumption and vagueness, and the labor it demands is exactly the labor of Week Nine’s turn.

The psalmist prays with something in his hand. He asks for grace according to a saying, for life according to a saying, for comfort according to a saying — and when the comfort is slow, he says his eyes fail looking for it, and keeps asking anyway.

Imrah occurs about thirty-seven times in the Old Testament, the great majority in the Psalms and nineteen times in Psalm 119 alone. It is the poetic and personal member of the vocabulary set; the legal and covenantal weight sits with torah, edut and mishpat.

Older English versions often render it word, which flattens the distinction with dabar; many modern versions use promise, which brings the sense across at the cost of the connection to speech. Comparing two translations of Psalm 119 side by side is the quickest way to see the vocabulary set at work.

The related masculine form emer appears in Psalm 19:14 — let the words of my mouth be acceptable — where a man asks that his own sayings meet the standard of God’s. The same root covers both sides of the conversation.

Note that the psalm never treats the promises as automatic. Verse 82 has his eyes failing while he waits; verse 123 the same. Holding God to His word in this psalm includes long stretches of not yet seeing it kept, and saying so out loud.

Psalm 119:162 gives the emotional counterpart: I rejoice in Your promise like one who finds great spoil. The word for spoil is the plunder of a battlefield, and it assumes a man who had nothing before he found it.

Look it upH565 אִמְרָה imrah, saying, promise · H559 אָמַר amar, to say · H6884 צָרַף tsaraph, to refine, test · H1697 דָּבָר dabar, word, thing

Then read 2 Peter 1:4 — He has given us His very great and precious promises — and 2 Corinthians 1:20, where all the promises of God are Yes in Christ. The New Testament keeps the category and names where it is guaranteed.

Where this touchesPsalm 119:11, 58, 76, 82, 116, 123, 140, 148, 154, 162, 170 · Psalm 12:6 (Week Five, Day Six) · Psalm 19:14 · 2 Peter 1:4 · 2 Corinthians 1:20 (Week Seven, Day Three). The earlier word studies were dabar, theopneustos, logos, torah, graphe, emeth, amen, the messenger formula, sepher and edut.