Acrostics In Psalm 119

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Take a look at Psalm 119. In Hebrew, this Psalm is a single huge acrostic, as well as a sequence of individual acrostic Psalms.

In many Bibles, including the King James Version, there are 22 sections in the Psalm, and each section is marked with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each section starts with the next letter in the Hebrew alphabet (from Alef to Tav). Each section has exactly 8 verses, and every verse in that section starts with the same Hebrew letter. Thus, the first 8 verses all start with Alef, the next 8 all start with Bet, the next 8 all start with Gimel, until we finish with the last 8 verses which all start with the letter Tav.

A whole acrostic, with each group of 8 verses starting with the next letter in the Hebrew alphabet in turn, thus runs throughout the entire Psalm.

Even more remarkably, you can make a series of individual acrostics from the Psalm. Thus, if you take the first verse starting with Alef, the first verse starting with Bet, and continue that for all the Hebrew letters, you create a new Psalm which is also an acrostic, yet makes perfect sense in itself. Then if you take the second verse starting with Alef, the second verse starting with Bet, and continue that for all the remaining Hebrew letters, you get another new Psalm which is also an acrostic, yet makes perfect sense in itself. In the same way, you can create eight individual acrostic Psalms by splitting Psalm 119 in the way described.

In Hebrew, Psalm 119 truly is a most remarkable Psalm. It is one long acrostic, yet also eight individual acrostic Psalms, all making perfect sense by themselves. Truly, the Hebrew Bible is the work of YHWH.

Remember that Psalm 119 was written in the time of David. Thus, as early as 1000 B.C.E., the order of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet was already established.

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