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Delighting in the Word

March 2006

I want you to imagine the deep low gutteral growl a dog makes when he has found a sumptuous bone on which to gnaw; the kind of satisfied noise he makes over one of the delights of his existence, a noise comparable to a cat purring. Along this same line, consider the growl of a lion over its prey, and the cooing of a dove.

What do these things have in common? They each describe how animals express deep satisfaction. The word for “growling” in Isaiah 31:4 of a lion over its prey, and the “moaning” (or cooing) of a dove in Isaish 38:14 , are the same word, and used in Psalm 1 for “meditate.” In describing the blessed man we are told that his delight is in the law of Jehovah, “And on his law he meditates day and night” (1:2). The satisfaction the word creates in him is like the lion that expresses its satisfaction over his next meal, or like the cooing dove.

Not everyone experiences this kind of satisfaction in the word. It is only those who delight in it that growl or coo over it.

When the dog or lion “meditate” they chew and swallow, using their teeth and tongue, stomach and intenstines. When we meditate, we are taking God’s word into our minds to affect the heart and the will. Eugene Peterson writes of Scripture, that it “…invites this kind of reading, soft purrs and low growls as we taste and savor, contemplate and take in the sweet and spicy, mouth-watering and soul-energizing morsel words— “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps 34:8).

Another author compares this way of reading to “letting a very slowly dissolving lozenge melt imperceptibly into your mouth.” This is the kind of reading we all ought to be interested in when it comes to the Bible. Evelyn Wood’s school for speed reading will be of no value here. We should be more interested in reading books with titles like “How to Read Slowly,” by James Sire. That’s good news to me, because we can’t all read fast, but we can all read slowly.

I owe every idea expressed in this article to Eugene Peterson in his new book, "Eat This Book: a conversation in the art of spiritual reading."

Steven Lloyd