About this print

Thy Word Is a Lamp Unto My Feet, Psalm 119:105

A small flame, an open book and an old paved road running off into the evening: Psalm 119:105 painted almost word for word, with the lamp and the path both in the picture.

The lamp, the Book and the road

In the foreground, on a broad flat paving stone, a heavy Bible lies open with its leather cover worn at the corners and a brown ribbon marker trailing down. Right beside it sits a little terracotta oil lamp with a handle, the kind used in biblical times, its single flame burning bright and throwing a golden glow across the pages.

From there a road of uneven stones climbs away between a dry-stone wall and wild bushes, curving uphill toward a few pale houses and tall cypresses. The sky is violet and apricot, the last light of day, which is exactly when a lamp becomes necessary. Above, in two lines of script: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” with Psalm 119:105 below.

Why a lamp for the feet?

The oil lamps of ancient Israel were small clay saucers holding olive oil and a wick. They gave enough light for a few steps, not for the whole road. That is the honesty of this verse: God's word does not always show where the journey ends, but it shows where to put your foot next, and then the next. The psalmist asks for guidance at walking pace.

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, 176 verses. It is built as a giant alphabet poem: twenty-two sections, one for each Hebrew letter, with eight verses in each, all beginning with that section's letter. Verse 105 opens the section marked Nun, which is why some Bibles print that Hebrew letter as a heading just above it. Almost every verse in the psalm names God's teaching with a different word: law, testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments, judgments, word.

The same image runs through the rest of Scripture. Proverbs speaks of the commandment as a lamp and the law as light, and the Gospel of John opens by calling Christ himself the Word, the true light coming into the world. For Christians, the lamp on this page points to both the book and the person.

For a pastor, a teacher or a reader

With its Bible and burning lamp, this print is at home in a pastor's study, a church office, a seminary dorm or a homeschool room. Bible study leaders and catechists who have given a year of weeknight meetings often receive it as a thank-you.

It is also given at a baptism along with a first Bible, and it suits a reading nook or a spot beside the bed where the day's last chapter gets read.

Read Psalm 119 and what it means