Of course, 'the light of Thy countenance' is a very obvious and natural
symbol for favour, complacency, goodwill on the part of Him that is
conceived of as looking on any one. We read, for instance, in reference
to a much lower subject in the Book of Proverbs, 'In the light of the
king's countenance is life, and his favour is as a cloud of the latter
rain.' Again we have, in the Levitical benediction, the phrase
accompanied in the parallel clauses by what is really an explanation of
it, 'The Lord cause His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto
thee.' So that the simple and obvious meaning of the words, 'the light
of Thy countenance,' is the favour and lovingkindness of God manifested
in that gracious Face which He turns to His servants. As for the other
chief word in the clause, 'to walk' is the equivalent throughout
Scripture for the conduct of the active life and daily conversation of a
man, and to walk in the light is simply to have the consciousness of the
divine Presence and the experience of the divine lovingkindness and
friendship as a road on which we travel our life's journey, or an
atmosphere round us in which all our activities are done and in which we
ever remain, as a diver in his bell, to keep evil and sin from us.
There is only one more remark in the nature of explanation which I make,
and that is that the expression here for walking is cast in the original
into a form which grammarians call intensive, strengthening the simple
idea expressed by the word. We may express its force if we read, 'They
walk continually in the light of Thy countenance.'
Is not that just a definition of the Christian life as an unbroken
realisation of the divine Presence, and an unbroken experience of the
lovingkindness and favour of God? Is not that religion in its truest,
simplest essence, in its purest expression? The people who are sure that
they have their King in their midst, and who feel that He is looking
down upon them with tender pity, with loving care, with nothing but
friendship and sweetness in His heart, these people, says the Psalmist,
are blessed. So much, then, for the meaning of the word.