Twenty-two alphabetic stanzas delight in Torah: Mem stanza

Mem is love of the law as all-day meditation that actually teaches

O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.

Love is exclaimed, then explained as meditation. Wiser than enemies, teachers, and ancients can sound arrogant. The stanza's claim is that testimonies as meditation and precepts as keeping outrank pedigree, not that the speaker needs no teacher or elder. Enemies are ever with me: the wisdom is for a surrounded life.

Every evil way is refused, and the law tastes like honey

I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.

Feet restrained, judgments not departed from, God as the teacher: the honey is not sugar for a hobbyist. Hatred of every false way is the moral opposite of the love that opened the stanza. The unit is not a license to despise classrooms, and it is not a dare to be unteachable.