Exercise, contemplation, and sustained practice

Meaning

Exercise here is sustained practice and attention, especially hearing, considering and keeping God’s Word before oneself. The text joins it to godliness and Christian virtues in both joy and sorrow. Its image is the outward assistance that keeps an inward fire active, illustrated by heated iron and a lamp requiring nourishment. This does not assign the origin of grace to human effort; the inward divine gift is presupposed, and neglect threatens its continued manifestation. The translation’s repeated “continually” and “unweariedly” preserves the durative emphasis. A single act of reading or a merely intellectual survey would not exhaust this sense of practice.