I. The Hebrew word here translated "meditate" signifies properly to speak or converse with one's self. Hence it conveys the idea of seclusion, retirement, solitude, and, at the same time, of mental activity. In meditation the mind retreats within itself; but it retreats thither to think, to ponder, to reflect. To meditate one must, therefore, first of all retire. To converse with self we must be alone, our sole companion our own thoughts, our sole witness God and nature.
II. But it is not enough that we be alone. Mere solitude is not meditation, and as little is mere quietude or mere musing. There are some minds that are given to a still, half-sleeping, half-waking passivity of thought, a habit which seems to be most seductive, but which is utterly unprofitable. Meditation involves the ideas of reflectiveness, of reverence. It is a fixing of the mind upon something interesting to ourselves and, at the same time, impressive. The man who meditates has his mind occupied by some lofty theme; especially in religious meditation the mind fixes upon God and the things of God.
III. It needs only that we should make the experiment to satisfy ourselves that the practice thus commended to us is intimately connected with our spiritual welfare and growth in holiness. (1) Meditation is that which rivets Divine truth in the memory. (2) Meditation on Divine things makes them really profitable to us. (3) Meditation gives depth, seriousness, and earnestness to our religious profession and character. Religion, whatever else it is, is a mode of thought; and hence it is only as deep and earnest thoughtfulness is bestowed upon it that it can be developed in its higher and nobler forms.
W. Lindsay Alexander, Christian Thought and Work,p. 1.
Reference: Psalms 119:15. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 286.