Psalms 119:15-16

I will meditate in Thy precepts, and have respect unto Thy ways.

A threefold internal action of the soul about the Word

These two verses present to us a threefold internal action of David’s soul towards the Word of God: first, meditation; secondly, consideration; thirdly, delectation; every one of these proceeds from the other and mutually strengthen one another. Meditation brings the Word to the mind; consideration views it, and looks at length into it; whereof is bred delectation. That which comes into the mind, were it never so good, if it be not considered, goes as it came; leaving neither instruction nor joy; but being once perfected by meditation, if it be pondered by consideration, then it breeds delectation; which is the perfection of godliness, in regard of the internal action. Thus we see that a godly man is ever fruitful in good: like that tree planted by the rivers of waters. For at the same time when his external good actions cannot be seen, he is not without internal good motions, breeding good in the root of his affection; which shortly brings out good fruit in his action, to the glory of God, and good of others. (Bp. Cowper.)

Reading profitless without meditation

St. Francis de Sales did not think well of those men who flit from book to book, taking up first one religious exercise and then another; he compared such persons to the drone bee, which makes no honey. “Always learning, yet never coming to the knowledge of the truth; always gathering and acquiring, without retaining anything, because what they gather is put into a bottomless sack, a broken cistern. The longer a bee rests upon the flower, the more honey it will gather,” he used to say. (Christian Weekly.)