Hints to Preachers

Ver. 18.

1. The precious casket: “thy law.”

2. The invisible treasure: “wondrous things.”

3. The miraculous eyesight: “that I may behold.”

4. The divine oculist: “Open thou mine eyes.”

Ver. 18. The hidden wonders of the gospel. There are many hidden things in nature; many in our fellow men; so there are many in the Bible. The things of the Bible are hidden because of the blindness of Man.

1. The blind man’s sorrow:“Open mine eyes.” I cannot see. I have eyes and see not. The pain of this conscious blindness when a man really feels it.

2. The blind man’s conviction:“That I may behold wondrous, “etc. There are wondrous things there to be seen. I am sure of it. There is a wonderful view,

(a) of sin;

(b) of hell, as its desert;

(c) of One ready to save;

(d) of perfect pardon;

(e) of God’s love:

(f) of all sufficient grace;

(g) of heaven.

3. The blind man’s wisdom. The fault is in my eyes, not in thy word. “Open my eyes, “and all will be well. The reason for not seeing is because the eyes are blinded by sin. There is nothing wanting in the Bible.

4. The blind man’s prayer:“Open thou mine eyes.”

(a) I cannot open them.

(b) My dearest friends cannot.

(c) Only thou canst. “Lord, I pray thee, now open them.”

Many seek to stop such praying. Be like Bartimaeus who

“cried so much the more.”

5. The blind man’s anticipation:“That I may behold.”

(a) The joy of a cured blind man when he is about to behold,

for the first time, the beauties of nature.

(b) The joy of the spiritually healed when they begin

“looking unto Jesus.”

(c) The personal character of the joy: “Open thou mine eyes,

that I may behold.” I have hitherto had to see through the

eyes of others. I would depend on other eyes no longer.

The glad anticipation of Job: “Whom I shall see for

myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.” *Frederick G. Marchant,*1882.

Ver. 18. God’s word suited to man’s sense of wonder.

1. We shall make some remarks on the sense of wonder in man, and what generally excites it. One of the first causes of wonder is the new or unexpected. The second source is to be found in things beautiful and grand. A third source is the mysterious which surrounds man there are things unknowable.

2. God has made provision for this sense of wonder in his revealed word. The Bible addresses our sense of wonder by constantly presenting the new and unexpected to us; it sets before us things beautiful and grand. If we come to the third source of wonder, that which raises it to awe, it is the peculiar province of the Bible to deal with this.

3. The means we are to use in order to have God’s word thus unfolded the prayer of the Psalmist may be our guide “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” *John Ker, of Glasgow,*1877.

Ver. 18. Wondrous sights for opened eyes.

1. The wondrous things in God’s law. A wondrous rule of life. A wondrous curse against transgression. A wondrous redemption from the curse shadowed forth in the ceremonial law.

2. Special eyesight needed to behold them. They are spiritual things. Men are spiritually blind. 1 Corinthians 2:14.

3. Personal prayer to the Great Opener of eyes. C.A.D.

Psalm 119:19

Exposition

Ver. 19. I am a stranger in the earth. This is meant for a plea. By divine command men are bound to be kind to strangers, and what God commands in others he will exemplify in himself. The Psalmist was a stranger for God’s sake, else had he been as much at home as worldlings are: he was not a stranger to God, but a stranger to the world, a banished man so long as he was out of heaven. Therefore he pleads,

Hide not thy commandments from me. If these are gone, what have I else? Since nothing around me is mine, what can I do if I lose thy word? Since none around me know or care to know the way to thyself, what shall I do if I fail to see thy commands, by which alone I can guide my steps to the land where thou dwellest? David implies that God’s commands were his solace in his exile: they reminded him of home, and they showed him the way thither, and therefore he begged that they might never be hidden from him, by his being unable either to understand them or to obey them. If spiritual light be withdrawn the command is hidden, and this a gracious heart greatly deprecates. What would be the use of opened eyes if the best object of sight were hidden from their view? While we wander here we can endure all the ills of this foreign land with patience if the word of God is applied to our hearts by the Spirit of God; but if the heavenly things which make for our peace were hid from our eyes we should be in an evil case, in fact, we should be at sea without a compass, in a desert without a guide, in an enemy’s country without a friend.

This prayer is a supplement to “open thou mine eyes”, and, as the one prays to see, the other deprecates the negative of seeing, namely, the command being hidden, and so out of sight. We do well to look at both sides of the blessing we are seeking, and to plead for it from every point of view. The prayers are appropriate to the characters mentioned: as he is a servant he asks for opened eyes that his eyes may ever be towards his Lord, as the eyes of a servant should be; as a stranger he begs that he may not be strange to the way in which he is to walk towards his home. In each case his entire dependence is upon God alone.

Note how the third of the second octave (11) has the same keyword as this third of the third octave: “Thy word have I hid, ""Hide not thy commandments from me.” This invites a meditation upon the different senses of hiding in and hiding from.

Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings

Ver. 19. I am a stranger in the earth. David had experience of peace and war, of riches and poverty, of pleasure and woe. He had been a private and public person; a shepherd, a painful calling; a soldier, a bloody trade; a courtier, an honourable slavery, which joins together in one the lord and the parasite, the gentleman and the drudge; and he was a king, a glorious name, filled up with fears and cares. All these he had passed through, and found least rest when he was at the highest, less content on the throne than in the sheepfolds. All this he had observed and laid up in his memory, and this his confession is an epitome and brief of all; and in effect he telleth us, that whatsoever he had seen in this his passage, whatsoever he had enjoyed, yet he found nothing so certain as this, that he had found nothing certain, nothing that he could abide with or would abide with him, but that he was still as a passenger and “stranger in the earth.” *Anthony Farindon,*1596-1658.

**Ver. 19. I am a stranger in the earth,**etc. As a sojourner, he hath renounced the world, which is therefore become his enemy; as “a stranger” he is fearful of losing his way; on these accounts he requests that God would compensate the loss of earthly comforts by affording the light of heaven; that he would not “hide his *commandments, “*but show and teach him those steps, by which he may ascend toward heaven, rejoicing in hope of future glory. *George Horne,*1730-1792.

Ver. 19. I am a stranger in the earth. This confession from a solitary wanderer would have had little comparative meaning; but in the mouth of one who was probably surrounded with every source of worldly enjoyment, it shows at once the vanity of “earth’s best joys, ” and the heavenly tendency of the religion of the Bible. Charles Bridges.

**Ver. 19. I am a stranger in the earth,**etc.

1. Every man here upon earth (especially a godly man) is but a stranger and a passenger.

2. It concerns him that is a stranger to look after a better and a more durable state. Every man should do so. A man’s greatest care should be for that place where he lives longest; therefore eternity should be his scope. A godly man will do so. Those whose hearts are not set upon earthly things, they must have heaven. The more their affections are estranged from the one, the more they are taken up about the other (Colossians 3:2); heaven and earth are like two scales in a balance, that which is taken from the one is put into the other.

3. There is of sufficient direction how to obtain this durable estate, but in the word of God. Without this we are but like poor pilgrims and wayfaring men in a strange country, not able to discern the way home. A blessed state is only sufficiently revealed in the word: “Life and immortality is brought to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). The heathens did but guess at it, and had some obscure sense of an estate after this life; but as it is brought to light with most clearness in the word, so the way thither is only pointed out by the word. It is the word of God makes us wise to salvation, and which is our line and rule to heavenly Canaan; and therefore it concerns those that look after this durable state to consult with the word.

4. There is no understanding God’s word but by the light of the Spirit. “There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding” (Job 32:8). Though the word have light in it, yet the spirit of man cannot move till God enlightens us with that lively light that makes way for the dominion of the truth in our hearts, and conveys influence into our hearts. This is the light David begs when he says, “Hide not thy commandments from me.” David was not ignorant of the Ten Commandments, of their sound; but he begs their spiritual sense and use.

5. If we would have the Spirit we must ask it of God in prayer; for God gives the “Spirit to them that ask him” (Luke 11:13); and therefore we must say, as David, “O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me: let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles” (Psalms 43:33). Thomas Manton.

**Ver. 19. I am a stranger in the earth,**etc. When a child is born, it is spoken of sometimes under the designation of “a little stranger!” Friends calling will ask if, as a privilege, they may “see the little stranger.” A stranger, indeed! come from far. From the immensities. From the presence, and touch, and being of God! And going into the immensities again into, and through all the unreckonable ages of duration.

But the little stranger grows, and in a while begins to take vigorous root. He works, and wins, and builds, and plants, and buys, and holds, and, in his own feeling, becomes so “settled” that he would be almost amused with anyone who should describe him as a stranger now.

And still life goes on, deepening and widening in its flow, and holding in itself manifold and still multiplying elements of interest. Increasingly the man is caught by these like a ship, from which many anchors are cast into the sea. He strives among the struggling, rejoices with the gay, feels the spur of honour, enters the race of acquisition, does some hard and many kindly things by turns; multiplies his engagements, his relationships, his friends, and then just when after such preparations, life ought to be fully beginning, and opening itself out into a great restful, sunny plain lo! the shadows begin to fall, which tell, too surely, that it is drawing fast to a close. The voice, which, soon or late, everyone must hear, is calling for “the little stranger, “who was born not long ago, whose first lesson is over, and who is wanted now to enter by the door called death, into another school. And the stranger is not ready. He has thrown out so many anchors, and they have taken such a fast hold of the ground that it will be no slight matter to raise them. He is settled. He has no pilgrim’s staff at hand; and his eye, familiar enough with surrounding things, is not accustomed to the onward and ascending way, cannot so well measure the mountain altitude, or reckon the far distance. The progress of time has been much swifter than the progress of his thought. Alas! he has made one long mistake. He has “looked at the things which are seen, “and forgotten the things which are not seen. And “the things which are seen” are temporal, and go with time into extinction; while “those which are not seen, are eternal.” And so there is hurry, and confusion, and distress in the last hours, and in the going away. Now, all this may be obviated and escaped, thoroughly, if a man will but say I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me. Alexander Raleigh, in “The Little Sanctuary, and other Meditations.” 1872.

**Ver. 19. I am a stranger in the earth,**etc. In the law, God recommends strangers to the care and compassion of his people; now David returns the arguments to him, to persuade him to deal kindly with him. *Robert Leighton,*1611-1684.

Ver. 19. In the earth. He makes no exception here; the whole earth he acknowledged a place of his pilgrimage. Not only when he was banished among the Moabites and Philistines was he a stranger; but even when he lived peaceably at home in Canaan, still he thinks himself a stranger. This consideration moved godly Basil to despise the threatening of Modestus, the deputy of Valens the emperor, when he braved him with banishment. Ab exilii metu liber sum, unam hominum cognoscens esse patram, paradisum omnem autem terram commune naturae exilium. And it shall move us to keep spiritual sobriety in the midst of pleasures, if we remember that in our houses, at our own fireside, and in our own beds, we are but strangers, from which we must shortly remove, to give place to others. William Cowper.

Ver. 19. Hide not thy commandments from me. The manner of David’s reasoning is this. I am here a stranger and I know not the way, therefore, Lord, direct me. The similitude is taken from passengers, who coming to an uncouth country where they are ignorant of the way, seek the benefit of a guide. But the dissimilitude is here: in any country people can guide a stranger to the place where he would be; but the dwellers of the earth cannot show the way to heaven; and therefore David seeks no guide among them, but prays the Lord to direct him. William Cowper.

Ver. 19. Hide not thy commandments from me. There is a hiding of the word of God when means to hear it explained by preachers are wanting; and there is a hiding of the comfortable and lively light of the Spirit, who must quicken the word into us. From both those evils we may, and we should, pray to be saved. David Dickson.

Psalm 119:20

Exposition

Ver. 20. My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times. True godliness lies very much in desires. As we are not what we shall be, so also we are not what we would be. The desires of gracious men after holiness are intense, they cause a wear of heart, a straining of the mind, till it feels ready to snap with the heavenly pull. A high value of the Lord’s commandment leads to a pressing desire to know and to do it, and this so weighs upon the soul that it is ready to break in pieces under the crush of its own longings. What a blessing it is when all our desires are after the things of God. We may well long for such longings.

God’s judgments are his decisions upon points which else had been in dispute. Every precept is a judgment of the highest court upon a point of action, an infallible and immutable decision upon a moral or spiritual question. The word of God is a code of justice from which there is no appeal.

“This is the Judge which ends the strife

Where wit and reason fail;

Our guide through devious paths of life,

Our shield when doubts assail.” Watts.

David had such reverence for the word, and such a desire to know it, and to be conformed to it, that his longings caused him a sort of heart break, which he here pleads before God. Longing is the soul of praying, and when the soul longs till it breaks, it cannot be long before the blessing will be granted. The most intimate communion between the soul and its God is carried on by the process described in the text. God reveals his will, and our heart longs to be conformed thereto. God judges, and our heart rejoices in the verdict. This is fellowship of heart most real and thorough.

Note well that our desire after the mind of God should be constant; we should feel holy longings “at all times.” Desires which can be put off and on like our garments are at best but mere wishes, and possibly they are hardly true enough to be called by that name, they are temporary emotions born of excitement, and doomed to die when the heat which created them has cooled down. He who always longs to know and do the right is the truly right man. His judgment is sound, for he loves all God’s judgments, and follows them with constancy. His times shall be good, since he longs to be good and to do good at all times.

Remark how this fourth of the third eight chimes with the fourth of the fourth eight. “My soul breaketh”; “my soul melteth.” There is surely some recondite poetic art about all this, and it is well for us to be careful in studying what the psalmist was so careful in composing.

Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings

**Ver. 20. My soul breaketh,**etc. Here is a protestation of that earnest desire he had to the obedience of the word of God; he amplifies it two ways: first, it was no light motion, but such as being deeply rooted made his heart to break when he saw that he could not do in the obedience thereof what he would. Next, it was no vanishing motion, like the morning dew; but it was permanent, omni tempore, he had it at all times. William Cowper.

**Ver. 20. My soul breaketh for the longing,**as one that with straining breaks a vein. William Gurnall.

**Ver. 20. My soul breaketh,**etc. This breaking is by rubbing, chafing, or crushing. The spirit was so fretted with its yearning desire after the things which Jehovah had spoken, that it was broken as by heavy friction. The “longing” to find out and follow the hidden wonders was almost unbearable. This longing continued with the Psalmist *“at all times, “*or “in every season.” Prosperity could not make him forget it; adversity could not quench it. In sickness or health, in happiness or sadness, in company or alone, nothing overcame that longing. “The wondrous things” were so wonderful, and still so hidden. To see a little of “the beauty of the Lord” is to get to know how much there is which we fail to see, and thus to long more than ever. He who pursues ardently the wonders of the word of the Lord, will never set that longing at rest as long as he remains “in the earth.” It is only when we shall “be like him, ” and “shall see him as he is, “that we shall cry, “Enough, Lord!” “I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness.” F. G. Marchant.

Ver. 20. My soul breaketh for the longing. For the earnest desire. “That it hath unto thy judgments at all times.” Thy law; thy commands. This was a constant feeling. It was not fitful, or spasmodic. It was the steady, habitual state of the soul on the subject. He had never seen enough of the beauty and glory of the law of God to feel that all the wants of his nature were satisfied, or that he could see and know no more; he had seen and felt enough to excite in him an ardent desire to be made fully acquainted with all that there is in the law of God. Albert Barnes.

**Ver. 20. My soul breaketh for the longing,**etc. The desire after God’s appointments becomes painfully intense. A longing an intense longing for the judgments of the Lord at all times. These are the particulars of his breaking soul. His whole mind is toward the things of God. He prays that he may behold the wondrous things of Jehovah’s law, and that he may not hide his commandments from him; and here his soul breaks for longing towards his judgments at all times. The state of the Psalmist’s mind would not lead us here to suppose that he was awaiting the manifestation of the Lord’s judgments in vindicating his cause against ungodly men, or that he was longing for opportunity of fulfilling all the deeds of righteousness towards his fellow men; for this he was doing to the utmost. Evidently he is intent upon the ordinances of religion, which were called “judgments” in reference to the solemn sanctions with which they were enjoined. The man of God so longed to join with the Lord’s people in these, that his heart was ready to break with desire, as he was forced from place to place in the wilderness. The renewed heart is here. Another might long to be delivered from persecution, to be at rest, to be restored to home, relations, and comfort. The man of God could not but desire those natural enjoyments; but, over all, his holy mind longed with ardour for the celebration of Jehovah’s worship. John Stephen.

Ver. 20. Thy judgments. God’s judgments are of two sorts: first, his commands; so called because by them right is judged and discerned from wrong. Next, his plagues executed upon transgressors according to his word. David here refers to the first. Let men who have not the like of David’s desire, remember, that they whose heart cannot break for transgressing God’s word because they love it, shall find the plagues of God to bruise their body and break their heart also. Let us delight in the first sort of these judgments, and the second shall never come upon us. William Cowper.

Ver. 20. Mark that word, at all times. Bad men have their good moods, as good men have their bad moods. A bad man may, under gripes of conscience, a smarting rod, the approaches of death, or the fears of hell, or when he is sermon sick, cry out to the Lord for grace, for righteousness, for holiness; but he is the only blessed man that hungers and thirsts after righteousness at all times. *Thomas Brooks,*1608-1680.

Ver. 20. At all times. Some prize the word in adversity, when they have no other comfort to live upon; then they can be content to study the word to comfort them in their distresses; but when they are well at ease, they despise it. But David made use of it “at all times; ” in prosperity, to humble him; in adversity, to comfort him; in the one, to keep him from pride; in the other, to keep him from despair; in affliction, the word was his cordial; in worldly increase, it was his antidote; and so at all times his heart was carried out to the word either for one necessity or another. Thomas Manton.

Ver. 20. At all times. How few are there even among the servants of God who know anything of the intense feeling of devotion here expressed! O that our cold and stubborn hearts were warmed and subdued by divine grace, that we might be ready to faint by reason of the longing which we had “at all times” for the judgments of our God. How fitful are our best feelings! If today we ascend the mount of communion with God, tomorrow we are in danger of being again entangled with the things of earth. How happy are they whose hearts are “at all times” filled with longings after fellowship with the great and glorious object of their love! *John Morison,*1829.

Ver. 20. If you read the lives of good men, who have been, also, intellectually great, you will be struck, I think, even to surprise, a surprise, however, which will not be unpleasant, to find them, at the close of life, in their own estimation so ignorant, so utterly imperfect, so little the better of the long life lesson. Dr. Chalmers, after kindling churches and arousing nations to their duties, summed up his own attainments in the word “desirousness, “and took as the text that best described his inner state, that passionate, almost painful cry of David, My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments. But how grand was the attainment! To be in old age as simple as a little child before God! To be still learning at threescore years and ten! How beautiful seem the great men in their simplicity! *Alexander Raleigh, in “The Little Sanctuary, “*1872.

Hints to Preachers

Ver. 20.

1. The word sought, and sought at all times.

2. The word sought, and sought with intense desire.

3. The word sought, and sought the more intensely the more it is found. It was because he had found so much in the word of the Lord already, that the soul of the Psalmist was breaking to find more. Those who have been once admitted to “the secret of the Lord” find their highest joy in knowing that secret still more fully. It is to those who know that secret that the promise is given: “He will show them his covenant:” Psalms 25:14. F.G.M.

Ver. 20. One of the best tests of character and prophecies of what a man will be, are his longings.

1. The saint’s absorbing object:“Thy judgments.” The word here is synonymous with the “word” of God.

(a) The Psalmist greatly reverenced the word.

(b) He intensely desired to know its contents.

(c) He wishes to feed upon God’s word.

(d) He longed to obey it.

(e) He longed to feel the power of God’s judgments in his own

heart.

2. The saint’s ardent longings.

(a) They constitute a living experience.

(b) The expression used in the text represents a humble

sense of imperfection.

(c) It indicates an advanced experience.

(d) It is an experience which we may term a bitter sweet.

(e) These longings may become very wearying to a man’s

soul.

3. Cheering reflections.

(a) God is at work in your soul.

(b) The result of God’s work is very precious.

(c) It is leading on to something more precious.

(d) The desire itself is doing you good.

(e) It makes Christ precious. See “Spurgeon’s Sermons, “No.

1586: “Holy Longings.”

Psalm 119:21

Exposition

Ver. 21. Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed. This is one of God’s judgments: he is sure to deal out a terrible portion to men of lofty looks. God rebuked Pharaoh with sore plagues, and at the Red Sea “In the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord.” In the person of the naughty Egyptian he taught all the proud that he will certainly abase them. Proud men are cursed men: nobody blesses them, and they soon become a burden to themselves. In itself, pride is a plague and torment. Even if no curse came from the law of God, there seems to be a law of nature that proud men should be unhappy men. This led David to abhor pride; he dreaded the rebuke of God and the curse of the law. The proud sinners of his day were his enemies, and he felt happy that God was in the quarrel as well as he.

Which do err from thy commandments. Only humble hearts are obedient, for they alone will yield to rule and government. Proud men’s looks are high, too high to mark their own feet and keep the Lord’s way. Pride lies at the root of all sin: if men were not arrogant they would not be disobedient.

God rebukes pride even when the multitudes pay homage to it, for he sees in it rebellion against his own majesty, and the seeds of yet further rebellions. It is the sum of sin. Men talk of an honest pride; but if they were candid they would see that it is of all sins the least honest, and the least becoming in a creature, and especially in a fallen creature: yet so little do proud men know their own true condition under the curse of God, that they set up to censure the godly, and express contempt for them, as may be seen in the next verse. They are themselves contemptible, and yet they are contemptuous towards their betters. We may well love the judgments of God when we see them so decisively levelled against the haughty upstarts who would fain lord it over righteous men; and we may well be of good under the rebukes of the ungodly since their power to hurt us is destroyed by the Lord himself. “The Lord rebuke thee” is answer enough for all the accusations of men or devils.

In the fifth of the former octave the Psalmist wrote, “I have declared all the judgments of thy mouth, “and here he continues in the same strain, giving a particular instance of the Lord’s judgments against haughty rebels. In the next two portions the fifth verses deal with lying and vanity, and pride is one of the most common forms of those evils.

Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings

Ver. 21. Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed. If the proud escape here, as sometimes they do, hereafter they shall not; for, “the proud man is an abomination to the Lord”; Proverbs 16:5. God cannot endure him; Psalms 101:5. And what of that? Tu perdes superbos, Thou shalt destroy the proud. The very heathens devised the proud giants struck with thunder from heaven. And if God spared not the angels, whom he placed in the highest heavens, but for their pride threw them down headlong to the nethermost hell, how much less shall he spare the proud dust and ashes of the sons of men, but shall cast them from the height of their earthly altitude to the bottom of that infernal dungeon! “Humility makes men angels; pride makes angels devils; “as that father said: I may well add, makes devils of men. Alazoneiav outiv ekfeugei dikhn, says the heathen poet, Menander; “Never soul escaped the revenge of pride, ” never shall escape it. So sure as God is just, pride shall not go unpunished. I know now we are all ready to call for a bason, with Pilate, and to wash our hands from this foul sin. Honourable and beloved, this vice is a close one; it will cleave fast to you; yea, so close that ye can hardly discern it from a piece of yourselves: this is it that aggravates the danger of it. For, as Aquinas notes well, some sins are more dangerous propter vehementiam impugnationis, “for the fury of their assault”; as the sin of anger: others for their correspondence to nature; as the sins of lust: other, propter latentiam sui,“for their close skulking” in our bosom; as the sin of pride. Oh, let us look seriously into the corners of our false hearts, even with the lanthorn of God’s law, and find out this subtle devil; and never give peace to our souls till we have dispossessed him. Down with your proud plumes, O ye glorious peacocks of the world: look upon your black legs, and your snake like head: be ashamed of your miserable infirmities: else, God will down with them and yourselves in a fearful vengeance. There is not the holiest of us but is this way faulty: oh, let us be humbled by our repentance, that we may not be brought down to everlasting confusion: let us be cast down upon our knees, that we may not be cast down upon our faces. For God will make good his own word, one way; “A man’s pride shall bring him low.” *Joseph Hall,*1574-1656.

Ver. 21. Thou hast rebuked the proud. Let the histories of Cain, Pharaoh, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar, and Herod, exhibit the proud under the rebuke and curse of God. He abhors their persons and their offerings: he “knows them afar off”: he “resisteth them”: “he scattereth them in the imaginations of their hearts.” Yet more especially hateful are they in his sight, when cloaking themselves under a spiritual garb, “which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me: for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.” David and Hezekiah are instructive beacons in the church, that God’s people, whenever they give place to the workings of a proud heart, must not hope to escape his rebuke. “Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance on their inventions:” Psalms 99:8. Charles Bridges.

Ver. 21. Thou hast rebuked the proud. David addeth another reason whereby he is more enflamed to pray unto God and to address himself unto him to be taught in his word; to wit, when he seeth that he hath so, “rebuked the proud.” For the chastisement and punishments which God layeth upon the faithless and rebellious should be a good instruction for us; as it is said that God hath executed judgment, and that the inhabitants of the land should learn his righteousness. It is not without cause that the prophet Isaiah also hath so said; for he signifieth unto us that God hath by divers and sundry means drawn us unto him, and that chiefly when he teacheth us to fear his majesty. For without it, alas, we shall soon become like unto brute beasts: if God lay the bridle on our necks, what license we will give unto ourselves experience very well teacheth us. Now God seeing that we are so easily brought to run at random, sendeth us examples, because he would bring us to walk in fear and carefully. John Calvin.

Ver. 21. The proud. This is a style commonly given to the wicked; because as it is our oldest evil, so is it the strongest and first that strives in our corrupt nature to carry men to transgress the bounds appointed by the Lord. From the time that pride entered into Adam’s heart, that he would be higher than God had made him, he spared not to eat of the forbidden tree. And what else is the cause of all transgression, but that man’s ignorant pride will have his will preferred to the will of God. William Cowper.

Ver. 21. The proud. Peter speaks of the proud, as if they did challenge God like champions, and provoke him like rebels, so that unless he did resist them, they would go about to deprive him of his rule, as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram undermined Moses. Numbers 16:1-33.

For so the proud man saith, I will be like the highest, Isaiah 14:12-15, and, if he could, above the highest too. This is the creature that was taken out of the dust, Genesis 2:7, and so soon as he was made, he opposed himself against that majesty which the angels adore, the thrones worship, the devils fear, and the heavens obey. How many sins are in this sinful world! and yet, as Solomon saith of the good wife, Proverbs 31:29, “Many daughters have done virtuously, but you surmount them all”; so may I say of pride, many sins have done wickedly, but you surmount them all; for the wrathful man, the prodigal man, the lascivious man, the surfeiting man, the slothful man, is rather an enemy to himself than to God; but the proud man sets himself against God, because he doth against his laws; he maketh himself equal with God, because he doth all without God, and craves no help of him; he exalteth himself above God, because he will have his own will though it be contrary to God’s will. As the humble man saith, Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give the glory, Psalms 115:1; so the proud man saith, Not unto Him, not unto Him, but unto us give the glory. Like unto Herod which took the name of God, and was honoured of all but the worms, and they showed that he was not a god, but a man, Acts 12:21. Therefore proud men may be called God’s enemies, because as the covetous pull riches from men, so the proud pull honour from God. Beside, the proud man hath no cause to be proud, as other sinners have; the covetous for riches, the ambitious for honour, the voluptuous for pleasure, the envious for wrong, the slothful for ease; but the proud man hath no cause to be proud, but pride itself, which saith, like Pharaoh, “I will not obey, ” Exodus 5:2. *Henry Smith,*1560-1591.

Ver. 21. Proud that are cursed. Proud men endure the curse of never having friends; not in prosperity, because they know nobody; not in adversity, because then nobody knows them. John Whitecross, in “Anecdotes illustrative of the Old Testament.”

Ver. 21. This use of God’s judgments upon others must we make to ourselves; first, that we may be brought to acknowledge our deserts, and so may fear; and, next, that we may so behold his justice upon the proud that we may have assurance of his mercy to the humble. This is hard to flesh and blood; for some can be brought to rejoice at the destruction of others, and cannot fear; and others, when they are made to fear, cannot receive comfort. But those which God hath joined together let us not separate: therefore let us make these uses of God’s judgments. Richard Greenham.

Hints to Preachers

Ver. 21.

1. The character of the proud.

2. God’s dealings with them.

3. Our own relation to them.

Ver. 21.

1. The sin; “Err from the commandments.”

(a) By neglect; or,

(b) By abuse of them.

2. Its origin pride: pride of reason, of heart, of life.

3. Its punishment.

(a) Rebuke.

(b) Condemnation. G.R.

Psalm 119:22

Exposition

Ver. 22. Remove from me reproach and contempt. These are painful things to tender minds. David could bear them for righteousness sake, but they were a heavy yoke, and he longed to be free from them. To be slandered, and then to be despised in consequence of the vile accusation, is a grievous affliction. No one likes to be traduced, or even to be despised. He who says, “I care nothing for my reputation, ” is not a wise man, for in Solomon’s esteem, “a good name is better than precious ointment.” The best way to deal with slander is to pray about it: God will either remove it, or remove the sting from it. Our own attempts at clearing ourselves are usually failures; we are like the boy who wished to remove the blot from his copy, and by his bungling made it ten times worse. When we suffer from a libel it is better to pray about it than go to law over it, or even to demand an apology from the inventor. O ye who are reproached, take your matters before the highest court, and leave them with the Judge of all the earth. God will rebuke your proud accuser; be ye quiet and let your advocate plead your cause.

For I have kept thy testimonies. Innocence may justly ask to be cleared from reproach. If there be truth in the charges alleged against us what can we urge with God? If, however, we are wrongfully accused our appeal has a locus standi in the court and cannot be refused. If through fear of reproach we forsake the divine testimony we shall deserve the coward’s doom; our safety lies in sticking close to the true and to the right. God will keep those who keep his testimonies. A good conscience is the best security for a good name; reproach will not abide with those who abide with Christ, neither will contempt remain upon those who remain faithful to the ways of the Lord.

This verse stands as a parallel both in sense and position to Psalms 119:6, and it has the catchword of “testimonies, “by which it chimes with Psalms 119:14.

Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings

Ver. 22. Remove from me reproach and contempt. Here David prays against the reproach and contempt of men; that they might be *removed,*or, as the word is, rolled from off him. This intimates that they lay upon him, and neither his greatness nor his goodness could secure him from being libelled and lampooned: some despised him and endeavoured to make him mean, others reproached him and endeavoured to make him odious. It has often been the lot of those that do well to be ill spoken of. It intimates, that this burden lay heavy upon him. Hard words indeed and foul words break no bones, and yet they are very grievous to a tender and ingenuous spirit: therefore David prays, Lord, “remove” them from me, that I may not be thereby either driven from any duty, or discouraged in it. Matthew Henry

**Ver. 22. Remove from me reproach and contempt,**etc. In the words (as in most of the other verses) you have, 1. A request: Remove from me reproach and contempt. 2. A reason and argument to enforce the request: For I have kept thy testimonies.

First, for the request, Remove from me reproach and contempt; the word signifies, Roll from upon me, let it not come at me, or let it not stay with me. And then the argument: for I have kept thy testimonies. The reason may be either thus: (1) He pleads that he was innocent of what was charged upon him, and had not deserved those aspersions. (2) He intimates that it was for his obedience, for this very cause, that he had kept the word, therefore was reproach rolled upon him. (3) It may be conceived thus, that his respect to God’s word was not abated by this reproach, he still kept God’s testimonies, how wicked soever he did appear in the eyes of the world. It is either an assertion of his innocency, or he shows the ground why this reproach came upon him, or he pleads that his respect to God and his service was not lessened, whatever reproach he met with in the performance of it.

The points from hence are many.

1. It is no strange thing that they which keep God’s testimonies should be slandered and reproached.

2. As it is the usual lot of God’s people to be reproached; so it is very grievous to them, and heavy to bear.

3. It being grievous, we may lawfully seek the removal of it. So doth David, and so may we, with submission to God’s will.

4. In removal of it, it is best to deal with God about it; for God is the great witness of our sincerity, as knowing all things, and so to be appealed to in the case. Again, God is the most powerful asserter of our innocency; he hath the hearts and tongues of men in his own hands, and can either prevent the slanderer from uttering reproach, or the hearer from the entertainment of the reproach. He that hath such power over the consciences of men can clear up our innocency; therefore it is best to deal with God about it; and prayer many times proves a better vindication than an apology.

5. In seeking relief with God from this evil, it is a great comfort and ground of confidence when we are innocent of what is charged. In some cases we must humble ourselves, and then God will take care for our credit; we must plead guilty when, by our own fault, we have given occasion to the slanders of the wicked: so, “Turn away my reproach, which I fear: for thy judgments are good” (Psalms 119:39). “My reproach, “for it was in part deserved by himself, and therefore he feared the sad consequences of it, and humbled himself before God. But at other times we may stand upon our integrity, as David saith here: “Turn away my reproach which I fear: for thy judgments are good.” Thomas Manton.

Psalm 119:23

Exposition

Ver. 23. Princes also did sit and speak against me. David was high game, and the great ones of the earth went a hawking after him. Princes saw in him a greatness which they envied, and therefore they abused him. On their thrones they might have found something better to consider and speak about, but they turned the seat of judgment into the seat of the scorner. Most men covet a prince’s good word, and to be spoken ill of by a great man is a great discouragement to them, but the Psalmist bore his trial with holy calmness. Many of the lordly ones were his enemies, and made it their business to speak ill of him: they held sittings for scandal, sessions for slander, parliaments of falsehood, and yet he survived all their attempts upon him.

But thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. This was brave indeed. He was God’s servant, and therefore he attended to his Master’s business; he was God’s servant, and therefore felt sure that his Lord would defend him. He gave no heed to his princely slanderers, he did not even allow his thoughts to be disturbed by a knowledge of their plotting in conclave. Who were these malignants that they should rob God of his servant’s attention, or deprive the Lord’s chosen of a moment’s devout communion. The rabble of princes were not worth five minutes’ thought, if those five minutes had to be taken from holy meditation. It is very beautiful to see the two sittings: the princes sitting to reproach David, and David sitting with his God and his Bible, answering his traducers by never answering them at all. Those who feed upon the word grow strong and peaceful, and are by God’s grace hidden from the strife of tongues.

Note that in the close of the former octave he had said, “I will meditate, “and here he shows how he had redeemed his promise, even under great provocation to forget it. It is a praiseworthy thing when the resolve of our happy hours is duly carried out in our seasons of affliction.

Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings

**Ver. 23. Princes also did sit,**under the shadow of justice, and speak against me. Now this was a great temptation to David, that he was not only mocked and scorned at the taverns and inns, being there blazoned by dissolute jesters and scoffers, and talked of in the streets and market places; but even in the place of justice (which ought to be holy); it could not therefore be chosen but that they also would utterly defame and slander him, and condemn him to be, as it were, a most wicked and cursed man. When David then did see that he was thus unjustly entreated and handled, he makes his complaint unto God, and says, “O Lord, the princes and governors themselves do sit and speak evil against me; and yet for all that I have kept thy testimonies.” Here in sum we are to gather out of this place, that if it so fall out, when we have walked uprightly and in a good conscience? that we are falsely slandered, and accused of this and that whereof we never once thought; yet ought we to bear all things patiently; for let us be sure of that, that we are not better than David, whatever great protestation of our integrity and purity we may dare to make. John Calvin.

Ver. 23 But thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. As husbandmen, when their ground is overflowed by waters, make ditches and water furrows to carry it away; so, when our minds and thoughts are overwhelmed with trouble, it is good to divert them to some other matter. But every diversion will not become saints, it must be a holy diversion: “In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul” (Psalms 94:19). The case was the same with that of the text, when the throne of iniquity frameth mischief by a law; as you shall see here, when he had many perplexed thoughts about the abuse of power against himself. But now where lay his ease in diversion? Would every diversion suit his purpose? No; “Thy comforts, ” comforts of God’s allowance, of God’s providing, comforts proper to saints. Wicked men in trouble run to their pot and pipe, and games and sports, and merry company, and so defeat the providence rather than improve it: but David, who was God’s servant, must have God’s comforts. So, elsewhere, when his thoughts were troubled about the power of the wicked: “I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end” (Psalms 73:17). He goeth to divert his mind by the use of God’s ordinances, and so cometh to be settled against the temptation. Thomas Manton.

Ver. 23. But thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. Perceive here the armour by which David fights against his enemy. Arma justi quibus omnes adversariorum repellit impetus, his weapons are the word and player. He renders not injury for injury, reproach for reproach. It is dangerous to fight against Satan or his instruments with their own weapons; for so they shall easily overcome us. Let us fight with the armour of God the exercises of the word and prayer: for a man may peaceably rest in his secret chamber, and in these two see the miserable end of all those who are enemies to God’s children for God’s sake. William Cowper.

Ver. 23. Thy statutes. It is impossible to live either Christianly or comfortable without the daily use of Scripture. It is absolutely necessary for our direction in all our ways before we begin them, and when we have ended them, for the warrant of our approbation of them, for resolving of our doubts, and comforting us in our griefs. Without it our conscience is a blind guide, and leadeth us in a mist of ignorance, error, and confusion. Therein we hear God speaking to us, declaring his good will to us concerning our salvation, and the way of our obedience to meet him in his good will. What book can we read with such profit and comfort? For matter, it is wisdom: for authority, it is divine and absolute: for majesty, God himself under common words and letters expressing an unspeakable power to stamp our heart. Where shall we find our minds so enlightened, our hearts so deeply affected, our conscience so moved, both for casting us down and raising us up? I cannot find in all the books of the world, such an one speak to me, as in Scripture, with so absolute a conquest of all the powers of my soul.

Contemners of Scripture lack food for their souls, light for their life and weapons for their spiritual warfare; but the lovers of Scripture have all that furniture. Therein we hear the voice of our Beloved, we smell the savour of his ointments, and have daily access unto the art of propitiation. If in our knowledge we desire divinity, excellency, antiquity, and efficiency, we cannot find it, but in God’s word alone. It is the extract of heavenly wisdom, which Christ the eternal Word brought out of the bosom of his Father. *William Struther,*1633.

Ver. 23-24. The two last verses of this section contain two protestations of David’s honest affection to the word. The first is, that albeit he was persecuted and evil spoken of, and that by great and honourable men of the world, such as Saul, and Abner, and Ahithophel; yet did he still meditate in the statutes of God. It is a hard temptation when the godly are troubled by any wicked men; but much harder when they are troubled by men of honour and authority. And that, first, by reason of their place:the greater power they have, the greater peril to encounter with their displeasure; therefore said Solomon, “The wrath of a king is as messengers of death.” Next, because authorities and powers are ordained by God, not for the terror of the good, but of the evil: Romans 13:3. And therefore it is no small grief to the godly, when they find them abused to a contrary end: that where a ruler should be to good men like rain to the fields new mown, he becomes a favourer of evil men and a persecutor of the good. Then justice is turned into wormwood; that which should bring comfort to such as fear God, is abused to oppress them. And therefore it should be accounted a great benefit of God, when he gives a people good and religious rulers. William Cowper.

Ver. 23, 51. If the 119th Psalm came from the pen of David, as multitudes believe, then I do not wonder that many have connected its composition with his residence in the school of the prophets of Naioth. The calm in which he then found himself, and the studies which he then prosecuted, might well have led his musings in the direction of that alphabetic code, while there are in it not a few expressions which, to say the least, may have particular reference to the dangers out of which he had so recently escaped, and by which he was still threatened. Such, for example, are the following: “Princes also did sit and speak against me”: but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. “The proud have had me greatly in derision: yet have I not declined from thy law.” William M. Taylor, in “David, King of Israel; his Life and its

Lessons.” 1880.

Hints to Preachers

Ver. 23. Meditation.

1. Our best employment while others slander.

2. Our best comfort under their falsehood.

3. Our best preservative from a spirit of revenge.

4. Our best mode of showing our superiority to their attacks.

Psalm 119:24

Exposition

Ver. 24. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counsellors. They were not only themes for meditation, but “also” sources of delight and means of guidance. While his enemies took counsel with each other the holy man took counsel with the testimonies of God. The fowlers could not drive the bird from its nest with all their noise. It was their delight to slander and his delight to meditate. The words of the Lord serve us for many purposes; in our sorrows they are our delight, and in our difficulties they are our guide; we derive joy from them and discover wisdom in them. If we desire to find comfort in the Scriptures we must submit ourselves to their counsel, and when we follow their counsel it must not be with reluctance but with delight. This is the safest way of dealing with those who plot for our ruin; let us give more heed to the true testimonies of the Lord than to the false witness of our foes. The best answer to accusing princes is the word of the justifying King.

In Psalms 119:16 David said, “I will delight in thy statutes, “and here he says “they are my delight”: thus resolutions formed in God’s strength come to fruit, and spiritual desires ripen into actual attainments. O that it might be so with all the readers of these lines.

Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings

Ver. 24. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counsellors. His delight and his counsellors, that is, his delight because his counsellors; his counsellors, and therefore his delight. We know how delightful it is to any to have the advantage of good counsel, according to the perplexities and distractions in which they may be. “Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel, “says Solomon, Proverbs 27:9. Now this is the sweetness of Divine communion, and of meditation on God and his word; it employs a man with seasonable counsel, which is a very great refreshment to us. *T. Horton,*1673.

**Ver. 24. Thy testimonies also are my delight,**etc. Those that would have God’s testimonies to be their delight, must make them for their counsellors and be advised by them: and let those that take them for their counsellors in close walking, take them for their delight in comfortable walking. Matthew Henry.

Ver. 24. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counsellors. What could we want more in a time of difficulty than comfort and direction David had both these blessings. As the fruit of his “meditation in the Lord’s statutes, “in his distress they were his “delight”; in his seasons of perplexity they were his *“counsellors, “*directing his behaviour in the perfect way. Charles Bridges.

Ver. 24. My counsellors. In the Hebrew it is, “the men of my counsel, “which is fitly mentioned; for he had spoken of princes sitting in council against him. Princes do nothing without the advice of their Privy Council; a child of God hath also his Privy Council, God’s testimonies. On the one side there was Saul and his nobles and counsellors; on the other side there was David and God’s testimonies. Now, who was better furnished, think you, they to persecute and trouble him, or David how to carry himself under this trouble? Alphonsus, king of Arragon, being asked who were the best counsellors? answered, “The dead (meaning books), which cannot flatter, but do without partiality declare the truth.” Now of all such dead counsellors, God’s testimonies have the preeminence. A poor, godly man, even then when he is deserted of all, and hath nobody to plead for him, he hath his senate, and his council of state about him, the prophets and apostles, and “other holy men of God, that spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” A man so furnished, is never less alone than when alone; for he hath counsellors about him that tell him what is to be believed or done; and they are such counsellors as cannot err, as will not flatter him, nor applaud him in any sin, nor discourage or dissuade him from that which is good, whatever hazard it expose him to. And truly, if we be wise, we should choose such counsellors as these: “Thy testimonies are the men of my counsel.” Thomas Manton.

Ver. 24. My counsellors. See here a sentence worthy to be weighed of us, when David calleth the commandments of God his “counsellors.” For, in the first place, he meaneth that he might scorn all the wisdom of the most able and most expert men in the world, since he was conducted by the word of God, and governed thereby. In the second place, he meaneth that when he shall be so governed by the word of God, he would not only be truly wise, but that it would be as if he had all the wisdom of all the men in the world, yea, and a great deal more. John Calvin.

Hints to Preachers

Ver. 24.

1. He reverenced them as God’s testimonies.

2. He revelled in them as his delight.

3. He referred to them as his counsellors.

Psalm 119:25

Exposition

Ver. 25-32. Here, it seems to me, we have the Psalmist in trouble bewailing the bondage to earthly things in which he finds his mind to be held. His soul cleaves to the dust, melts for heaviness, and cries for enlargement from its spiritual prison. In these verses we shall see the influence of the divine word upon a heart which laments its downward tendencies, and is filled with mourning because of its deadening surroundings. The word of the Lord evidently arouses prayer (Psalms 119:25-29), confirms choice (Psalms 119:30), and inspires renewed resolve (Psalms 119:32): it is in all tribulation whether of body: or mind the surest source of help.

This portion has ‘D’ for its alphabetical letter: it sings of Depression, in the spirit of Devotion, Determination, and Dependence.

Ver. 25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust. He means in part that he was full of sorrow; for mourners in the east cast dust on their heads, and sat in ashes, and the Psalmist felt as if these ensigns of woe were glued to him, and his very soul was made to cleave to them because of his powerlessness to rise above his grief. Does he not also mean that he felt ready to die? Did he not feel his life absorbed and fast held by the grave’s mould, half choked by the death dust? It may not be straining the language if we conceive that he also felt and bemoaned his earthly mindedness and spiritual deadness. There was a tendency in his soul to cling to earth which he greatly bewailed. Whatever was the cause of his complaint, it was no surface evil, but an affair of his inmost spirit; his soul cleaved to the dust; and it was not a casual and accidental falling into the dust, but a continuous and powerful tendency, or cleaving to the earth. But what a mercy that the good man could feel and deplore whatever there was of evil in the cleaving! The serpent’s seed can find their meat in the dust, but never shall the seed of the woman be thus degraded. Many are of the earth earthy, and never lament it; only the heaven born and heaven soaring spirit pines at the thought of being fastened to this world, and bird limed by its sorrows or its pleasures.

Quicken thou me according to thy word. More life is the cure for all our ailments. Only the Lord can give it. He can bestow it, bestow it at once, and do it according to his word, without departing from the usual course of his grace, as we see it mapped out in the Scriptures. It is well to know what to pray for, David seeks quickening: one would have thought that he would have asked for comfort or upraising, but he knew that these would come out of increased life, and therefore he sought that blessing which is the root of the rest. When a person is depressed in spirit, weak, and bent towards the ground, the main thing is to increase his stamina and put more life into him; then his spirit revives, and his body becomes erect. In reviving the life, the whole man is renewed. Shaking off the dust is a little thing by itself, but when it follows upon quickening, it is a blessing of the greatest value; just as good spirits which flow from established health are among the choicest of our mercies. The phrase, “according to thy word, “means according to thy revealed way of quickening thy saints. The word of God shows us that he who first made us must keep us alive, and it tells us of the Spirit of God who through the ordinances pours fresh life into our souls; we beg the Lord to act towards us in this his own regular method of grace. Perhaps David remembered the word of the Lord in Deuteronomy 32:39, where Jehovah claims both to kill and to make alive, and he beseeches the Lord to exercise that life giving power upon his almost expiring servant. Certainly, the man of God had not so many rich promises to rest upon as we have, but even a single word was enough for him, and he right earnestly urges “according to thy word.” It is a grand thing to see a believer in the dust and yet pleading the promise, a man at the grave’s mouth crying, “quicken me, “and hoping that it shall be done.

Note how this first verse of the 4th octonary tallies with the first of the “Quicken me.” While in a happy third (17). “That I may live”… “Quicken me.” While in a happy state he begs for bountiful dealing, and when in a forlorn condition he prays for quickening. Life is in both cases the object of pursuit: that he may have life, and have it more abundantly.

Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings

The eight verses alphabetically arranged:

25. (D)epressed to the dust is my soul: quicken thou me according to thy word.

26. (D)eclared have I (to thee) my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes.

27. (D)eclare thou to me the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.

28. (D)ropping (marg.) is my soul for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.

29. (D)eceitful ways remove from me; and grant me thy law graciously.

30. (D)etermined have I upon the way of truth; thy judgments have I laid before me.

31. (D)eliberately I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O Lord, put me not to shame.

32. (D)ay by day I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart. Theodore Kubber.

Ver. 25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust. The Hebrew word for “cleaveth” signifies “is joined, ""has adhered, ""has overtaken, ""has taken hold, ""has joined itself.” Our soul is a polypus: as the polypus readily adheres to the rocks, so does the soul cleave to the earth; and hardly can it be torn from the place to which it has once strongly attached itself. Though thy soul be now more perfect, and escaping from the waters of sin has become a bird of heaven, be not careless; earthly things are birdlime and glue; if you rub the wings against these thou wilt be held, and joined to the earth. Thomas Le Blanc.

**Ver. 25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust,**etc. The word rendered “cleaveth” means to be glued to; to stick fast. It has the sense of adhering firmly to anything, so that it cannot easily be separated from it. The word “dust” here may mean either the earth, and earthly things, considered as low, base, unworthy, worldly; or it may mean the grave, as if he were near to that, and in danger of dying. De Wette understands it in the latter sense. Yet the word cleave would hardly suggest this idea; and the force of that word would be better represented by the idea that his soul, as it were, adhered to the things of earth, that it seemed to be so fastened to them so glued to them that it could not be detached from them; that his affections were low, earthly, grovelling, so as to give him deep distress, and lead him to cry to God for Life and strength that he might break away from them. Albert Barnes.

**Ver. 25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust,**etc. The first clause seems intended to suggest two consistent but distinct ideas, that of deep degradation, as in Psalms 44:25, and that of death, as in Psalms 22:29. The first would be more obvious in itself, and in connection with the parallel referred to; but the other seems to be indicated as the prominent idea by the correlative petition for quickening in the last clause. *“Quicken, “*i.e., save me alive, or restore me to life, the Hebrew word being a causative of the verb to live. Joseph Addison Alexander.

**Ver. 25. My soul cleaveth to the dust,**etc. In this verse, David hath a complaint; “My soul cleaveth to the dust”; and a prayer; Quicken thou me according to thy word. The prayer, being well considered, shall teach us the meaning of the complaint; that it was not, as some think, any hard bodily estate which grieved him, but a very sore spiritual oppression (as I may call it), bearing down his soul; that where he should have mounted up toward heaven, he was pressed down to the earth, and was so clogged with earthly cogitations, or affections, or perturbations, that he could not mount up. His particular temptation he expresses not; for the children of God many times are in that estate that they cannot tell their own griefs, and sometimes so troubled, that it is not expedient, albeit they might, to express them to others.

And hereof we learn, how that which the worldling counts wisdom, to the Christian is folly; what is joy to the one, is grief to the other. The joy of a worldling is to cleave unto the earth; when he gripes it surest, he thinks himself happiest, for it is his portion: to take heed to his worldly affairs, and have his mind upon them (in his estimation) is only wisdom. For the serpent’s curse is upon him, he creeps on the earth, and licks the dust all the days of his life. This is the miserable condition of the wicked, that even their heavenly soul is become earthly. Qui secundum corporis appetentiam vivit caro *est, etiam anima eorum caro est;*as the Lord spake of those who perished in the Deluge, that they were but flesh, no spirit in them; that is, no spiritual or heavenly motion.

But the Christian, considering that his soul is from above, sets his affection also on those things which are above: he delights to have his conversation in heaven; and it is a grief to him when he finds his motions and affections drawn down and entangled with the earth. His life is to cleave to the Lord; but it is death to him when the neck of his soul is bowed down to the yoke of the world. William Cowper.

Ver. 25. My soul cleaveth to the dust. “Look up now to the heavens.” So once spake the Lord to Abraham his friend, and he speaketh thus to us also. Alas! why must it be so always that, when we come to know ourselves even but a little, we are constantly answering with the mournful sigh, “My soul cleaveth to the dust”? Ah! that is indeed the deepest pain of a soul which has already tasted that the Lord is merciful, when, although desiring to soar on high, it sadly feels how impossible it is to rise. There is much hidden pain in every heart of man even in the spiritual life; but what can deeper grieve us than the perception that we are chained as with leaden weights to things concerning which we know that they may weary but cannot satisfy us? Nay, we could never have supposed, when we first, heard the Psalm of the Good Shepherd, that it could issue from a heart that panteth after God so often and so bitterly; we could never have imagined that it could become so cold, so dry, so dark within a heart which at an earlier period had tasted so much of the power of that which is to come. Have we not formerly, with this same Psalm, been able to vaunt, “I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches”? But afterwards, but now perhaps… Oh sad hours, when the beams of the sun within seem quenched, and nothing but a blond red disc remains! The fervency of the first love is cooled; earthly cares and sins have, as it were, attached a leaden plummet to the wings of the soul which, God knows, would fain soar upwards. We would render thanks, and scarce can pray; we would pray, and scarce can sigh. Our treasure is in heaven, but our soul cleaves to the earth; at least earth cleaves on all sides so to it, and weighs it down, that the eye merely sees the clouds, the tongue can but breathe forth complaints. Ah, so completely can the earth fetter us, that the heavens appear to be only a problem, and our old man is like the Giant of Mythology, who, cast to the ground in the exhausting combat, receives by contact with his mother earth fresh strength. Oh, were it otherwise! Shall it not at last, at last be altered?

Dost thou really desire it, thou who out of the depths of thy soul so complainest, and canst scarcely find more tears to bewail the sorrow of thy heart? Well is it for thee if the pain thou sufferest teach thee to cry to God: “Quicken thou me, according to thy word.” Yea, this is the best comfort for him who too well knows what it is to be bowed together with pain; this is the only hope for a heart which almost sinks in still despair. There is an atmosphere of life, high above this dust which streams to us from every side, and penetrates even the darkest dungeon. There is a spring of life by which the weary soul may be refreshed; and the entrance to this spring stands open, in spite of all the clouds of dust which obscure this valley of shadows here. There is a power of life which can even so completely make an end of our dead state, that we shall walk again before the face of the Lord in the land of the living, and, instead of uttering lamentation, we shall bear a song of praise upon our lips. Does not the Prince of life yet live in order also to repeat to us, “Awake and rejoice, thou that dwellest in the dust; “and the Spirit, that bloweth whither he listeth, can, will, shall he not in his own good time, with his living breath, blow from our wings the dust that cleaveth to them? But, indeed, even the gnawing pain of the soul over so much want of spirituality and dulness is ever an encouraging sign that the good work is begun in our hearts: that which is really dead shivers no more at its own cold. “My soul cleaveth to the dust, ” sayest thou, with tears? thus wouldest thou not speak except that already a higher hand between the soul and this dust had cleft a hollow which was unknown to it before. No one has less cause for despair than he who has lost hope in himself, and really learns to seek in God that, which he deeply feels, he least of all can give himself.

Yes, this is the way from the deepest pain to procure the best consolation; the humble, earnest, persevering player, that he who lives would also give life to our souls, and continue to increase it, till freed from all dryness and deadness of spirit, and uprooted from the earth, we ascend to the eternal mount of light, where at last we behold all earthly clouds beneath us. This the God of life alone can work; but he is willing nay, we have his own word as pledge, that he promises and bestows on us true life. Only, let us not forget that he who will quicken us “according” to his word, also performs this through his word. Let us then draw from out the eternally flowing fountain, and henceforth leave it unconditionally to him, how he will listen to our cry, even though he lead us through dark paths! Even through means of death God can quicken us and keep us alive. Lo, we are here; Lord, do with us as seemeth good to thee! Only let our souls live, that they may praise thee, here and eternally! J. J. Van Oosterzee (1817-1882), in “The Year of Salvation.”

Ver. 25. Cleaveth to the dust. Is weighed down by the flesh which itself is dust. James G. Murphy.

**Ver. 25. The dust,**is the place of the afflicted, the wounded, and the dead. **Quicken me,**viz., to life, peace, and joy. A. R. Fausset.

**Ver. 25. Quicken thou me,**etc. Seeing he was alive, how prays he that God would quicken him? I answer, The godly esteem of life, not according to that they have in their body, but in their soul. If the soul lacks the sense of mercy, and a heavenly disposition to spiritual things, they lament over it, as a dead soul: for sure it is, temporal desertions are more heavy to the godly than temporal death. According to thy word. This is a great faith, that where in respect of his present feeling he found himself dead, yet he hopes for life from God, according to his promise. Such was the faith of Abraham, who under hope, believed above hope. And truly, many times are God’s children brought to this estate, that they have nothing to uphold them but the word of God; no sense of mercy, no spiritual disposition; but on the contrary, great darkness, horrible fears and terrors. Only they are sustained by looking to the promise of God, and kept in some hope that he will restore them to life again, because it is his praise to finish the work which he begins. William Cowper.

Ver. 25. Quicken thou me. This phrase occurs nine times, and only in this Psalm. It is of great importance, as it expresses the spiritual change by which a child of Adam becomes a child of God. Its source is God; the instrument by which it is effected is the word, Psalms 119:50. James G. Murphy.

Ver. 25 Quicken thou me according to thy word. Where there is life there will be the endeavour to rise the believer will not lie prone in his aspirations after God. From the lowest depths the language of faith is heard ascending to God most high, who performeth all things for the believer. The true child cannot but look towards the loving Father, who is the Almighty, All sufficient One. Have you not found it so? But will you mark the intelligence that shines around the believer’s prayer? He prays that the Lord may quicken him according to his word. The word may be regarded in the light of the standard after which he is to be fashioned; or the Psalmist may have in view the requirements contained in the word regarding the believer’s progress; or he may be thinking of the promises found therein in behalf of the poor and needy when they apply. Indeed, all these significations may be wrapped up in the one expression “according to thy word” the standard of perfection, the requirements of the word, the promises concerning it. The great exemplar of the believer is Christ, of old it was the Christ of prophecy. Then the requirements of the Lord’s will were scattered through the word. The Psalmist, however, may be dwelling upon the large promises which the Lord hath given towards the perfecting of his people. You see after what the spiritual nature aspires. It is quite enough to the natural man or the formalist that he be as the generally well behaved and esteemed among professors the spiritual man aspires beyond he aspires after being quickened according to God’s word. Judge of yourselves. John Stephen.

Ver. 25. Quicken thou me according to thy word. By thy providence put life into my affairs, by thy grace put life into my affections; cure me of my spiritual deadness, and make me lively in my devotion. Matthew Henry.

**Ver. 25. Quicken thou me according to thy word,**Albeit the Lord suffer his own to lie so long low in their heavy condition of spirit, that they may seem dead; yet by faith in his word he keepeth in them so much life as doth furnish unto them prayer to God for comfort: “Quicken thou me according to thy word.” David Dickson.

Ver. 25 Quicken thou me. To whom shall the godly fly when life faileth but to that Wellspring of all life? Even as to remove cold the next way is to draw near the fire, so to dispel any death, the next way is to look to him who is our root, by whom we live this natural life. All preservatives and restoratives are nothing, all colleges of physicians are vanity, if compared with him. Other things which have not life, give life as the instruments of him who is life, as fire burneth being the instrument of heat. “When heart and flesh fail, God is the strength of my heart.” As a man can let a fire almost go out which had been kindled, and then blow it up, and by application of new fuel make it blaze as much as ever: so can God deal with this flame of life which he hath kindled. Paul Bayne.

Ver. 25. According to thy word. The word removes deadness of conscience and hardness. Is not this word a hammer to soften the heart, and is not this the immortal seed by which we are begotten again? Therefore David, finding his conscience in a dead frame, prayed, “My soul cleaveth to the dust; quicken thou me according to thy word.” The word is the first thing by which conscience is purified and set right. *John Sheffield, in “A Good Conscience the Strongest Hold, “*1650.

Ver. 25. According to thy word. What word doth David mean? Either the general promises in the books of Moses or Job; which intimate deliverance to the faithful observers of God’s law, or help to the miserable and distressed; or some particular promise given to him by Nathan, or others. Chrysostom saith, “Quicken me according to thy word: but it is not a word of command, but a word of promise.” Mark here, he doth not say secundum meritum meum, but, secundum verbum tuum;the hope, or that help which we expect from God, is founded upon his word; there is our security, in his promises, not in our deserving: Prommittendo se fecit debitorem, etc.

When there was so little Scripture written, yet David could find out a word for his support. Alas! in our troubles and afflictions, no promise comes to mind. As in outward things, many that have less live better than those that have abundance; so here, now Scripture is so large, we are less diligent, and therefore, though we have so many promises, we are apt to faint, we have not a word to bear us up. This word did not help David, till he had lain so long under this heavy condition, that he seemed dead. Many, when they have a promise, think presently to enjoy the comfort of it. No, waiting and striving are first necessary. We never relish the comfort of the promises till the creatures have spent their allowance, and we have been exercised. God will keep his word, and yet we must expect to be tried.

In this his dead condition, faith in God’s word kept him alive. When we have least feeling, and there is nothing left us, the word will support us: “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Romans 4:19-20). One way to get comfort is to plead the promise of God in prayer, Chirographa tua injiciebat tibi Domine, show him his handwriting; God is tender of his word. These arguments in prayer, are not to work upon God, but ourselves. Thomas Manton

Ver. 25. One does not wonder at the fluctuations which occur in the feelings and experience of a child of God at one time high on the mountain, near to God and communing with God, at another in the deep and dark valley. All, more or less, know these changes, and have their sorrowing as well as their rejoicing seasons. When we parted with David last, what was he telling us of his experience? that God’s testimonies were his delight and his counsellors;but now what a different strain! all joy is darkened, and his soul cleaveth to the dust. And there must have been seasons of deep depression and despondency in the heart of David given as a fugitive and wanderer from his home, hunted as a partridge upon the mountains, and holding, as he himself says, his life continually in his hands. Yet I think in this portion of the Psalm there is evidence of a deeper abasement and sorrow of heart than any mere worldly suffering could produce. He had indeed said, “I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul”; but, even in that moment of weak and murmuring faith, he knew that he was God’s anointed one to sit on the throne of Israel. But, here there is indication of sin, of grievous sin which had laid his soul low in the dust; and I think the petition in Psalms 119:29 gives us some clue to what that sin had been: “Remove me from the way of lying.” Had David you may well ask in wonder had David ever lied? had he ever deviated from the strait and honourable path of truth I am afraid we must own that he had at one time gone so near the confines of a falsehood, that he would be but a poor casuist and a worse moralist who should attempt to defend the Psalmist from the imputation. We cannot read the 27th chapter of the 1st of Samuel without owning into what a sad tissue of equivocation and deceit David was unhappily seduced. Well might his soul cleave to the dust as he reviewed that period of his career; and though grace did for him what it afterwards did for Peter, and he was plucked as a brand out of the burning, yet one can well imagine that like the Apostle afterwards, when he thought thereon he wept, and that bitterly. Barton Bouchier.

Hints to Preachers

Outlines Upon Keywords of the Psalm, By Pastor C. A. Davis.

Ver. 25-32. Quickening. Prayed for with confession (Psalms 119:25-26). When obtained shall be talked of (Psalms 119:27). Desired for the sake of strength (Psalms 119:28), of truthfulness (Psalms 119:29-31), and of activity (Psalms 119:32).

Hints to Preachers

Ver. 25.

1. Nature and its tendency.

2. Grace and its mode of operation.

3. Both truths in their personal application.

**Ver. 25. Quicken thou me,**etc.

1. There are many reasons why we should seek quickening.

(a) Because of the deadening influence of the world. “Thy

soul cleaveth, “etc.

(b) The influence of vanity (see Psalms 119:37).

(c) Because we are surrounded by deceivers (see

Psalms 119:87-88).

(d) Because of the effect of seasons of affliction upon us

(see Psalms 119:7).

2. Some of the motives for seeking quickening.

(a) Because of what you are a Christian; life seeks more

life.

(b) Because of what you ought to be.

(c) Because of what we shall be.

(d) In order to obedience (see Psalms 119:88).

(e) For your comfort (Psalms 119:107, Psalms 119:50).

(f) As the best security against the attacks of enemies

(Psalms 119:87-88).

(g) To invigorate our memories (Psalms 119:93).

(h) Consider (as a motive to seek this quickening) the

terrible consequences of losing spiritual life; or, in

other words, lacking it in its manifest display.

3. Some of the ways in which the quickening may be brought to us.

(a) It must be by the Lord himself. “Quicken me, O Lord.”

(b) By the turning of the eyes (Psalms 119:37).

(c) By the word (Psalms 119:50).

(d) By the precepts (Psalms 119:93).

(e) By affliction (Psalms 119:107).

(f) By divine comforts.

4. Enquire where are our pleas when we come before God to ask for quickening.

(a) Our necessity (Psalms 119:107, etc.).

(b) Our earnest desire (Psalms 119:40).

(c) Appeal to God’s righteousness (Psalms 119:40).

(d) To his lovingkindness (Psalms 119:88, Psalms 119:149, Psalms 119:156).

(e) The plea in the text: “according to thy word”

(Psalms 119:28, Psalms 119:107). See “Spurgeon’s Sermons, “No. 1350:

“Enlivening and Invigorating.”

Psalm 119:26

Exposition

Ver. 26. I have declared my ways. Open confession is good for the soul. Nothing brings more ease and more life to a man than a frank acknowledgment of the evil which has caused the sorrow and the lethargy. Such a declaration proves that the man knows his own condition, and is no longer blinded by pride. Our confessions are not meant to make God know our sins, but to make us know them.

And thou heardest me. His confession had been accepted; it was not lost labour; God had drawn near to him in it. We ought never to go from a duty till we have been accepted in it. Pardon follows upon penitent confession, and David felt that he had obtained it. It is God’s way to forgive our sinful way when we from our hearts confess the wrong.

Teach me thy statutes. Being truly sorry for his fault, and having obtained full forgiveness, he is anxious to avoid offending again, and hence he begs to be taught obedience. He was not willing to sin through ignorance, he wished to know all the mind of God by being taught it by the best of teachers. He pined after holiness. Justified men always long to be sanctified. When God forgives our sins we are all the more fearful of sinning, again. Mercy, which pardons transgression, sets us longing for grace which prevents transgression. We may boldly ask for more when God has given us much; he who has washed out the past stain will not refuse that which will preserve us from present and future defilement. This cry for teaching is frequent in the Psalm; in Psalms 119:12 it followed a sight of God, here it follows from a sight of self. Every experience should lead us thus to plead with God.

Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings

**Ver. 26. I have declared my ways,**etc. This verse contains a prayer, with a reason after this form: O Lord, I have oft before declared unto thee the whole state and course of my life, my wanderings, my wants, my doubts, my griefs: I hid nothing from thee, and thou, according to my necessity, didst always hear me: therefore now, Lord, I pray thee to teach me; by thy light illuminate me that I may know thy statutes and receive grace to walk in them. This is a good argument in dealing with the Lord, I have gotten many mercies and favourable answers from thee; therefore, Lord, I pray thee to give me more; for whom he loves, he loves to the end; and where he begins to show mercy he ceaseth not till he crown his children with mercy. And so gracious is he Lord, that he esteems himself to be honoured as oft as we give him the praise that we have found comfort in him, and therefore come to seek more.

Next, it is to be marked how he saith, I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: these two go well together, Mercy and Truth: truth in the heart of man confessing; mercy in God, hearing and forgiving: happy is the soul wherein these two meet together. Many there are who are destitute of this comfort; they cannot say, God hath heard me, and all because they deal not plainly and truly with the Lord in declaring their ways unto him. William Cowper.

Ver. 26. I have declared my ways. In Psalms 119:59 he thinketh upon his ways, that is, his inward imperfections and outward aberrations from the strait and straight ways of God; and here he is not ashamed to declare them, that is, to acknowledge and confess that all this came upon him because he was forgetful to do God’s will. Note the connection between this and the previous verse: My soul clave unto the dust, because I clave not to thee. Richard Greenham.

Ver. 26. I have declared my ways. ytdrm, sipparti, “I have remembered my ways”; I have searched them out; I have investigated them. And that he had earnestly prayed for pardon of what was wrong in them, is evident; for he adds, Thou heardest me. Adam Clarke.

**Ver. 26. I have declared my ways,**etc. Him whom thou hast heard in humble confessing of his sins, him thou must teach thy statutes. The saints lay open to God what they find, both good and evil seeking deliverance, supply, strengthening, directing: even as sick patients tell to their doctor both what good and what otherwise they perceive; or as clients lay bare their case to their counsel.

Declared. As if he had read them out of a book. The saints know their ways. A man that hath light with him seeth the way, and can tell you all about it; another is in darkness and knoweth nothing: the one taketh observation of his course, the other doth not.

Thou hast heard me. God’s goodness is seen in his hearing what we lay open before him. If great ones let a poor man tell his tale at large we count it honourable patience; but it is God’s glory to hear our wants, our weakness through sin, the invincibleness of our evils, our utter impotency in ourselves even to seek redress. That mode of procedure would lose the favour of man, but it winneth favour with God. The more humbly we confess all our wants, the more confident we may be that God will hear us. He teacheth the humble, for the humble scholar will give to his master the honour of that he learns.

*I have rehearsed (said with myself) my ways;*and “thou hast beard my private confession.” I have declared to others what my way is, and “thou hast heard me” so discoursing; wherefore teach **me,**seeing I communicate what I receive. It is a plea derived from his carefulness to learn, and from the use he had made of that he had learned. The godly, like candles, light each other. Paul Bayne.

Ver. 26. I have declared my ways. They that would speed with God, should learn this point of Christian ingenuity, unfeignedly to lay open their whole case to him. That is, to declare what they are about, the nature of their affairs, the state of their hearts, what of good or evil they find in themselves, their conflicts, supplies, distresses, hopes; this is declaring our ways the good and evil we are conscious of. As a sick patient will tell the physician how it is with him, so should we deal with God, if we would find mercy. This declaring his ways may be looked upon,

1. As an act of faith and dependence.

2. As an act of holy friendship.

3. As an act of spiritual contrition, and brokenness of heart: for this declaring must be explained according to what David meant by the expression, “My ways.”

First, By his “ways” may be meant his businesses or undertakings: I have still made them known to thee, committing them to the direction of thy providence; and so it is an act of faith and dependence, consulting with God, and acquainting him with all our desires.

Secondly, By his “ways” may be meant, all his straits, sorrows, and dangers; and so this declaration is an act of holy friendship, when a man comes as one friend to another, and acquaints God with his whole state, lays his condition before the Lord, in hope of pity and relief.

Thirdly, By “ways” is meant temptations and sins; and so this declaring is an act of spiritual contrition or brokenness of heart. Sins are properly our ways, as Ezekiel 18:25. Thomas Manton.

Ver. 26-30. The way of thy precepts. My ways. The way of lying. The way of truth. Here should be noticed the two contrasts by which the Prophet teaches what must be shunned both in life and in doctrine, and what embraced. The first respects the life of Christians, as the Prophet sets the way of God’s commandments over against his own ways, Psalms 119:26-27; and respecting these he confesses that they have pressed him down to the dust and have greatly distressed him; but respecting those he declares that they have again raised him up. He means by his own ways a depraved nature, carnal desire, and the carnal mind which is enmity against God, Romans 8:7; but by the ways of the Lord he denotes the will of God expressed in the Word. Therefore the boastings of the papists of the perfect obedience of the renewed are empty: for David, assured by having been renewed, complains bitterly and with many tears that his soul, under the intolerable weight of sins, had been brought down to the dust of death and almost suffocated; but that God had heard his prayers and brought him back to the way of his commandments. We, here, also, gather that in this life all the saints experience the wrestling and contest of the flesh and the spirit, so that they are continually compelled to mourn that their flesh turns them aside from the way of the Lord into the by paths of sin: just as Paul cries out, “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, etc. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Romans 7:23-24.

The second contrast concerneth the doctrine;for David opposes the way of lying to the way of truth. We are taught by this contrast that we should eschew false doctrine, and steadfastly adhere to divine truth. To this applies the precept of Paul, Ephesians 4:25. “Wherefore, having put away the lie, speak truth each one with his neighbour.” Further, we learn, if we hate our own ways, i.e., confess our sins to the Lord, and, trusting in the Mediator, pray for forgiveness, that God is wont to hear and mercifully to forgive our sins; as it is written, 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Solomon Gesner.

Ver. 26. Thou heardest me. Past answers to prayer should encourage us to come the more boldly to the throne of grace. Jacob never forgot the night he spent at Bethel. William S. Plumer.

Ver. 26. Teach me thy statutes. The often repetition of this one thing in this Psalm argues,

1. The necessity of this knowledge.

2. The desire he had to obtain it.

3. That such repetitions are not frivolous when they proceed from a sound heart, a zealous affection, and a consideration of the necessity of the thing prayed for.

4. That such as have most light have little in respect of what they should have.

5. As covetous men think they have never gold enough, so Christian men should think they have never knowledge enough. Richard Greenhorn.

Ver. 26. Teach me. We can never do without teaching, even in old age. Unless the Spirit of God teaches us we learn in vain. Martin Geier.

Ver. 26-27. Here is David’s earnest desire for the continuance of that intimacy that had been between him and his God; not by visions and voices from heaven, but by the Word and Spirit in an ordinary way: *“Teach me thy statutes, “*that is, “make me to understand the way of thy precepts.” When he knew God had heard his declaration of his ways, he doth not say, Now, Lord, tell me my lot, and let me know what the event will be; but, Now, Lord, tell me my duty, let me know what thou wouldest have me to do as the case stands. Note, Those that in all their ways acknowledge God, may pray in faith that he will direct their steps in the right way. And the surest way of keeping up our communion with God is, by learning his statutes, and walking diligently in the way of his precepts. Matthew Henry.