Matthew Henry commentary on Psalms 119:65-88
9. TETH.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
65 Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord , according unto thy word. 66 Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments.
Here, 1. David makes a thankful acknowledgment of God's gracious dealings with him all along: Thou hast dealt well with thy servant. However God has dealt with us, we must own he has dealt well with us, better than we deserve, and all in love and with design to work for our good. In many instances God has done well for us beyond our expectations. He has done well for all his servants; never any of them complained that he had used them hardly. Thou hast dealt well with me, not only according to thy mercy, but according to thy word. God's favours look best when they are compared with the promise and are seen flowing from that fountain. 2. Upon these experiences he grounds a petition for divine instruction: " Teach me good judgment and knowledge, that, by thy grace, I may render again, in some measure, according to the benefit done unto me." Teach me a good taste (so the word signifies), a good relish, to discern things that differ, to distinguish between truth and falsehood, good and evil; for the ear tries words, as the mouth tastes meat. We should pray to God for a sound mind, that we may have spiritual senses exercised, Heb. v. 14 . Many have knowledge who have little judgment; those who have both are well fortified against the snares of Satan and well furnished for the service of God and their generation. 3. This petition is backed with a plea: " For I have believed thy commandments, received them, and consented to them that they are good, and submitted to their government; therefore, Lord, teach me. " Where God has given a good heart a good head too may in faith be prayed for.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
David here tells us what he had experienced, 1. Of the temptations of a prosperous condition: " Before I was afflicted, while I lived in peace and plenty, and knew no sorrow, I went astray from God and my duty." Sin is going astray; and we are most apt to wander from God when we are easy and think ourselves at home in the world. Prosperity is the unhappy occasion of much iniquity; it makes people conceited of themselves, indulgent of the flesh, forgetful of God, in love with the world, and deaf to the reproofs of the word. See Ps. xxx. 6 . It is good for us, when we are afflicted, to remember how and wherein we went astray before we were afflicted, that we may answer the end of the affliction. 2. Of the benefit of an afflicted state: " Now have I kept thy word, and so have been recovered from my wanderings." God often makes use of afflictions as a means to reduce those to himself who have wandered from him. Sanctified afflictions humble us for sin and show us the vanity of the world; they soften the heart, and open the ear to discipline. The prodigal's distress brought him to himself first and then to his father.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
68 Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.
Here, 1. David praises God's goodness and gives him the glory of it: Thou art good and doest good. All who have any knowledge of God and dealings with him wilt own that he does good, and therefore will conclude that he is good. The streams of God's goodness are so numerous, and run so full, so strong, to all the creatures, that we must conclude the fountain that is in himself to be inexhaustible. We cannot conceive how much good our God does every day, much less can we conceive how good he is. Let us acknowledge it with admiration and with holy love and thankfulness. 2. He prays for God's grace, and begs to be under the guidance and influence of it: Teach me thy statutes. "Lord, thou doest good to all, art the bountiful benefactor of all the creatures; this is the good I beg thou wilt do to me,—Instruct me in my duty, incline me to it, and enable me to do it. Thou art good, and doest good; Lord, teach me thy statutes, that I may be good and do good, may have a good heart and live a good life." It is an encouragement to poor sinners to hope that God will teach them his way because he is good and upright, Ps. xxv. 8 .
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
69 The proud have forged a lie against me: but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart. 70 Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law.
David here tells us how he was affected as to the proud and wicked people that were about him. 1. He did not fear their malice, nor was he by it deterred from his duty: They have forged a lie against me. Thus they aimed to take away his good name. Nay, all we have in the world, even life itself, may be brought into danger by those who make no conscience of forging a lie. Those that were proud envied David's reputation, because it eclipsed them, and therefore did all they could to blemish him. They took a pride in trampling upon him. They therefore persuaded themselves it was no sin to tell a deliberate lie if it might but expose him to contempt. Their wicked wit forged lies, invented stories which there was not the least colour for, to serve their wicked designs. And what did David do when he was thus belied? He will bear it patiently; he will keep that precept which forbids him to render railing for railing, and will with all his heart sit down silently. He will go on in his duty with constancy and resolution: "Let them say what they will, I will keep thy precepts, and not dread their reproach." 2. He did not envy their prosperity, nor was he by it allured from his duty. Their heart is as fat as grease. The proud are at ease ( Ps. cxxiii. 4 ); they are full of the world, and the wealth and pleasures of it; and this makes them, (1.) Senseless, secure, and stupid; they are past feeling: thus the phrase is used, Isa. vi. 10 . Make the heart of this people fat. They are not sensible of the touch of the word of God or his rod. (2.) Sensual and voluptuous: " Their eyes stand out with fatness ( Ps. lxxiii. 7 ); they roll themselves in the pleasures of sense, and take up with them as their chief good; and much good may it do them. I would not change conditions with them. I delight in thy law; I build my security upon the promises of God's word and have pleasure enough in communion with God, infinitely preferable to all their delights." The children of God, who are acquainted with spiritual pleasures, need not envy the children of this world their carnal pleasures.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.
See here, 1. That it has been the lot of the best saints to be afflicted. The proud and the wicked lived in pomp and pleasure, while David, though he kept close to God and his duty, was still in affliction. Waters of a full cup are wrung out to God's people, Ps. lxxiii. 10 . 2. That it has been the advantage of God's people to be afflicted. David could speak experimentally: It was good for me; many a good lesson he had learnt by his afflictions, and many a good duty he had been brought to which otherwise would have been unlearnt and undone. Therefore God visited him with affliction, that he might learn God's statutes; and the intention was answered: the afflictions had contributed to the improvement of his knowledge and grace. He that chastened him taught him. The rod and reproof give wisdom.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
72 The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.
This is a reason why David reckoned that when by his afflictions he learned God's statutes, and the profit did so much counterbalance the loss, he was really a gainer by them; for God's law, which he got acquaintance with by his affliction, was better to him than all the gold and silver which he lost by his affliction. 1. David had but a little of the word of God in comparison with what we have, yet see how highly he valued it; how inexcusable then are we, who have both the Old and New Testament complete, and yet account them as a strange thing! Observe, Therefore he valued the law, because it is the law of God's mouth, the revelation of his will, and ratified by his authority. 2. He had a great deal of gold and silver in comparison with what we have, yet see how little he valued it. His riches increased, and yet he did not set his heart upon them, but upon the word of God. That was better to him, yielded him better pleasures, and better maintenance, and a better inheritance, than all the treasures he was master of. Those that have read, and believe, David's Psalms and Solomon's Ecclesiastes, cannot but prefer the word of God far before the wealth of this world.
10. JOD.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
73 Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.
Here, 1. David adores God as the God of nature and the author of his being: Thy hands have made me and fashioned me, Job x. 8 . Every man is as truly the work of God's hands as the first man was, Ps. cxxxix. 15, 16 . " Thy hands have not only made me, and given me a being, otherwise I should never have been, but fashioned me, and given me this being, this noble and excellent being, endued with these powers and faculties;" and we must own that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. 2. He addresses himself to God as the God of grace, and begs he will be the author of his new and better being. God made us to serve him and enjoy him; but by sin we have made ourselves unable for his service and indisposed for the enjoyment of him; and we must have a new and divine nature, otherwise we had the human nature in vain; therefore David prays, "Lord, since thou hast made me by thy power for thy glory, make me anew by thy grace, that I may answer the ends of my creation and live to some purpose: Give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments. " The way in which God recovers and secures his interest in men is by giving them an understanding; for by that door he enters into the soul and gains possession of it.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
74 They that fear thee will be glad when they see me; because I have hoped in thy word.
Here is, 1. The confidence of this good man in the hope of God's salvation: " I have hoped in thy word; and I have not found it in vain to do so; it has not failed me, nor have I been disappointed in my expectations from it. It is a hope that maketh not ashamed; but is present satisfaction, and fruition at last." 2. The concurrence of other good men with him in the joy of that salvation: " Those that fear thee will be glad when they see me relieved by my hope in thy word and delivered according to my hope." The comforts which some of God's children have in God, and the favours they have received from him, should be matter of joy to others of them. Paul often expressed the hope that for God's grace to him thanks would be rendered by many, 2 Cor. i. 11 ; iv. 15 . Or it may be taken more generally; good people are glad to see one another; they are especially pleased with those who are eminent for their hope in God's word.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
75 I know, O Lord , that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.
Still David is in affliction, and being so he owns, 1. That his sin was justly corrected: I know, O Lord! that thy judgments are right, are righteousness itself. However God is pleased to afflict us, he does us no wrong, nor can we charge him with any iniquity, but must acknowledge that it is less than we have deserved. We know that God is holy in his nature and wise and just in all the acts of his government, and therefore we cannot but know, in the general, that his judgments are right, though, in some particular instances, there may be difficulties which we cannot easily resolve. 2. That God's promise was graciously performed. The former may silence us under our afflictions, and forbid us to repine, but this may satisfy us, and enable us to rejoice; for afflictions are in the covenant, and therefore they are not only not meant for our hurt, but they are really intended for our good: " In faithfulness thou hast afflicted me, pursuant to the great design of my salvation." It is easier to own, in general, that God's judgments are right, than to own it when it comes to be our own case; but David subscribes to it with application, "Even my afflictions are just and kind."
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
76 Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant. 77 Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight.
Here is, 1. An earnest petition to God for his favour. Those that own the justice of God in their afflictions (as David had done, v. 75 ) may, in faith, and with humble boldness, be earnest for the mercy of God, and the tokens and fruits of that mercy, in their affliction. He prays for God's merciful kindness ( v. 76 ), his tender mercies, v. 77 . He can claim nothing as his due, but all his supports under his affliction must come from mere mercy and compassion to one in misery, one in want. "Let these come to me, " that is, "the evidence of them (clear it up to me that thou hast a kindness for me, and mercy in store), and the effects of them; let them work my relief and deliverance." 2. The benefit he promised himself from God's lovingkindness: "Let it come to me for my comfort ( v. 76 ); that will comfort me when nothing else will; that will comfort me whatever grieves me." Gracious souls fetch all their comfort from a gracious God, as the fountain of all happiness and joy: "Let it come to me, that I may live, that is, that I may be revived, and my life may be made sweet to me, for I have no joy of it while I am under God's displeasure. In his favour is life; in his frowns are death." A good man cannot live with any satisfaction any longer than he has some tokens of God's favour to him. 3. His pleas for the benefits of God's favour. He pleads, (1.) God's promise: "Let me have thy kindness, according to thy word unto thy servant, the kindness which thou hast promised and because thou hast promised it." Our Master has passed his word to all his servants that he will be kind to them, and they may plead it with him. (2.) His own confidence and complacency in that promise: " Thy law is my delight; I hope in thy word and rejoice in that hope." Note, Those that delight in the law of God may depend upon the favour of God, for it shall certainly make them happy.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
78 Let the proud be ashamed; for they dealt perversely with me without a cause: but I will meditate in thy precepts. 79 Let those that fear thee turn unto me, and those that have known thy testimonies.
Here David shows,
I. How little he valued the will—will of sinners. There were those that dealt perversely with him, that were peevish and ill-conditioned towards him, that sought advantages against him, and misconstrued all he said and did. Even those that deal most fairly may meet with those that deal perversely. But David regarded it not, for, 1. He knew it was without cause, and that for his love they were his adversaries. The causeless reproach, like the curse causeless, may be easily slighted; it does not hurt us, and therefore should not move us. 2. He could pray, in faith, that they might be ashamed of it; God's dealing favourably with him might make them ashamed to think that they had dealt perversely with him. " Let them be ashamed, that is, let them be brought either to repentance or to ruin." 3. He could go on in the way of his duty, and find comfort in that. "However they deal with me, I will meditate in thy precepts, and entertain myself with them."
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
80 Let my heart be sound in thy statutes; that I be not ashamed.
Here is, 1. David's prayer for sincerity, that his heart might be brought to God's statutes, and that it might be sound in them, not rotten and deceitful, that he might not rest in the form of godliness, but be acquainted with the subject to the power of it,—that he might be hearty and constant in religion, and that his soul might be in health. 2. His dread of the consequences of hypocrisy: That I be not ashamed. Shame is the portion of hypocrites, either here, if it be repented of, or hereafter, if it be not: " Let my heart be sound, that I fall not into scandalous sin, that I fall not quite off from the ways of God, and so shame myself. Let my heart be sound, that I may come boldly to the throne of grace, and may lift up my face without spot at the great day."
11. CAPH.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
81 My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in thy word. 82 Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, When wilt thou comfort me?
Here we have the psalmist,
I. Longing for help from heaven: My soul faints; my eyes fail. He longs for the salvation of the Lord and for his word, that is, salvation according to the word. He is not thus eager for the creatures of fancy, but for the objects of faith, salvation from the present calamities under which he was groaning and the doubts and fears which he was oppressed with. It may be understood of the coming of the Messiah, and so he speaks in the name of the Old-Testament church; the souls of the faithful even fainted to see that salvation of which the prophets testified. ( 1 Pet. i. 10 ); their eyes failed for it. Abraham saw it at a distance, and so did others, but at such a distance that it put their eyes to the stretch and they could not stedfastly see it. David was now under prevailing dejections, and, having been long so, his eyes cried out, " When wilt thou comfort me? Comfort me with thy salvation, comfort me with thy word. " Observe, 1. The salvation and consolation of God's people are secured to them by the word, which will certainly be fulfilled in its season. 2. The promised salvation and comfort may be, and often are, long deferred, so that they are ready to faint and fall in the expectation of them. 3. Though we think the time long ere the promised salvation and comfort come, yet we must still keep our eye upon that salvation, and resolve to take up with nothing short of it. "Thy salvation, thy word, thy comfort, are what my heart is still upon."
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
83 For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.
David begs God would make haste to comfort him, 1. Because his affliction was great, and therefore he was an object of God's pity: Lord, make haste to help me, for I have become like a bottle in the smoke, a leathern bottle, which, if it hung any while in the smoke, was not only blackened with soot, but dried, and parched, and shrivelled up. David was thus wasted by age, and sickness, and sorrow. See how affliction will mortify the strongest and stoutest of men! David had been of a ruddy countenance, as fresh as a rose; but now he is withered, his colour is gone, his cheeks are furrowed. Thus does man's beauty consume under God's rebukes, as a moth fretting a garment. A bottle, when it is thus wrinkled with smoke, is thrown by, and there is no more use of it. Who will put wine into such old bottles? Thus was David, in his low estate, looked upon as a despised broken vessel, and as a vessel in which there was no pleasure. Good men, when they are drooping and melancholy, sometimes think themselves more slighted than really they are. 2. Because, though his affliction was great, yet it had not driven him from his duty, and therefore he was within the reach of God's promise: Yet do I not forget thy statutes. Whatever our outward condition is we must not cool in our affection to the word of God, nor let that slip out of our minds; no care, no grief, must crowd that out. As some drink and forget the law ( Prov. xxxi. 5 ), so others weep and forget the law; but we must in every condition, both prosperous and adverse, have the things of God in remembrance; and, if we be mindful of God's statutes, we may pray and hope that he will be mindful of our sorrows, though for a time he seems to forget us.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
84 How many are the days of thy servant? when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?
Here, I. David prays against the instruments of his troubles, that God would make haste to execute judgment on those that persecuted him. He prays not for power to avenge himself (he bore no malice to any), but that God would take to himself the vengeance that belonged to him, and would repay ( Rom. xii. 19 ), as the God that sits in the throne judging right. There is a day coming, and a great and terrible day it will be, when God will execute judgment on all the proud persecutors of his people, tribulation to those that troubled them; Enoch foretold it ( Jude 14 ), whose prophecy perhaps David here had an eye to; and that day we are to look for and pray for the hastening of. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. 2. He pleads the long continuance of his trouble: " How many are the days of thy servant? The days of my life are but few " (so some); "therefore let them not all be miserable, and therefore make haste to appear for me against my enemies, before I go hence and shall be seen no more. " Or rather, " The days of my affliction are many; thou seest, Lord, how many they be; when wilt thou return in mercy to me? Sometimes, for the elect's sake, the days of trouble are shortened. O let the days of my trouble be shortened; I am thy servant; and therefore, as the eyes of a servant are to the hand of his master, so are mine to thee, until thou have mercy on me."
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
85 The proud have digged pits for me, which are not after thy law. 86 All thy commandments are faithful: they persecute me wrongfully; help thou me. 87 They had almost consumed me upon earth; but I forsook not thy precepts.
David's state was herein a type and figure of the state both of Christ and Christians that he was grievously persecuted; as there are many of his psalms, so there are many of the verses of this psalm, which complain of this, as those here. Here observe,
I. The account he gives of his persecutors and their malice against him. 1. They were proud, and in their pride they persecuted him, glorying in this, that they could trample upon one who was so much cried up, and hoping to raise themselves on his ruins. 2. They were unjust: They persecuted him wrongfully; so far was he from giving them any provocation that he had studied to oblige them; but for his love they were his adversaries. 3. They were spiteful: They dug pits for him, which intimates that they were deliberate in their designs against him and that what they did was of malice prepense; it intimates likewise that they were subtle and crafty, and had the serpent's head as well as the serpent's venom, that they were industrious and would refuse no pains to do him a mischief, and treacherous, laying snares in secret for him, as hunters do take wild beasts, Ps. xxxv. 7 . Such has been the enmity of the serpent's seed to the seed of the woman. 4. They herein showed their enmity to God himself. The pits they dug for him were not after God's law; he means they were very much against his law, which forbids to devise evil to our neighbour, and has particularly said, Touch not my anointed. The law appointed that, if a man dug a pit which occasioned any mischief, he should answer for the mischief ( Exod. xxi. 33, 34 ), much more when it was dug with a mischievous design. 5. They carried on their designs against him so far that they had almost consumed him upon earth; they went near to ruin him and all his interests. It is possible that those who shall shortly be consummate in heaven may be, for the present, almost consumed on earth; and it is of the Lord's mercies (and, considering the malice of their enemies, it is a miracle of mercy) that they are not quite consumed. But the bush in which God is, though it burns, shall not be burnt up.
Embedded KJV/source Scripture
88 Quicken me after thy lovingkindness; so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth.
Here is, 1. David in care to be found in the way of his duty. His constant desire and design are to keep the testimony of God's mouth, to keep to it as his rule and to keep hold of it as his confidence and portion for ever. This we must keep, whatever we lose. 2. David at prayer for divine grace to assist him therein: " Quicken me after thy lovingkindness (make me alive and make me lively), so shall I keep thy testimonies, " implying that otherwise he should not keep them. We cannot proceed, nor persevere, in the good way, unless God quicken us and put life into us; we are therefore here taught to depend upon the grace of God for strength to do every good work, and to depend upon it as grace, as purely the fruit of God's favour. He had prayed before, Quicken me in thy righteousness ( v. 40 ); but here, Quicken me after thy lovingkindness. The surest token of God's good-will toward us is his good work in us.