Psalm 119:122

Psalm 119 is the longest psalm and the longest chapter in the Bible (Psalm 119). It is an acrostic of 22 stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and each of the eight verses in a stanza begins with that stanza’s letter. AIN, at the head of verse 121, is Ayin, the sixteenth letter. The whole psalm delights in God’s word under many names, and this stanza uses six of them: “the word of thy righteousness”, statutes, testimonies, law, commandments and precepts. Like much of the psalm, it is the prayer of a faithful man under pressure from enemies. The psalm leaves its author and occasion unnamed, so its trouble belongs to every righteous person who meets opposition for keeping God’s ways.

“I have done judgment and justice” opens the stanza with an account of how the psalmist has lived. The verb ʻâsâh is the everyday Hebrew word for doing or making, used in the broadest way, and here it says simply that he has done these things. The word mishpâṭ, “judgment”, comes from the verb to judge. It means a verdict or sentence, the act of judging, and justice itself. The word tsedeq, “justice”, means rightness, righteousness and justice, in conduct, in judgment, in speech and in honest weights. The two are a common pair in Hebrew, and together they describe a life of fair and right dealing before God and with people. Israel’s kings were charged to rule this way, and the KJV uses the same pair of words of David: “David executed judgment and justice unto all his people” (2 Samuel 8:15). Every Israelite was called to the same.

“Leave me not to mine oppressors” is the plea that rests on it. The verb ʻâshaq means to oppress, defraud, extort or wrong, and Strong’s gives its root sense as “to press upon”. Here it is a participle, naming the people who are doing him wrong. He asks God to keep him out of their hands. He has prayed this way earlier in the psalm about the proud who “dealt perversely with me without a cause” (Psalm 119:78), and the same cry of a righteous man under attack runs through laments such as Psalm 3. His confidence rests on who God is: “For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints” (Psalm 37:28). Proverbs says that God “keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints” (Proverbs 2:8).

“Be surety for thy servant for good” takes its picture from Israel’s everyday dealings. The verb ‘ârab has a root sense of braiding or intermixing, and from that it came to mean to trade, to give pledges and to be surety. A surety pledged himself for someone else, often for a debt, and took on the responsibility for him. Proverbs warns against doing this lightly: “My son, if thou be surety for thy friend” (Proverbs 6:1), and “He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it” (Proverbs 11:15). The psalmist asks God himself to take that place. He wants the LORD to make himself answerable for his servant’s welfare, much as a powerful and trustworthy patron would guarantee the safety of someone under his care.

“For good” is ṭôwb, good in the widest sense, which covers what is pleasant, kind, prosperous and well. The psalmist asks for his welfare in every sense, his safety and his standing with God.

“Let not the proud oppress me” names the oppressors of verse 121 as the proud. The word zêd means arrogant or presumptuous, and Strong’s traces it to a root meaning to boil up. Throughout Psalm 119 the proud are those who scorn God’s commandments and set themselves against the people who keep them, and they trouble the psalmist because of his faithfulness. Their attacks may come as insults, as being shut out, as injustice in the courts or as violence. The psalmist sees them as an affront to God’s righteousness, and he looks to God alone to stop them. Scripture answers such a prayer: “My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in heart” (Psalm 7:10). God overthrows the wicked for their wickedness (Proverbs 21:12), and he tells his people, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee” (Isaiah 41:10).

“Mine eyes fail” pictures a man who has looked so long for help that his eyes are spent. The verb kâlâh means to end, cease, be finished, be consumed or perish. Scripture uses the same picture for the exhaustion of grief: “Mine eyes do fail with tears” (Lamentations 2:11). The psalmist is straining to see something that has yet to come, like someone watching the road for a loved one until his eyes ache. The waiting has worn him out, and still he keeps looking, which is the strength of his hope. His longing is the thirst of Psalm 42:1: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”

He watches “for thy salvation”. The word yᵉshûwʻâh means deliverance, help, victory and prosperity. It is used of rescue that people bring, as when Jonathan “hath wrought this great salvation in Israel”, though every rescue comes from the LORD in the end, and here the psalmist looks to God to bring it.

“And for the word of thy righteousness” names what his hope rests on. The word ʼimrâh means something said, a word or speech, and it is used of God’s word and of human speech alike. Here it is what God has said, and it is a word of his tsedeq, the same word as “justice” in verse 121. The man who has done tsedeq waits on the God of tsedeq. Because God is righteous, what he has said will surely be done, and his salvation flows from his justice and his faithfulness to his covenant. Earlier in the psalm the psalmist wrote, “This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me” (Psalm 119:50), and “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).

Waiting like this is faith that endures. “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart” (Psalm 27:14). “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:7). “The LORD is good unto them that wait for him… It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:25–26).

The salvation the faithful of Israel waited for came in Christ. When Simeon held the child Jesus he said, “For mine eyes have seen thy salvation” (Luke 2:30), and Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad” (John 8:56).

The psalmist calls himself God’s servant in verses 122, 124 and 125. The word ʻebed means a servant or bondservant, one in the service of another. In Israel it could name a slave, a loyal subject, a trusted officer of a king or a devoted worshipper, and a man who calls himself the LORD’s servant owns God’s authority over him and declares his own loyalty and dependence. It is an honourable name, and a servant rightly looks to his master for provision and direction. Another psalm prays, “O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee” (Psalm 86:2).

“Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy” names the measure he asks God to use. The word cheçed is God’s steadfast love, his lovingkindness and covenant loyalty, the faithful love that moves him to act for his people when they are undeserving. Having pleaded his own conduct in verse 121, the psalmist now rests his case on God’s mercy, as David prays, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness” (Psalm 51:1). “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy” (Psalm 103:8), and his compassions “are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

“And teach me thy statutes” follows at once. The verb lâmad means to learn, and in the form used here to teach, instruct or train, that is, to cause another to learn. Strong’s gives the root’s first sense as “to goad”. The statutes, chôq, are God’s decrees. In Israel the Torah was a legal code and much more, divine wisdom and guidance for living, the revelation of who God is and what he wills. This prayer comes again and again in the psalm: “Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end” (Psalm 119:33), and “Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments” (Psalm 119:66). David prays, “Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths” (Psalm 25:4–5). Mercy and teaching belong together, because God’s mercy sustains his servant and his word guides him.

“I am thy servant; give me understanding” carries the same prayer further. The verb bîyn means to understand or discern, and Strong’s gives its root sense as separating things in the mind, telling one from another. It is the insight that grasps God’s truth and applies it rightly, telling right from wrong and truth from error. The psalmist asks for it as a gift, because understanding of God’s ways comes from God: “For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6). Anyone who lacks wisdom may “ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally” (James 1:5), and the book of Proverbs opens with this same call to wisdom and knowledge (Proverbs 1).

In verse 126 the psalmist turns from his own trouble to the honour of God’s law. “It is time for thee, LORD, to work” speaks to the LORD, the covenant God, directly. The word for time, ʻêth, is used of the fitting or appointed season for something, and the psalmist judges that things have come to the point where God’s action is needed and right. “To work” is ʻâsâh, the same verb as “I have done” in verse 121. The servant has done judgment and justice, and now he asks the LORD to do his own work, the mighty acts of judging and saving by which God carries out his purposes.

“For they have made void thy law” gives the reason. The verb pârar means to break, violate, frustrate, annul or make of no effect. “They” are the wicked who set themselves against God’s ways and his people. To make the law void is to treat it as if it had no force, by defying it openly or by bending it to suit one’s own desires, and that is a direct affront to God himself. Hosea saw the same thing in Israel: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). When men set God’s law aside and there is no one to stand for right, God acts himself: “And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him” (Isaiah 59:16).

Their defiance leaves God’s word where it has always been: “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89), and God says, “I am the LORD, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). Paul uses the same English phrase when he asks, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31).

“Therefore” (ʻal-ken) ties verse 127 to the verse before it. Because men are making God’s law void, the psalmist holds to it all the harder, and their contempt for it draws out his love. The verb ʼâhab means to love, to have affection for, and it is used of affection for a person, an object or a practice. Here its object is God’s commandments, mitsvâh, his binding instructions for life, and the psalmist’s obedience is full of delight.

Gold, zâhâb, was the great measure of wealth in Israel, used for money, ornaments and the furnishings of worship, and Solomon’s vast wealth in gold is told in 1 Kings 10. Fine gold, pâz, is pure, refined gold, the most precious form of the metal. “Yea, above fine gold” lifts the comparison as high as it will go. The psalmist sets the greatest treasure people prize beside God’s commandments and finds the commandments worth more. Psalm 19 praises God’s law in the same words: “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:7–11). Wisdom says, “Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold” (Proverbs 8:10–11), and Jesus tells us to lay up treasure in heaven, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19–21).

A second “Therefore” opens verse 128 and gathers up the stanza. “I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right.” The word piqqûwd, precept, comes from a root meaning to visit, appoint or oversee, and it names a charge that God has appointed. The word yâshar means straight, upright, just or pleasing, and so right. The Hebrew says “all” twice, and the translators supplied “concerning” and “things” to carry it into English. The psalmist accepts every one of God’s precepts, in every part of life, as straight and true, whatever his own preference or the custom around him.

“And I hate every false way” is the other side of the same devotion. The word sheqer means falsehood, a lie, deception or a sham, and ʼôrach is a path or way, a course of life. A false way is any road that leaves God’s truth, whether by deceit, idolatry, injustice or hypocrisy. Israel was told to keep apart from the ways of the nations, with their divination and other abominations (Deuteronomy 18:9–12). “All” and “every” belong together here, and they describe a heart given wholly to God, the heart of the great command: “thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Proverbs says the same: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6). John warns, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” (1 John 2:15–17).

All that this servant prays for and claims finds its full answer in Jesus. He alone did judgment and justice perfectly, saying at his baptism, “thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). He is the Servant of whom God says, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold” (Isaiah 42:1–4), who “took upon him the form of a servant” and “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7–8). He suffered at the hands of oppressors, and God kept him from being left to them. The psalm says, “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Psalm 16:10), and Peter says that God raised him up, “because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:24).

He is the Word made flesh (John 1:1–14), the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), the Son by whom God “hath in these last days spoken unto us” (Hebrews 1:1–2). He taught the true meaning of God’s law in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), and he exposed every false way he met, though he himself “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). The mercy that verse 124 asks for is shown in him: “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Our standing before God rests on his righteousness: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). So when we pray as this servant prays, we come through “an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). The Spirit whom Christ sent teaches us all things and guides us “into all truth” (John 14:26, John 16:13), which is the understanding verse 125 asks for.

These eight verses give us words for prayer when the proud have the upper hand. A servant brings God his honest record, asks God to stand surety for him, admits that his eyes are tired of watching, leans on God’s mercy and asks to be taught. Then he looks past his own trouble to the honour of God’s law, and finds that the law grows dearer to him as others despise it.

They also show us who God is. He loves judgment and keeps his saints. He deals with his servants by his steadfast love, and he gives understanding to those who ask. His word of righteousness will be done, and when men make his law void he works in his own time. In Christ he has become the surety of his people, and every precept he gives is right. Anyone who prays “Be surety for thy servant for good” is asking for what God has already given in his Son.