Psalm 119:159

Psalm 119 is the longest psalm, an acrostic poem of 22 stanzas of eight verses each, one stanza for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, with every verse of a stanza beginning with that stanza’s letter. Verses 153–160 are the twentieth stanza, RESH, which is why the KJV prints that word above verse 153. The pattern is lost in translation, but the care behind it remains: the whole psalm is a deliberate, ordered praise of God’s word. That word goes by many names in the psalm, and this one stanza uses six of them: law, word, statutes, judgments, testimonies and precepts.

The psalm leaves its date and its enemies unnamed. It shows us a man whose devotion to God’s instruction has brought him trouble, and whose trouble drives him deeper into that instruction. A few verses earlier he says that those who follow after mischief draw near (Psalm 119:150), and the stanza after this one opens, “Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word” (Psalm 119:161). His opposition may have reached into high places.

Three threads tie these eight verses together. The psalmist prays for life three times (verses 154, 156 and 159). He asks God to see, and he himself sees: the verb râʼâh is “Consider” in verses 153 and 159 and “beheld” in verse 158. And one adjective, rab, which simply means much, many or great, says both that God’s tender mercies are great (verse 156) and that the psalmist’s persecutors are many (verse 157). In this stanza the same word measures the danger and the mercy.

The word behind “quicken” is châyâh, to live, and in the form used here, to cause to live: to keep alive, to revive, to restore to life. The letter to the Hebrews uses the old English sense when it calls God’s word “quick, and powerful” (Hebrews 4:12), meaning living. For a man hunted by enemies the prayer includes being kept alive. In Psalm 119 it also reaches further, to a weary soul made fresh and given strength to keep walking in God’s ways. The psalm prays it again and again: “My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word” (Psalm 119:25), “quicken thou me in thy way” (Psalm 119:37), and “Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness” (Psalm 119:40).

Each time in this stanza the psalmist names the measure of the life he asks for. He asks for it “according to thy word” (verse 154), “according to thy judgments” (verse 156) and “according to thy lovingkindness” (verse 159). All three lie on God’s side. The man who loves God’s precepts still needs God to give him life, and he knows it, so his spiritual life is always a gift received from the Giver of life.

Scripture ties this life to God and to what he has spoken. Moses set life and death before Israel and urged them to choose life by loving the LORD and obeying his voice, “for he is thy life, and the length of thy days” (Deuteronomy 30:19–20). Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones live again at the word of the LORD (Ezekiel 37). Jesus said, “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63), and Paul says that the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead “shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Romans 8:11).

The stanza opens with “Consider mine affliction” (verse 153), and later the psalmist prays, “Consider how I love thy precepts” (verse 159). Both use râʼâh, the usual verb for seeing, which also means to perceive, to take heed and to regard with attention. He is asking the LORD to take notice of him with a view to acting.

What he asks God to see first is his affliction, ʻŏnîy, a noun from a root meaning to depress. It is trouble and misery that bring a person low, whether persecution, illness or any other hardship. Then he asks, “deliver me”, and the verb here is châlats, to draw off and so to rescue, as one pulls a person free from what holds him. God invites exactly this cry: “And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” (Psalm 50:15). Another psalm says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19). Moses promised that when Israel sought the LORD in tribulation they would find him, because he is a merciful God who will keep his covenant (Deuteronomy 4:29–31), and Paul says that all things work together for good to them that love God (Romans 8:28).

The reason the psalmist gives is “for I do not forget thy law”. The word for law, tôwrâh, means instruction or teaching, and in Psalm 119 it covers the whole of God’s revealed will. In Scripture, to forget God’s law is to neglect and abandon it, so to keep it in mind is to remember it, meditate on it, treasure it and obey it. He has kept the promise he made earlier: “I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word” (Psalm 119:16). He is the man who hid God’s word in his heart (Psalm 119:11), and the blessed man of the first psalm, whose “delight is in the law of the LORD” (Psalm 1:2). Affliction has driven him toward God’s law.

In verse 159 he asks God to see his love for God’s precepts. The word for precepts, piqqûwd, comes from a root meaning to appoint or commit, so precepts are the charges God has appointed and committed to his people. The psalmist loves them, as he says elsewhere: “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 119:97).

Verse 154 brings the psalmist into a courtroom. To plead, rîyb, means to grapple or wrangle, and so to hold a controversy, the word for a dispute brought before a judge or an elder. The psalmist feels wronged, and he asks God to take up his case and contend for him against those who wrong him. David prayed in the same words: “Plead my cause, O LORD, with them that strive with me: fight against them that fight against me” (Psalm 35:1).

“Deliver me” in this verse is a different Hebrew verb from the “deliver me” of verse 153. Here it is gâʼal, to redeem as the next of kin. In Israel a near kinsman had the right and duty to buy back a relative’s lost property, to marry his widow, and to avenge his blood. So the psalmist asks God to act for him twice over, as the judge who hears his case and as the kinsman who has the right and the power to set him free.

God still pleads the cause of his people. He works through his providence, often in ways they cannot yet see, and he can move the hearts of others to act justly. Above all, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). A believer who is wronged can leave the case with him, because he has said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). His justice is perfect, whether it comes in this life or the next.

The verse ends, “quicken me according to thy word”. The word for word, ʼimrâh, means something said, a word, speech or commandment, and it is used of human speech as well as God’s. Here it is what God has said, and especially what he has promised. The psalmist expects God to act in keeping with his own word, the Scripture given by inspiration of God and profitable for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

In verse 155 the psalmist looks away from his own need to the people who trouble him. “Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes.” The word for salvation, yᵉshûwʻâh, means deliverance, help and rescue. It can be used of rescue that people bring, as when Jonathan is said to have “wrought this great salvation in Israel”, but Scripture traces every salvation back to the LORD. The wicked, râshâʻ, are the guilty and ungodly, whose whole life is turned away from God.

The reason is what the wicked never look for. To seek, dârash, is to seek, to inquire of, to require or to care for. The statutes, chôq, are what God has prescribed: a law, a decree, a custom, an allotted portion or a set limit. The wicked have no care for what God has laid down, and so they are far from the help he gives. The psalmist is their opposite: “With my whole heart have I sought thee” (Psalm 119:10). His enemies have come near to him (verse 150), and salvation stays far from them.

Verse 156 lifts the stanza from the wicked to the heart of God: “Great are thy tender mercies, O LORD”. The word racham, here in the plural, comes from the verb râcham, to love or have compassion, and it is linked with the womb. It is the tender, deep compassion of a mother for her child, a pity that moves God to act for those in need. The adjective rab calls these mercies great, abundant and many. Jeremiah, writing amid the ruins of Jerusalem, said, “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

The prayer then asks, “quicken me according to thy judgments”. The word mishpâṭ is a verdict given by a judge, a formal decree, an ordinance, and also justice itself and a person’s rightful due. God’s judgments are his righteous rulings and the standards by which he governs his world and his people.

Verse 157 sets the size of the threat beside the firmness of the psalmist. “Many are my persecutors and mine enemies”. The persecutors are those who râdaph, who run after, pursue and chase, usually with hostile intent, and so persecute. The enemies are tsar, a word that most often means an adversary. It comes from a root meaning to cramp, and it can also mean narrowness or distress, the tight place an enemy puts a person in.

“Yet do I not decline from thy testimonies.” To decline, nâṭâh, is to stretch out, and so to bend away or turn aside, including turning aside from what is right. The testimonies, ‘êdûwth, come from a root meaning to witness. They are God’s solemn declarations, bearing witness to his will and to his covenant with his people. The psalmist holds to them with enemies all around. He says elsewhere, “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them” (Psalm 119:165).

Scripture expects this kind of pressure for God’s people. Jesus said, “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10), and Paul wrote, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). James says that the trying of our faith works patience, so that we may be perfect and entire (James 1:2–4). A believer today can turn aside from God’s testimonies by taking up the world’s morals in their place, by drifting from sound teaching, by neglecting God’s word and prayer, or by fearing people more than God, for “The fear of man bringeth a snare” (Proverbs 29:25). The psalmist’s own strength came from a life full of God’s word, the word hidden in the heart (verse 11), and the New Testament points us to Jesus, who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, so that we would not grow weary and faint (Hebrews 12:2–3).

In verse 158 the psalmist again uses râʼâh: “I beheld the transgressors”. He looked closely at them. The word for transgressors comes from bâgad, which first means to cover as with a garment, and so to act covertly, to deal deceitfully, treacherously or unfaithfully. These are people who have broken faith with God and betrayed his covenant.

“And was grieved”: the verb qûwṭ means to cut off, and figuratively to detest or loathe. The psalmist’s grief carries a strong revulsion at what he sees. “Because they kept not thy word” gives its reason. To keep, shâmar, is to hedge about as with thorns, and so to guard, protect, observe and take heed. The word is ʼimrâh again, as in verse 154. The transgressors have refused to guard and observe what God has said, and that is what wounds the psalmist. The offence he grieves over is against God and his word.

This grief has its pattern in God himself, who saw the wickedness of mankind before the flood, “and it grieved him at his heart” (Genesis 6:6). In Ezekiel’s vision God set a mark on the foreheads of those who sighed and cried for the abominations done in Jerusalem (Ezekiel 9:4), and Paul had great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart for his own people who had rejected Christ (Romans 9:1–3). Godly grief over sin rises from love for God and his truth, and it carries compassion for those who walk a path of danger.

The stanza ends on the ground of every prayer in it. “Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.” The word here is dâbâr, which means word or speech, and in a separate sense a matter or thing. It stands for all that God has spoken: his commands, his promises and his testimonies. It is ʼemeth, a word for stability, certainty and truth, which is what can be leaned on without giving way. “From the beginning” and “for ever” together take in all of time, so God’s word has always been true and his judgments will never lapse. Earlier the psalm says, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89).

Every one of the judgments is called righteous, because they come from a God whose justice and holiness are perfect. Another psalm says, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul” (Psalm 19:7), and “the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether” (Psalm 19:9). Moses sang of God, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4). God’s word is true because God is unchanging: “For I am the LORD, I change not” (Malachi 3:6). Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17), and Peter wrote, “But the word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter 1:25).

This is why the psalmist could pray as he did. Every request in the stanza leans on God’s word, his judgments and his steadfast love, and the last verse says that all of these stand.

Every part of this stanza finds its fullest meaning in Jesus Christ. The psalmist kept God’s law truly but imperfectly. Jesus kept it without fault. He was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), he said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me” (John 4:34), and he came to fulfil the law to its last jot and tittle (Matthew 5:17–18). He knew affliction and many enemies as no one else has, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3), and he never turned aside from his Father’s testimonies. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and God highly exalted him (Philippians 2:8–9).

So the believer’s deliverance, from daily affliction and from sin and death, rests on Christ’s obedience and sacrifice. He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He “hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13), and so “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1–2). He is the advocate who pleads our cause, and the Father “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13–14). Salvation is near in him, “for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The prayer “quicken me” is answered in him. God, “rich in mercy”, “even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4–5). Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10), and “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). God’s tender mercies were seen in his compassion on the multitudes, scattered as sheep having no shepherd (Matthew 9:36), and God’s lovingkindness was shown at the cross, “in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

The psalmist’s grief over the faithless has its fullest form in Jesus weeping over Jerusalem because it knew not the time of its visitation (Luke 19:41–44). He then bore the transgressions of those who kept not God’s word: “the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5–6). In him we are “more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Romans 8:37).

The word that is true from the beginning is the Word who was in the beginning with God, by whom all things were made (John 1:1–3), and who “was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8).

These eight verses give us a way to pray when trouble presses and enemies are many. The psalmist brings God his affliction, his case and his need of life, and he rests every request on God’s side: his word, his judgments, his great tender mercies and his lovingkindness. They show us a God who sees his servant, who takes up his cause as judge and as kinsman, and whose compassion is greater than the number of those who pursue him. The stanza is honest about the other road too, where salvation stays far from those who leave God’s statutes unsought and the faithless are a grief to those who love him. Under all of it lies the last verse. Whatever we ask of God, we ask of one whose word has been true from the beginning and whose righteous judgments endure for ever, and in Christ that Word has been made flesh and has given us life.