Psalm 119:71

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible, an acrostic poem in 22 sections of eight verses, in which every verse of a section opens with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Verse 65 begins the ninth section, Teth. Throughout the psalm the writer speaks of God’s revelation with many names, law, statutes, precepts, commandments, testimonies and word, and he loves all of it, often while he is suffering or opposed.

The stanza opens with thanks. “Thou hast dealt well” joins the everyday verb ʻâsâh, to do or make, with ṭôwb, the word for good in its widest sense: what is beneficial, pleasant and favorable. The psalmist is thanking God for what God has already done, in the spirit of “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:2).

Good is the word that holds this stanza together. ṭôwb stands behind God’s dealing well here, God’s being good in verse 68, the affliction that was good for the psalmist in verse 71, and the law that is better than gold in verse 72, and in verse 66 he asks God for good judgment. So the thanks of verse 65 comes from a man who has been afflicted, and the good he has received includes what was hard.

He calls himself “thy servant”. The word ʻebed names one bound to a master in loyalty and submission, and in Scripture to be the LORD’s servant is an honor. The servant owes obedience, and he can look to his master for care and provision. Paul opens his letter to the Romans by calling himself a servant of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1).

God dealt well with him “according unto thy word”. dâbâr means word or speech, and in this psalm it covers all that God has said, his commands and his promises together. What God did matched what he had said, because “God is not a man, that he should lie” (Numbers 23:19). The psalmist says later, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89), and another psalm joins God’s word and his works: “For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth” (Psalm 33:4). Israel’s covenant had set out the blessings God promised his people (Deuteronomy 28), and the psalmist had found God as good as his word. “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).

Verses 67 and 71 are the heart of the stanza, and they belong together: “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word,” and “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” The same verb stands behind “afflicted” in both, ʻânâh, which means to depress, to humble, to bring low. The psalmist speaks of his affliction as something that came upon him, and the whole stanza places it inside God’s good dealing with his servant.

Before the affliction he “went astray”. The verb shâgag means to stray or err, and it can describe error made through heedlessness or ignorance. Either way it is a departure from the right path, the picture of a traveler wandering off the road. Straying can be open disobedience, and it can be quieter: complacency, neglect of God’s commands, or worldly cares that draw a person off course.

After it he “kept” God’s word. shâmar is the verb for guarding and watching over, and Strong’s gives its first sense as hedging something about, as with thorns. To keep God’s word is to guard it, observe it and do it. Keeping God’s word goes together with guarding the heart against what would lead it away (Proverbs 4:23), and Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). The “word” he kept is ʼimrâh, a different Hebrew word from the dâbâr of verse 65. It means something said, a word, speech or commandment, and it is used of God’s word and of human speech alike. The two verses share the English word and point to the same thing, all that God has spoken.

In verse 71 he goes further and calls the affliction good. ṭôwb here is his verdict on what the affliction did for him, and the reason follows: “that I might learn thy statutes.” “Learn” is lamad, the same verb that stands behind “Teach me” in verse 66. In one form it means to learn, and in another to teach, to cause someone else to learn. The psalmist prayed to be taught, and God answered him in part through affliction. What he learned were God’s statutes, chôq, a word for something prescribed, such as a law, a decree or an allotted portion.

Hardship teaches because it humbles. It strips away the distractions of easy days and drives a person back to what God has said. Israel learned in the wilderness, under the LORD’s discipline, that man doth not live by bread only (Deuteronomy 8:2–5). Hebrews says that the Lord disciplines those he loves, for our good, so that we may share in his holiness, and that his discipline, painful as it is, yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:5–11). James says that the trying of our faith works patience (James 1:2–4). Paul says that suffering produces endurance, endurance character, and character hope (Romans 5:3–5), and that God works all things together for good to those who love him (Romans 8:28).

Verse 68 follows the confession of verse 67, so the man who has been afflicted is the one who says, “Thou art good, and doest good.” The adjective ṭôwb speaks of who God is. The verb from the same root, also written ṭôwb, means to be good, right or pleasing, and to do well, and here it speaks of what he does. God is good in himself, and everything he does comes from that goodness, in creation, in providence, in his care for his people and in their redemption. Israel was called to give thanks to the LORD because he is good (1 Chronicles 16:34), and “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (James 1:17).

His goodness is also the character of his rule. God governs all things, and because he is good, his rule is just, wise and kind, and his purposes for his people are good even when his ways are hidden from us.

Then comes the prayer, “teach me thy statutes.” The psalmist asks to be taught because the God who is good gives good statutes, and he wants to know them so that he can live by them. Another psalm prays in the same way, asking the LORD to show his ways and teach his paths (Psalm 25:4), and Proverbs calls us to trust in the LORD with all our heart and lean on him in place of our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5–6).

The prayer of verse 66 asks for two things. “Judgment” is ṭaʻam, which properly means taste, and from there perception, discretion, reason and understanding. Good judgment is good taste in the things of God: the ability to tell right from wrong and truth from error, and to apply what is right in the choices of daily life. “Knowledge” is daʻath, knowledge that includes skill and discernment. Together they ask for an understanding of God’s ways and the practical wisdom to walk in them. The verb “teach”, lâmad, is one Strong’s traces to a root meaning to goad, and in use it means to instruct and train.

The reason he gives is “for I have believed thy commandments.” The verb behind “believed” comes from a root meaning to be firm and faithful, to trust. He has already taken God’s commands as true and good, and that trust makes him want to understand them better and keep them more exactly. Faith asks to be taught. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7), and Jesus said that whoever is willing to do God’s will shall know whether his teaching comes from God (John 7:17).

The prayer rests on God as the giver. Proverbs says that the LORD gives wisdom and that knowledge and understanding come from his mouth (Proverbs 2:6), and James tells anyone who lacks wisdom to ask God for it (James 1:5). Psalm 19 praises the law of the LORD as perfect and life-giving to the soul, and the blessed man of Psalm 1:2 delights in that law and meditates in it day and night.

“The proud”, zêd, are the arrogant and insolent, people who act presumptuously and with contempt for God’s law, and who in the Psalms often use their power to oppress and slander the righteous. They have “forged a lie” against him. The verb ṭâphal properly means to stick on, as a patch is stuck on, and so to charge someone falsely. The lie is something they have made up and fastened on him on purpose. In Israel a false accusation could ruin a person’s name, cut him off from his neighbors and bring legal penalties on him, and Proverbs calls lying lips an abomination to the LORD (Proverbs 12:22).

The psalmist’s answer is “but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.” He turns from his accusers to God’s commands. “Heart” is lêb, used very widely for the feelings, the will and the mind, so a whole heart is a person’s entire inner life given to God, undivided and sincere, as the law commands Israel to love the LORD with all the heart (Deuteronomy 6:5). He leaves his vindication with God, who says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay” (Romans 12:19). Psalm 7:1–5 is a prayer for deliverance from persecutors in the same spirit.

“Their” points back to the proud of verse 69, the kind of people who mock the psalmist in Psalm 119:51, and the bands of the wicked of Psalm 119:61. In Hebrew thought the heart, lêb, is the center of the person, where he thinks, feels, chooses and hears his conscience. “Is as fat as grease” translates ṭâphash, a verb meaning to be thick, and figuratively to be dull or stupid, with cheleb, fat, for the comparison. A heart grown thick with fat is numb. It is dull and unresponsive to God’s voice, hardened by comfort, self-indulgence or pride.

Fat had a good place in Israel’s worship, where the fat of the offering was the choicest part and belonged to the LORD (Leviticus 3:16). Said of a heart, it means heaviness and dullness, like the hardened heart of Pharaoh in Exodus and the heart of the people in Isaiah 6:10, which the KJV also calls fat. Proverbs blesses the man who fears always (Proverbs 28:14), and the fat heart is the one that has lost that fear.

Against them the psalmist sets himself: “but I delight in thy law.” shâʻaʻ is given in Strong’s as to look upon with complacency, to fondle, to please oneself, and here it is the glad and willing pleasure of a man who loves what God has said. Earlier in the psalm he calls God’s testimonies his delight (Psalm 119:24), and Joshua was told to meditate in the book of the law day and night (Joshua 1:8).

The fat heart is the natural state of fallen man, a mind hostile to God and unable to submit to his law (Romans 8:7). God’s answer is a new heart. He promised to take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, and to put his Spirit within his people so that they walk in his statutes (Ezekiel 36:26–27), and to write his law on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).

The stanza ends by weighing God’s law against wealth. “The law of thy mouth” is tôwrâh, from a root meaning to teach or direct, God’s instruction in all its breadth. “Of thy mouth”, peh, marks it as coming from God himself, his own word spoken to his people. “Better” is ṭôwb again, and “thousands”, ʼeleph, sets the law beside a vast fortune in gold and silver, the kind of wealth found in a king’s treasury or the spoils of a great conquest. Gold and silver were money, security and status, and the psalmist, who has been afflicted and slandered, says that God’s instruction is better to him than all of it.

Scripture says the same of wisdom, that it is better than rubies and fine gold (Proverbs 3:13–15), and wisdom calls us to take her instruction ahead of choice silver and gold (Proverbs 8:10–11). Jesus tells us to lay up treasure in heaven, where it is safe from decay and theft (Matthew 6:19–21), and Paul counted all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (Philippians 3:7–8). Gold and silver can be lost, stolen or spent. God’s word gives wisdom for living, guidance in hard choices, comfort in sorrow and the way to eternal life, which is why the psalmist rejoices in God’s testimonies (Psalm 119:14).

Every line of this stanza comes to its fullness in Jesus Christ. He is the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1), the Word made flesh (John 1:14). In him all the promises of God are yea and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20), so God’s dealing well with us “according unto thy word” reaches its height in him. Isaiah calls him the LORD’s righteous servant, who bears the iniquities of many (Isaiah 53:11). In him God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), and of his fulness we have all received grace upon grace (John 1:16).

In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3), the answer to the prayer of verse 66. He taught with authority (Matthew 7:28–29), came to fulfil the law (Matthew 5:17), and sends the Spirit, who teaches us all things (John 14:26) and guides us into all truth (John 16:13). It is God who works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). He is also the treasure of verse 72, the pearl of great price for which the merchant sold all that he had (Matthew 13:45–46).

We are the ones who went astray: “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6). Christ kept God’s word perfectly, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and by his blood we who were far off are made nigh (Ephesians 2:13). He is the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep until he finds it (Luke 15:4–7), and his sheep hear his voice and follow him (John 10:27).

Verse 71 has its deepest echo in him. Though he was a Son, he learned obedience by the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). He was always obedient, and his obedience was shown and made complete through suffering (Hebrews 2:10), so that as our High Priest he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). Our afflictions, borne in him, bring us into the fellowship of his sufferings (Philippians 3:10) and conform us to his image (Romans 8:29).

Verse 69 was fulfilled in him as well. At his trial the proud brought false witnesses against him. He was oppressed and afflicted (Isaiah 53:7), and he did no sin, and guile was found nowhere in his mouth. When he was reviled he committed himself to the Father, who judges righteously (1 Peter 2:19–23). His heart was never fat with dullness. He delighted in his Father’s will all his life, and through him our own dull hearts are made new.

This stanza gives us a way to look back over a life. The psalmist looks at all of his, the wandering, the affliction and the lies told about him, and says that the LORD has dealt well with him according to his word. He can say it because God is good and does good, and because the hard things taught him what he had missed in easy days.

It shows us a God who keeps his word, who disciplines his children as a father, who answers the prayer “teach me” in his own way, sometimes through affliction, and who gives his servants a law better than any fortune. It also gives us the prayers themselves: “Teach me good judgment and knowledge,” and “teach me thy statutes.” Whoever prays them stands where the psalmist stood, trusting God’s commands and asking to understand them, with a teacher who is good in all he does. Verse 71 is a word that faith can say after affliction, and verse 69 is an answer to the lie. The law of God’s mouth remains better than thousands of gold and silver, and in Christ, in whom its treasures are hid, it belongs to us.