Psalm 119: 25-32

Psalm 119 is called the Alphabet of Divine Love, the Paradise of all Doctrines, the Storehouse of the Holy Spirit, and the School of Truth

The Theme of Psalm 119

is

The Word of God

25.  My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to Your Word.

26.  I have declared my ways, and You answered me; teach me Your statutes.

27.  Make me understand the way of Your precepts; so shall I meditate on Your

       wonderful works.

28.  My soul melts from heaviness; strengthen me according to Your Word.

29.  Remove from me the way of lying, and grant me Your law graciously.

30.  I have chosen the way of truth; Your judgments I have laid before me.

31.  I cling to Your testimonies; O Lord, do not put me to shame!

32.  I will run the course of Your commandments, for You shall enlarge my

       heart.

 

This portion has "D" for its alphabetical letter.  It sings of Depression in the spirit, Determination, and Dependence.

 

25.  David was depressed because his soul was weighed down by the flesh.  It doesn't strain the language to think that he regretted his earthly mindedness and spiritual deadness.  There was a tendency in his soul to cling to earth, and this he greatly grieved in his spirit.  

Revive me according to Your Word.  The cure for all our ailments is more life. And only the Lord can give it. He can provide it, according to His Word without departing from the usual course of His grace which is mapped out in the Scriptures. It is well to know what to pray for.  David seeks reviving, yet one would have thought that he would have asked for comfort or lifting, but he knew this would come out of increased life.  He sought that blessing which is the root of the rest.  When a person is depressed, weak, and bent, the main thing is to increase the stamina and put more life into the person.  Then the spirit revives, and the body stands tall.  In reviving the life, the whole person is renewed.

According to Your Word revive me.  According to Your revealed way of reviving Your saints. The Word of God shows us that He who first made us must keep us alive, and it tells of the Spirit of God who, through the ordinances, pours fresh life into our souls.  Perhaps David remembered the Lord's Word, "Now see that I, even I, am He, and there is no God beside Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; nor is there any who can deliver from My hand (Deut.32:39).  He implores the Lord to give him that power to His almost dead servant.  "That I may live" (v.17) While happy he begs for a bountiful dealing, and when forlorn, he prays for reviving.  Life in both cases is the object of pursuit. "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly" (John 10:10)

26.  I have declared my ways.  Open confession is good for the soul. David's declaration proves that he knew his 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 You answered me.  His confession had been accepted;  God had drawn near to him. Pardon follows 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 our wrong.

Teach me Your statutes.  Truly sorry for his fault, and having obtained full forgiveness, he is anxious to avoid offending again.  He begs to be taught obedience. Not willing to sin through ignorance, he wished to know the mind of God by being taught by the best of teachers.  He longed for holiness.  The cry for teaching is frequent in this Psalm. In v.12, it followed a sight of God, and here, it follows a sight of self.  Every experience should teach us to plead with God, teach me Your statutes.

27.  Make me understand the way of Your precepts.  Give me deep insight into the practical meaning of Your Word.  God would have us follow Him with our eyes open.  To obey the letter of the Word is all that the ignorant can hope for.  If we wish to keep God's precepts in their spirit we must understand them and that can be gained nowhere but at the Lord's hands.  Our understanding needs enlightenment and direction.  He who made our understanding must make us understand.  We need the Holy Spirit to teach us by giving us understanding of God's Word.  The Psalmist is most interested in the precepts of the law for daily living.

So shall I meditate on Your wonderful works.  It is ill to talk about what we do not understand.  God must teach us until we understand. Then we may hope to help others by communicating our knowledge.  When our hearts have been opened to understand, our lips will be opened to impart knowledge.  We may hope to be taught when we feel a willingness to teach the Lord's way.

Your wonderful works.  The more we know of God's doings, the more we admire them and the more ready we are to speak.  Holy wonder is the child of understanding.  When people understand the ways of divine precepts, they never talk about their own works, and as the tongue must have some theme to speak about, they extol the works of the all perfect Lord.   As David understood the Word of God, he meditated on it more and more.  The thoughtless do not care to know the inner meaning of the Scriptures, while those who know them best strive after a greater familiarity with them.

28.  My soul melts from heaviness.  He was dissolving in tears.  The solid strength of his constitution was turning to liquid, as if it were being melted by the furnace of affliction.  There is one good point in this depression; it is better to be melted with grief than hardened by impenitence.

Strengthen me according to Your Word.  David's hope to get out of depression did not lie in himself but in God.  If he is strengthened from on high, he will shake his depression and rise to joy.  David pleads the promises of God's Word only.  God strengthen us by infusing grace through His Word.  The Word that creates can certainly sustain.  It can give us the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3).  Always pray when you are depressed and always pray God's Word only.  Always pray when you are depressed, for it is the surest and shortest way out of the depths. And in that prayer, plead only the Word of God.

 

29.  Remove from me the way of lying.  This is the way of sin, error, idolatry, folly, self-righteousness, formalism, and hypocrisy.  David wanted to be right and upright, true and in the truth.  Yet he feared that a measure of falsehoods would cling to him unless the Lord took it away, so he cried for its removal.  False motives may sway us, and we may fall into mistaken notions of our spiritual condition.  These erroneous conceits may be kept up by a natural prejudice in our favor.  Thus, we may be confirmed in a delusion and live under error unless grace comes to the rescue.  No heart can rest in a false view.  It finds no anchorage, but is tossed to and fro until it gets into the truth and the truth gets into it.  The true-born child of heaven cries out against a lie.  It wants it taken away as much as anyone wants to be kept away from a poisonous snake or hungry lion.

And grant me Your law graciously.  The person who looks on God's Word as a gift of grace is in a gracious state.  David wishes to have the law opened to his understanding, engraved on his heart, and carried out in his life.  He seeks the Lord about it and pleads for it as a gracious grant.  No doubt he viewed this as the only method of deliverance from falsehoods.  If the law is not in our hearts, the lie will enter.  The only way to expel the lie is to accept the truth.  I have chosen the way of truth.  Grace and truth are linked together.

30.  I have chosen the way of truth.  David abhorred the way of lying, so he chose the way of truth.  You must choose one or the other, for there cannot be neutrality.  People do not drop into the right way by chance. They must choose it, and continue to choose it, or they will soon wander.  There is a doctrinal way of truth, and we ought to choose it, rejecting every dogma of man's devising.  There is a ceremonial way of truth, and we should follow it, detesting all the forms the apostate churches have invented.  Then there is a practical way of truth, the way of holiness, to which we must adhere, whatever temptations there are to forsake it.

Your judgments I have laid before me.  What he had chosen, he kept in mind, laying it out before him.  People do not become holy with a careless wish.  There must be study, consideration, deliberation, and earnest inquiry, or the way of truth will be missed.  God's commands must be laid before us like the target, like the model to work by, the road to walk in.  If we put God's judgments into the background we will soon part from them.

31.  I cling to your testimonies.  Though David was depressed,  he kept a strong grip on the divine Word.  This was his comfort.  His faith stuck to it.  His love and obedience held onto it, and his heart and his mind lived in meditation on it.  His choice was so heartily and deliberately made that he stuck to it for life.  He could not be moved from it by the reproaches of those who despised the way of the Lord.

O Lord, do not put me to shame.  The only way this might happen is through a believer acting in an inconsistent manner, as David did when he lied, and pretended to be insane (1 Sam.21:13).  If we are not true to our profession of faith, we may reap the fruit of our folly and that will be the bitter thing called shame.  A believer should never be ashamed, but should be as brave as one who has done nothing to be ashamed of, in believing in God.  We should not adopt a cowardly tone in the presence of the Lord's enemies.

I will run the course of Your commandments.  With energy, promptness, and zeal, he would perform God's will, but he needed more life and liberty from God's hand.

For You shall enlarge my heart.  Yes, the heart is the master, and the feet soon run when the heart is free and energetic  If our affections are aroused and eagerly set on divine things, our reactions will be full of force, speed, and delight.  God must work in us, and then we will do His good pleasure.  He must change the heart, unite the heart, encourage the heart, strengthen the heart, and enlarge the heart.  Then the course of life will be gracious, sincere, happy, and earnest.  From our lowest to our highest state, we must in grace attribute all to the free favor of God.  We must run, for grace is not an overwhelming force that compels unwilling minds to move contrary to there wills.  Our running is the spontaneous leaping of a mind that has been set free by God's hand and delights to show its freedom with bounding speed.

Commentary taken from The Treasury of David (Charles Spurgeon).

Note: 

Having a problem with my "g," "y," and "p," in other words, all letters with tails.  The tails for some reason have disappeared for the most part, although some still have them.  This is a mystery...  If anyone knows what to do about this, I would appreciate your help. 



 

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