Psalm 119: 73-80

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

73.  Your hands have made me and fashioned me; Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.

74.  Those who fear You will be glad when they see me, because have hoped in Your Word.

75.  I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

76.  Let, I pray, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to Your Word to Your servant.

77.  Let Your tender mercies come to me, that I may live; for Your law is my delight.

78.  Let the proud be ashamed, for they treated me wrongfully with falsehood;  but I will meditate on Your precepts.

79.   Let those who fear You turn to me, those who know Your testimonies.

80.  Let my heart be blameless regarding Your statutes, that I may not be  ashamed.

73-80.  It's subject seems to be a personal experience and its attractive influence on others.  The psalmist, in deep sorrow, looks to be delivered and to be made a blessing.  Endeavoring to teach, he first seeks to be taught (v.73).  He is persuaded that he will be well received (v.74), and he rehearses the testimony he intends to give (v.75).  He then prays for more experience (vv.76,77), for the proud to be baffled (v.78), and for the godly to be gathered to him (v.79).  And he prays for himself again, that he may be fully equipped and sustained for witnessing (v.80).  This is the anxious yet hopeful cry of one who is heavily afflicted by cruel adversaries.  Thus, he makes his appeal to God as his only friend.

73.  Your hands have made and fashioned me.  It is profitable to remember our creation.  It is pleasant to see that the divine hand has much to do with us, for it never moves apart from the divine thought.  Creation inspires reverence, gratitude, and affection toward God when we see Him as our Maker putting forth the careful skill and power of His hands in forming and fashioning us.  God took a personal interest in us; He made us with His own hands.  He was doubly thoughtful, for He is represented as making and molding us.  In both giving and arranging existence, He manifested love and wisdom.  Thus, we find reasons for praise, confidence, and expectation in our being and well-being.

Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.  As Your have made me, teach me.  Here is the vessel that You fashioned, Lord, so fill it.  You have given me soul and body, so grant me Your grace, that my soul may know Your will and my body may join in the performance of it.  The plea is forcible!  It is an enlargement of the cry, Do not forsake the works of Your hands" (Psalm 138:8).  We pray that we may not be left without spiritual judgment. The psalmist prayed for this in v.66, and here he pleads for it again.  There is no true knowing and keeping the commandments without spiritual judgment.  Only those taught by God can be holy.  The best gift are a sanctified understanding to know and to prize the ways of the Lord.  David's prayer for understanding is to learn God's commandments and be obedient and holy. 

Give me understanding, as if to say, "I can learn other things with the mind I have, but Your law is so pure, perfect, spiritual, and sublime that I need to have my mind enlarged before I can become proficient." He appeals to His Maker.  No power short of what had made him could make him wise unto holiness.  We need a new creation. Who can grant that but the Creator?  He who made us live must make us learn.  He who gave power to stand must give grace to understand.  Let us pray our way through and cry to God for understanding.

74.  Those who fear You will be glad when they see me, because I have hoped in Your Word.  When saints obtain grace, they become a blessing, especially if that grace has made them sound in understanding and holy knowledge.  God-fearing people are encouraged when they meet experienced believers; a hopeful person is a godsend when things are declining or in danger.  When the hopes of one believer are fulfilled, the saints are cheered, established, and led to hope.  It's good to see a person whose witness is that the Lord is true.  It is the joy of saints to speak with more advanced believers.  The fear of God is not left-handed grace, it is consistent with gladness. If the sight of a comrade gladdens the God-fearing, how glad will they be in the Lord's presence?  We meet not only to share each others' burdens, but also to partake in each others' joys.

73, 74.  From these two verses we learn:

Nothing can satisfy unbelief. Yet true faith will make use of the most common benefit of creation to strengthen itself,  Your hands have made me and fashioned me

 It is a good way of reasoning with God to ask for another gift because we have received one.  And because He has given common beliefs, it is good to ask that He would also give saving graces.  Your hands have made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.

Seeing that God is our Creator, and that the end of our creation is to serve God, we may confidently ask for whatever grace is necessary to serve Him, as the psalmist's example teaches us.

It should be the joy of all believers to see one of their number sustained and borne up in suffering.  In the proof and example of one sufferer, a pawn is given to the rest, that God will help them in similar cases.  Those who fear You will be glad when they see me.  (David Dickson, 1583-1662).

75.  I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are right.  He who would learn most must be thankful for what he already knows and willing to confess it to the glory of God.  The psalmist had be sorely tried, but he continued to hope in God. Now, he confirms his conviction, that he had been justly and wisely chastened.

It made the godly glad to hear David say, In faithfulness You have afflicted me.  Because love required severity, the Lord exercised it.  It was not that God was unfaithful that the believer found himself in a sore strait, but for just the opposite reason:  it was God's faithfulness to His covenant that brought the chosen one under the rod. Not that the others should be tried just then, but it was necessary for David.  And the Lord did not withhold the blessing.  Our heavenly Father is no Eli; He will not permit His children to sin without a rebuke (1 Samuel 2:12).  the person who makes a confession of this is already progressing in the school of  grace and is learning the commandments.

76.  Let, I pray, Your merciful kindness be for my comfort, according to Your Word to Your servant.  Having confessed the Lord's righteousness, David now appeals to His mercy.  He does not ask for the rod to be removed but earnestly begs for comfort under it.  Righteousness and faithfulness give no consolation unless we taste mercy.  Blessed be God, this is promised in the Word and we can expect it.  Merciful kindness is a happy combination which expresses exactly what we need in affliction:  mercy to forgive sin and kindness to be sustained under the sorrow.

Let us pray to the Lord, whom we have grieved by our sin, and let us plead the Word of His grace as our sole reason for expecting His favor.  Blessed be His name, for despite our faults, we are still His servants.  We serve a compassionate Master.  This phrase according to Your Word, shows the motive and manner of mercy.  Our prayers are according to the mind of God when they are according to the Word of God.

77.  Let Your tender mercies come to me, that I may live.  David was so hard pressed that he was at death's door if God did not help him.  He needed not only mercy, but mercies.  If deliverance did not soon come, he would die.  Yet, he told us only a verse or so ago that he hoped in God's Word (v.74).  It is true, hope lives on when death seems written on everything.  No true child of God can live without the Lord's tender mercies.  It is death to be under God's displeasure.  Notice the happy combination of the words.  Was there ever a sweeter sound than tender mercies?  Those who have been grievously afflicted and yet tenderly helped are the only ones who know the meaning of this choice language. We truly live when tender mercies come.  We know not what life is until we know God.

For Your law is my delight. Blessed faith!  It is no small believer who rejoices in the law even when its broken precepts cause suffering.  To delight in the Word even when it rebukes proves we are profiting under it.  Surely this is the plea that will prevail with God, however bitter our grief.  If we delight in the law of the Lord, He cannot let us die (spiritually).  He must and will look tenderly on us and will comfort our hearts.

78.  Let the proud be ashamed.  God will not allow those who hope in His Word to be put to shame.  He reserves that reward for the haughty, who will be overtaken with confusion and become the subjects of contempt.  But God's afflicted ones will again lift their heads.  Shame is for the proud, not the holy; for there is nothing in holiness to be ashamed of.

For they treated me wrongfully with falsehood.  Their malice was wanton; David had not provoked them.  Falsehood was employed to forge an accusation; they had to bend his actions out of their true shape before they could assail his character.  Evidently, the psalmist keenly felt the malice of his foes.  His innocence created a burning sense of injustice, and he appealed to the righteous Lord to take his part and shame his false accusers. Probably, he mentioned them as the proud because he knew that the Lord always takes vengeance on the proud and vindicates the cause of those they oppress. Sometimes David calls them proud and sometimes he calls them wicked, but he always means the same persons, for the words are interchangeable. 

But I will meditate on Your precepts.  He would leave the proud in God's hands and give himself to holy studies and contemplations.  In order to obey the divine precepts, we must know them and think much of them.  Thus, this persecuted saint felt that meditation on God's precepts must be his chief employment.  Rather than giving the proud a thought, let us baffle them by staying all the closer to God when they are the most malicious in their onslaughts.

79.  Let those who fear You turn to me, those who know Your testimonies.  Perhaps slander had alienated some of the godly, and probably David's actual faults had grieved many more.  He begs God to turn him and then to turn his people to him.  Those who are right with God are anxious to be right with His children.  We cannot afford to lose the love of the least of the saints, and if we have lost their esteem, we may most properly pray to have it restored. David was the leader of he godly party in the nation, and it wounded him when those who feared God were no longer glad to see him.  David did not bluster, saying that if they could do without him, he could do well without them.  He so deeply felt the value of their sympathy that he made it a matter of prayer for the Lord to turn their hearts to him again. Those who are cherished by God and instructed in His Word should be precious in our eyes.  We should do our utmost to be on good terms with them.

David has two descriptions for the saints, God-fearing and God-knowing.  They possess both devotion and instruction.  We know some believers that are gracious but not knowledgeable; we also know believers that are all head and no heart.  Here is someone who combines devotion with knowledge.  When fearing and knowing walk hand in hand, they always cause the people who have them to have an abundance for every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8).

Those who fear.  Those who know.  Fear and knowledge make up a godly person.  Knowledge without fear breeds presumption.  Fear without knowledge breeds superstition.  Blind zeal, like a blind horse, may be full of spirit, but is always stumbling.  Knowledge must direct fear, and fear must season knowledge; then it is a happy mixture and composition. (Thomas Manton, 1620-1677).

80.  Let my heart be blameless regarding Your statutes, that I may not be ashamed.  This is more important than being held in esteem by good people.  This is the root of the matter.  If the heart is sound in obedience to God, all is well, or it will be well.  If we are right at heart, we are right in the main.  If we are not sound before God, our reputation for holiness is an empty sound.  A mere profession of faith will fail, and undeserved esteem will disappear like a bubble when it bursts.  Only sincerity and truth will endure  in the evil day.  Those who are right at heart have no reason for shame, and they never will.  In v.73, David sought sound understanding.  Here he goes deeper and begs for a sound heart.  Those who have learned their frailty from sad experiences are led to dive beneath the surface and cry to the Lord for inner truth.

Commentary is from Treasury of David (Charles Spurgeon).

Annie's thoughts on this passage...

73. Your hands have made and fashioned me. It is profitable to remember our creation. It is pleasant to see that the divine hand has much to do with us, for it never moves apart from the divine thought. Creation inspires reverence, gratitude, and affection toward God when we see Him as our Maker putting forth the careful skill and power of His hands in forming and fashioning us. God took a personal interest in us; He made us with His own hands. He was doubly thoughtful, for He is represented as making and molding us. In both giving and arranging existence, He manifested love and wisdom. Thus, we find reasons for praise, confidence, and expectation in our being and well-being.

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Our God is Sovereign and has set the number of our days and ordained all the places where we should live, and I imagine, the people who would be in our lives (Acts 17:26-28).  He has given us our uniqueness and our bent toward specific interests because He has designed us for a purpose and that purpose is to serve Him. In (Eph.2: 10) Paul tells us we were created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The thought that God fashioned us, that He considered every detail of the life we would live, knowing how badly we would mess up before we ever got anywhere close to being what He fashioned us for, truly amazes me. I am far from all the way there, but I know where my heart is and where it wants to be, and that is with Him, and His purpose for me. I don't understand the necessity of certain experiences, especially as a child, but God knows, and I know I can trust Him and His omniscience. His Word says all things good come from our heavenly Father. He does not give us anything evil. For some reason, He allows it, but will later use it to bring good things out of it.  One day I will understand...now is the time to just trust Him.

I am finding that as I am typing these up I am wanting to break out in praise and thanksgiving for our wonderful, sovereign God who not only knit us in our mother's womb, but created us to serve Him.  In order to do that, He makes us new creations, and graces us with everything we need to will and serve for His good purpose. (Php.2:13)

Please share your thoughts on any of these verses and commentary that go with them.  I love to hear what others are thinking and feeling as they read and reflect on this Psalm.

~Annie~