1191 ALEPH. Blessed are the undefiled
1191
1191 You're blessed when you stay on course, walking steadily on the road revealed by God.
1191 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, Who walk in the law of the Lord!
1191 Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord .
55 In the night, Lord, I remember your name, that I may keep your law.
55 I have remembered thy name, O Lord, in the night, and have kept thy law.
55 I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law.
55 I meditate on your name all night, God, treasuring your revelation, O God.
55 I remember Your name in the night, O Lord, And I keep Your law.
55 I reflect at night on who you are, O Lord ; therefore, I obey your instructions.
(Read Psalm 119:49-56)
Those that make God's promises their portion, may with humble boldness make them their plea. He that by his Spirit works faith in us, will work for us. The word of God speaks comfort in affliction. If, through grace, it makes us holy, there is enough in it to make us easy, in all conditions. Let us be certain we have the Divine law for what we believe, and then let not scoffers prevail upon us to decline from it. God's judgments of old comfort and encourage us, for he is still the same. Sin is horrible in the eyes of all that are sanctified. Ere long the believer will be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. In the mean time, the statutes of the Lord supply subjects for grateful praise. In the season of affliction, and in the silent hours of the night, he remembers the name of the Lord, and is stirred up to keep the law. All who have made religion the first thing, will own that they have been unspeakable gainers by it.
97 Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
97 MEM. O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
97 Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.
97 Oh, how I love all you've revealed; I reverently ponder it all the day long.
97 Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.
97 Oh, how I love your instructions! I think about them all day long.
(Read Psalm 119:97-104)
What we love, we love to think of. All true wisdom is from God. A good man carries his Bible with him, if not in his hands, yet in his head and in his heart. By meditation on God's testimonies we understand more than our teachers, when we understand our own hearts. The written word is a more sure guide to heaven, than all the fathers, the teachers, and ancients of the church. We cannot, with any comfort or boldness, attend God in holy duties, while under guilt, or in any by-way. It was Divine grace in his heart, that enabled the psalmist to receive these instructions. The soul has its tastes as well as the body. Our relish for the word of God will be greatest, when that for the world and the flesh is least. The way of sin is a wrong way; and the more understanding we get by the precepts of God, the more rooted will be our hatred of sin; and the more ready we are in the Scriptures, the better furnished we are with answers to temptation.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 119:1
Commentary on Psalm 119:1-8
(Read Psalm 119:1-8)
This psalm may be considered as the statement of a believer's experience. As far as our views, desires, and affections agree with what is here expressed, they come from the influences of the Holy Spirit, and no further. The pardoning mercy of God in Christ, is the only source of a sinner's happiness. And those are most happy, who are preserved most free from the defilement of sin, who simply believe God's testimonies, and depend on his promises. If the heart be divided between him and the world, it is evil. But the saints carefully avoid all sin; they are conscious of much evil that clogs them in the ways of God, but not of that wickedness which draws them out of those ways. The tempter would make men think they are at them out of those ways. The tempter would make men think they are at liberty to follow the word of God or not, as they please. But the desire and prayer of a good man agree with the will and command of God. If a man expects by obedience in one thing to purchase indulgence for disobedience in others, his hypocrisy will be detected; if he is not ashamed in this world, everlasting shame will be his portion. The psalmist coveted to learn the laws of God, to give God the glory. And believers see that if God forsakes them, the temper will be too hard for them.