Exposition of Psalm
119
?
AIN
God’s
Word is Our Assurance
Psalm
119:121-128
I
have done judgment and justice: leave me not to mine
oppressors.
Be
surety for thy servant for good: let not the proud
oppress me.
Mine
eyes fail for thy salvation, and for the word of thy
righteousness.
Deal
with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me
thy statutes.
I
am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know
thy testimonies.
It
is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void
thy law.
Therefore
I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine
gold.
Therefore
I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be
right; and I hate every false way.
As this stanza opens, the
Psalmist is again feeling virtually overwhelmed by his
enemies. As the stanza continues, however, he realizes
again that the Word of God is his only refuge and his
most precious possession. We see here that in contrast
to how the world looks for assurance in things such as
things money, job, retirement benefits, and all kinds of
things—none of which are necessarily bad in themselves,
but they don’t provide assurance—David recognizes that
assurance is to be found only in God’s revelation. In
this stanza, therefore, God, through His Word, is our
assurance in four ways: our guardian, guarantee, God of
mercy, and our gold.
I. The Lord
is Our Guardian (v. 121)
I
have done judgment and justice: leave me not to mine
oppressors.
The word oppressors
here and “oppress” in verse 122 translate the same
Hebrew word (‘ashaq), which speaks of “acts of
abuse of power or authority, the burdening, trampling,
and crushing of those lower in station.” History is
filled with examples of this. This was (and still is),
however, serious sin in God’s eyes. “One [was] never to
oppress (‘ashaq) or rob (gazal) his neighbor (Lev. 19:13), or his hired
servant, whether a fellow Israelite or a foreign
sojourner (Deut. 24:14).”[i]
In contrast, David
himself had done judgment and
justice; that is, he had
done what was right to those with whom he had dealt. It
is easy, then, to understand David’s troubled heart.
While he had done people right, they had done him
wrong.
David’s prayer,
therefore, was leave me
not. The Hebrew behind leave
(nûach) has several uses, one
of which speaks of rest and security, as when the ark
“rested” on Mount Ararat (Gen. 8:4), and when the Ark of
Covenant rested in the waters of Jordan and parted them
(Josh 3:13). David, then, asks, “Leave me not as my
security, my rest, my guardian.”
We, too, can pray with
that kind of assurance, for as Moses declared, “Be
strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of
them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with
thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee” (Deut.
31:6). That verse is quoted in Hebrews 13:5, where the
Greek verb (emphatic future negative) literally means,
“I will never, never, never leave thee.”
II. The Lord
is Our Guarantee (v. 122)
Be
surety for thy servant for good: let not the proud
oppress me.
As noted in our
introduction of this grand Psalm, the Masoretes—a group of Hebrew
scholars from the sixth to eleventh centuries who
copied, preserved, and guarded the text—originally
observed that only this verse does not make a
clear reference to the Word of God. The natural question
is, “Why?” While we obviously do not know for sure, it
is quite possible that the reason was that the psalmist
was so distraught, so distressed, so depressed by his
oppressors, that his eyes fell away from God’s Word for
a moment. His prayer, therefore, is two-fold.
First, “Lord,
be my surety.”
Perhaps the most vivid use of the Hebrew for surety
(‘arab, a guarantee) appears in Genesis 43:9.
There was a great famine in Canaan, so Jacob sent ten of
his sons to Egypt to find food, leaving only Benjamin,
the youngest, at home. There they discovered Joseph,
whom they had betrayed years before but whom they did
not recognize. Feigning contempt for them, Joseph
treated them roughly, accused them of being spies,
imprisoned Simeon, and then demanded that the other nine
return home and bring Benjamin back to Egypt (42:1-25).
Arriving in Canaan, and after telling their story to
Jacob, Judah offered himself as surety for Benjamin, offering his life for his
brother’s. Here is a graphic type of Christ, Who became
our Surety, our Guarantee, at the
cross.
David, therefore,
prays that God would be his surety,
his guarantee against those who would rise up against
him. While the world promises various things for
assurance, but in the end, we have only one Guarantee,
and that is in Christ alone. We can lose
everything else, but still have everything because we have Him. This leads to
his second petition.
Second,
“Lord, let not my enemies subjugate me.” As noted
back in verse 78, the word proud
(zed) speaks of “pride and a sense of
self-importance, which often is exaggerated to include
defiance and even rebelliousness.”[ii] Such people oppress and
subjugate other people as often as they can. David,
therefore, prays for God’s deliverance from such men.
We, too, can pray like this, with full assurance that
God will deliver us according to His will.
III. The
Lord is Our God of Mercy (v. 123-125)
Mine
eyes fail for thy salvation, and for the word of thy
righteousness.
Deal
with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me
thy statutes.
I
am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know
thy testimonies.
At the heart of
these verses is the truth of God’s mercy
(hesed), which we first explored back in
verse 41 and speaks of kindness, loving-kindness, mercy,
goodness, faithfulness, love, and acts of kindness.
Added to our study there, we note here that David
mentions mercy
constantly in his Psalms. Of the 240 occurrences of
hesed in the Old Testament,
in fact, over half of them (129) are in the Psalms and
61 of those (almost half) are in the Psalms of David
(counting seven in Ps. 119). As one Hebrew authority
offers, this wondrous word denotes “free acts of rescue
or deliverance,”[iii] which beautifully
describes biblical mercy, which is always to the helpless, those who are
totally inable to help themselves. Let us mediate on
three ways in which God is merciful.
Merciful
with Salvation (v. 123)
Mine
eyes fail for thy salvation, and for the word of thy
righteousness.
As noted back in
verses 41 and 81, the word salvation
is the Hebrew teshû‘â, which means deliverance,
victory, and safety. As noted also in verse 82, fail
(kalah)
in these contexts means consumed, exhausted, and spent.
So David had become exhausted and spent in looking for
deliverance, victory, and safety. He felt surrounded and
totally inable to do anything for himself. As he also
stated in those earlier verses, his eyes became weary in
his constant reading of the word of God. But still he knew that that was the only
answer. As Spurgeon writes here:
He wept, waited, and watched for
God’s saving hand, and these exercises tried the eyes of
his faith till they were almost ready to give out. He
looked to God alone, he looked eagerly, he looked long,
he looked till his eyes ached. The mercy is, that if our
eyes fail, God does not fail, nor do his eyes fail. Eyes
are tender things, and so are our faith, hope and
expectancy, the Lord will not try them above what they
are able to bear [I Cor.
10:13].
Dear Christian Friend, do
you ever feel surrounded and besieged? In ancient times,
war often involved besieging a city. The enemy would
surround the city, preventing anyone from leaving it to
gather food. This would eventually starve the
inhabitants and create horrible living conditions.
I was reminded here
of a more recent incident, the famous Battle of the
Bulge in World War II, when the 101st
Airborne division was surrounded at the crucial
crossroad town of Bastogne, a crucial crossroad town, by
the German 26th
Volksgrenadier Division in
December 1944. After the German commander called upon
the American General McAuliffe to surrender, the general
responded with the now famous reply, “NUTS!” What makes
that even more amusing to the American ear is that the
term had to be explained not only to the Germans but to
non-American allies. Why such confidence? It was because
of three factors: the whole hearted support of the
town’s population, the sound of III Corp’s guns
announcing the American counteroffensive to the south,
and the supply drops from airplanes into the city. Of
the latter point, in his memories of the war, General
Eisenhower wrote that Bastogne could never have held
except for the 800,000 pounds of supplies that were
dropped to the besieged division.[iv]
That is
confidence in one’s resources. Well, our resources are
in God alone. Let us never doubt that the answer
always lies in Him. Never
give in to the temptation to look elsewhere for comfort,
consolation, or contentment, for you will never find it
and your misery will grow even greater. Just keep look
to Him.
Merciful
with Sympathy (v. 124a)
Deal
with thy servant according unto thy
mercy,
As noted earlier,
mercy
speaks of “free acts of rescue or deliverance,” and that
is the ultimate expression of sympathy. How humbling it
is to realize that God deals with each of us, each
servant,
with sympathy, compassion, and kindness. (We’ll return
to that important word servant in verse 125.)
Merciful
with His Statues (v. 124b-125)
and
teach me thy statutes.
I
am thy servant; give me understanding, that I may know
thy testimonies.
Perhaps most of us
never think that God giving us His Word is actually an
act of mercy, a free, undeserved act of rescue and
deliverance. Throughout history men have wallowed in
uncertainty, but God’s giving His statutes,
that is, His decrees that are engraved in stone, is an
act of undeserved mercy that delivers men from the
consequences of sin if they but believe. David
understood that truth and wanted nothing more than to
know God’s
Word, to have an understanding
of God’s truth. As he mentioned in verses 27 and 34, he
wanted not just knowledge of facts, but understanding
of truth. As the Hebrew (bîn) indicates, he
wanted to truly perceive and discern truth from error,
to truly know God’s testimonies
(edah, edut), the
sober and serious expressions of God’s standards for
human behavior.
David also declares,
I am thy
servant. The word servant (or “servants”) appears fourteen times in this
Psalm.[v] This is the third
time, in fact, that it appears in this stanza alone. The
Hebrew here (‘ebed) refers to
a slave, but slavery in ancient Israel was not what we
think today. “The period of slavery was limited to six
years (Ex. 21:2). Slaves had rights and protection under
the Law (Ex. 21:20). It was also possible for slaves to
attain positions of power and honor (Gen. 24:2; Gen.
41:12).”[vi] This is, indeed, what we
are to God. While we are slaves, our Master does not
abuse us; on the contrary, He elevates us.
IV. The Lord
is Our Gold (v. 126-128)
It
is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void
thy law.
Therefore
I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine
gold.
Therefore
I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be
right; and I hate every false way.
David closes this stanza
with three challenging principles.
The
Recognition of Error (v. 126)
It
is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void
thy law.
Here we read a bold
statement, indeed: It is time for thee,
LORD, to work. Our reaction to this might
very well be, “How dare David make such a statement! Who
is he to tell God it is time to do something?” But David
was writing under the inspiration of God, and God
revealed to him that it was time to do something. Why?
Because men had made void [God’s]
law. The Hebrew behind made void
is a single word (parar) that means to break,
divide, or frustrate and is often used in the context of
a covenant or agreement (e.g., 1 Kings 15:19; Lev.
26:15; 26:44). Men break God’s law by denying it,
denigrating it, disparaging it, and defaming it. Indeed,
when they do, it is time
for God to work. This is
why it is so crucial that God’s people stand for the
Word.
The Riches
of God (v. 127)
Therefore
I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine
gold.
I was reminded here of the
hypocrisy and inconsistency of socialism and communism.
While they boast that private property must be
abolished, that property and the distribution of wealth
are subject to control by the community, and that
everyone must be economically equal, it is interesting
that various economic incentives were used among the
Vietcong during the Vietnam War. For example, American
scout dogs could smell snipers and pick up the scent of
the Vietcong on tracks, tunnels, and land mines and were
so effective that the North Vietnamese put a bounty on
the heads of the dogs and their handlers. The Vietcong
were rewarded if they brought back the tattooed ears of
the dogs or the arm patches of their handlers. The most
graphic example for me was so feared was the legendary
marine sniper, Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock (who had
93 confirmed kills and over 300 probables), that the
North Vietnamese put a $30,000 bounty on his
head.
What hypocrisy! Why?
Because men love gold, no
matter how they try to hide that fact with political
rhetoric. “The love of money is,” indeed, “the root of
all evil” (I Tim. 6:10). In stark contrast, however,
David, a man of enormous wealth, writes, I love thy
commandments above gold; yea, above fine
gold. It is truly amazing that the words
gold and
then fine
gold are actually two different Hebrew words.
Gold
(zahab) refers to gold ore, gold in its raw
state, while fine gold
(paz) refers to pure, refined gold, an
extremely scarce commodity. The Psalmist shows us here
that true wealth is not in the world, rather it
is in the Word.
The Reality
of Truth (v. 128)
Therefore
I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be
right; and I hate every false way.
One commentator
writes here, “The previous verse put a monetary
value on the Bible—it is worth more than gold; this one
puts a moral value on the
Bible—it is always right.”[vii] The Hebrew behind
right
(yashar) is truly graphic. It
refers to that which is straight and level. As one
scholar writes, “The Israelites designated an easy road
for traveling as a ‘level road.’ It had few inclines and
declines compared to the mountain
roads.”[viii] That is what God’s Word
is. It is straight and level; it doesn’t throw us any
curves or take us up and down, or make us meander about
until we find our way. It is absolute.
As noted in verse
104, every
(kol)
is a particle meaning every, all, everything, the whole,
entire. When used before a definite noun, it expresses
the whole of that noun, such as when Noah and his sons
spread over “the whole earth” (Gen. 9:19). David,
therefore, hated anything false,
each and every departure from wisdom, all untruth as a
whole. Mark it down: genuine love for truth always
produces a hatred of anything false. The godly Christian will hate false teaching,
lies of any sort, and all other departures of
truth.
Dear Christian Friend,
where do you find assurance for your daily living? You
will find it only in the Lord and His Word, which are
your guardian, guarantee, God of mercy, and
gold.
[iii] Katherine D.
Sakenfeld, The Meaning of Hesed in the Hebrew
Bible. Cited in TWOT, #698, which also includes a
very good discussion of an alternative (and heretical)
meaning of hesed, propounded
in 1927 by Nelson Glueck, who “built on the growing idea
that Israel was bound to its deity by covenants like the
Hittite and other treaties. He held that God is pictured
as dealing basically in this way with Israel. The Ten
Commandments, etc. were stipulations of the covenant,
Israel's victories were rewards of covenant keeping, her
apostasy was covenant violation and God's hesed was not
basically mercy, but loyalty to his covenant
obligations, a loyalty which the Israelites should also
show.”
[iv] Dwight D.
Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe
(New York: Doubleday, 1948), p.
452.
[v] Verses 17, 23, 38, 49,
65, 76, 84, 91, 122, 124, 125, 135, 140,
176.
[vi] Baker and Carpenter,
#5650.
