Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 119:67
Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
67. I went astray ] I did err; the word used in Lev 5:18; Num 15:28. The verse is equally applicable to Israel as a nation, taught by the discipline of exile, or to the Psalmist as an individual. Cp. Psa 119:71 ; Psa 119:75; Psa 118:18; Job 5:17.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Before I was afflicted – The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, Before I was humbled. The Hebrew word has the general sense of being afflicted, and may refer to any kind of trial.
I went astray – The Hebrew word means to wander; to err; to do wrong; to transgress. Num 15:28; Job 12:16. It here means that he forgot his duty; that he fell into sin; that he departed from what was right; that he embraced erroneous views; that he lived in the neglect of his soul, the neglect of duty, and the neglect of God. Prosperity had not led him to fulfill duty; to seek salvation; to trust in God. This was, in his case, as it is in thousands of others, the experience of his life. Hence, affliction often becomes so necessary to check us when we are going astray, and so useful in recalling us to the ways of duty and of truth.
But now have I kept thy word – Since I was afflicted. The effect has been to recall me from my wanderings, and to turn me to paths of duty and holiness. This is an effect often – very often – experienced; this is language which can be used by many a child of God. Of those who are the children of God it may be said that they are always benefited sooner or later by afflictions. It may not be at the time of the affliction (compare Heb 12:11), but the ultimate effect is in all cases to benefit them. Some error is corrected; some evil habit changed; some mode of life not consistent with religion is forsaken; pride is humbled; the heart is quickened in duty; habits of prayer are resumed or formed; the affections are fixed on a better world; the soul is made more gentle, calm, humble, spiritual, pure. Afflictions are among the most precious means of grace. They are entirely under the direction of God. They may be endlessly varied, and adapted to the case of every individual.
God knows every heart, and the best way to reach any heart. By sickness; by disappointment; by loss of property; by bereavement; by blighted hopes; by the ingratitude of others; by the unkindness of professed friends, and the malice of enemies; by domestic troubles; by the misconduct of children – perhaps the most severe of all human ills, and the hardest to bear; in ten thousand ways God can reach the heart, and break and crush it, and make it ready for the entrance of truth – as the farmer breaks and pulverizes the soil by the plow and the harrow, so that it shall be prepared to receive the seed. Compare the notes at Isa 28:24-29. Among those things for which good men have most occasion for thankfulness are afflictions; and when we lie down on the bed of death, and look over life and the divine dealings with us through life, as the glories of heaven are about to open upon us, we shall feel that among the chiefest mercies of God are those dealings of his holy hand, trying at the time, which kept us from going astray, or which recalled us when we had wandered from him – and that in our life, now closing, there has not been one trial too much.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 119:67
Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept Thy Word.
The fruits of sanctified affliction
1. Your afflictions, if sanctified, will lead you to searchings of heart. Many sins, long forgotten, are now recalled to remembrance. Then, retiring, into the secret recesses of the spirit, where latent evils are concealed, you view yourselves in a true light, and form the right estimate of your characters.
2. Will dispose you to justify God even under the most trying dispensations. When you reflect on all that God hath done for you, and on your own sinfulness and ingratitude, you will perceive abundant cause to condemn yourselves, and to justify God.
3. Will greatly enhance your estimate of Christ and His salvation. In all His offices, characters, and relations He is most precious to you.
4. Will lead you to a more perfect understanding of the Scriptures.
5. Will work in you patience and submission to the Divine will. Tribulation worketh patience.
6. Will enhance a spirit of sympathy with others similarly situated.
7. Will enable you to form a correct estimate of the things of the world.
8. Will induce in you a more unreserved consecration to the service of Christ.
9. Will excite in you more ardent desires for that glorious condition of existence where sorrow will be unknown. (T. Swan.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 67. Before I was afflicted I went astray] Many have been humbled under affliction, and taught to know themselves and humble themselves before God, that probably without this could never have been saved; after this, they have been serious and faithful. Affliction sanctified is a great blessing; unsanctified, it is an additional curse.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I went astray, as men generally do in their prosperity. See Deu 32:15; Psa 73:4-6, &c.; Pro 1:32; Jer 22:21.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
67. Referred by HENGSTENBERGto the chastening effect produced on the Jews’ minds by the captivity(Jer 31:18; Jer 31:19).The truth is a general one (Job 5:6;Joh 15:2; Heb 12:11).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Before I was afflicted, I went astray,…. From God; from his word, his ways and worship; like a lost sheep from the shepherd, the fold, the flock, and the footsteps of it; see Ps 119:176; Not that he wilfully, wickedly, maliciously, and through contempt, departed from his God; this he denies, Ps 18:21; but through the weakness of the flesh, the prevalence of corruption, and force of temptation, and very much through a careless, heedless, and negligent frame of spirit, he got out of the right way, and wandered from it before he was well aware. The word is used of erring through ignorance, Le 5:18; this was in a time of prosperity, when, though he might not, like Jeshurun, wax fat and kick, and forsake and lightly esteem the Rock of his salvation; or fall into temptations and harmful lusts, and err from the faith, and be pierced with many sorrows, as too much love of the world brings men into; yet he might become inattentive to the duties of religion, and be negligent of them, which is a common case;
but now have I kept thy word: having been afflicted with outward and inward afflictions, afflictions of body and mind; afflictions in person, in family and estate; afflictions in soul, through indwelling sin, the temptations of Satan, and the hidings of God’s face: all this brought him back again to God, to his word, ways, and worship; he betook himself to reading and hearing the word, if he might find any thing to relieve and comfort him under his trials; he observed the doctrines of grace in it, and kept the precepts of it, and walked in all the commandments and ordinances of it, being restored by afflictions.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
David here tells us what he had experienced, 1. Of the temptations of a prosperous condition: “Before I was afflicted, while I lived in peace and plenty, and knew no sorrow, I went astray from God and my duty.” Sin is going astray; and we are most apt to wander from God when we are easy and think ourselves at home in the world. Prosperity is the unhappy occasion of much iniquity; it makes people conceited of themselves, indulgent of the flesh, forgetful of God, in love with the world, and deaf to the reproofs of the word. See Ps. xxx. 6. It is good for us, when we are afflicted, to remember how and wherein we went astray before we were afflicted, that we may answer the end of the affliction. 2. Of the benefit of an afflicted state: “Now have I kept thy word, and so have been recovered from my wanderings.” God often makes use of afflictions as a means to reduce those to himself who have wandered from him. Sanctified afflictions humble us for sin and show us the vanity of the world; they soften the heart, and open the ear to discipline. The prodigal’s distress brought him to himself first and then to his father.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
67. Before I was brought low I went astray As the verb ענה anah, sometimes signifies to speak, or to testify, some adopt this rendering, Before I meditated upon thy statutes I went astray; but this seems too forced. Others go still farther from the meaning, in supposing it to be, that when the prophet went astray, he had nothing to say in answer to God. I will not stop to refute these conceits, there being no ambiguity in the words. David in his own person describes either that wantonness or rebellion, common to all mankind, which is displayed in this, that we never yield obedience to God until we are compelled by his chastisements. It is indeed a monstrous thing obstinately to refuse to submit ourselves to Him; and yet experience demonstrates, that so long as he deals gently with us, we are always breaking forth into insolence. Since even a prophet of God required to have his rebellion corrected by forcible means, this kind of discipline is assuredly most needful for us. The first step in obedience being the mortifying of the flesh, to which all men are naturally disinclined, it is not surprising if God bring us to a sense of our duty by manifold afflictions. Yea, rather as the flesh is from time to time obstreperous, even when it seems to be tamed, it is no wonder to find him repeatedly subjecting us anew to the rod. This is done in different ways. He humbles some by poverty, some by shame, some by diseases, some by domestic distresses, some by hard and painful labors; and thus, according to the diversity of vices to which we are prone, he applies to each its appropriate remedy. It is now obvious how profitable a truth this confession contains. The prophet speaks of himself even as Jeremiah, (Jer 31:18,) in like manner, says of himself, that he was “as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; ” but still he sets before us an image of the rebellion which is natural to us all. We are very ungrateful, indeed, if this fruit which we reap from chastisements do not assuage or mitigate their bitterness. So long as we are rebellious against God, we are, in a state of the deepest wretchedness: now, the only means by which He bends and tames us to obedience, is his instructing us by his chastisements. The prophet, at the same time, teaches us by his own example, that since God gives evidence of his willingness that we should become his disciples, by the pains he takes to subdue our hardness, we should at least endeavor to become gentle, and, laying aside all stubbornness, willingly bear the yoke which he imposes upon us.
The next verse needs no explanation, being nearly of the same import as the last verse of the former eight. He beseeches God to exercise his goodness towards him, not by causing him to increase in riches and honors, or to abound in pleasures, but by enabling him to make progress in the knowledge of the law. It is usual for almost all mankind to implore the exercise of God’s goodness towards them, and to desire that he would deal bountifully with them, in the way of gratifying the diversity of the desires into which they are severally hurried by the inclinations of the flesh; but David protests that he would be completely satisfied, provided he experienced God to be liberal towards him in this one particular, which almost all men pass over with disdain.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(67) That there is allusion here to the Babylonian exile, and its moral and religious effect on the nation, there can be little doubt.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
Ver. 67. Before I was afflicted I went astray ] Especially through high mindedness and earthly mindedness, which are purged out by affliction, and grace increased; as fish thrive better in cold and salt waters, as the walnut tree is most fruitful when most beaten. Master Ascham was a good schoolmaster to Queen Elizabeth, but affliction was a better, &c. See my Treatise on Rev 3:19 .
But now I have kept thy word
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Before. If we begin this verse with the word “Till”, and Psa 119:71 with ‘”Tis”, then each verse in this section will commence with “T”, as it does in the Hebrew.
afflicted = oppressed.
But now. Compare Heb 12:6-11, and references there.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Before: Psa 119:176, Psa 73:5-28, Deu 32:15, 2Sa 10:19, 2Sa 11:2-27, 2Ch 33:9-13, Pro 1:32, Jer 22:21
but now: Psa 119:71, Psa 119:75, Jer 31:18, Jer 31:19, Hos 2:6, Hos 2:7, Hos 5:15, Hos 6:1, Heb 12:10, Heb 12:11, Rev 3:10
Reciprocal: Lev 26:43 – and they 2Ch 33:19 – before he Job 33:19 – chastened Job 36:9 – he Psa 94:12 – Blessed Ecc 7:3 – is better Isa 27:9 – this therefore Jer 24:5 – them that are carried away captive Eze 14:11 – the house Mat 20:34 – and they 2Co 4:17 – worketh Jam 1:12 – the man Jam 4:9 – afflicted
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 119:67-68. Before I was afflicted I went astray As men too generally do in their prosperity. Thou art good Gracious and bountiful in thy nature; and dost good To all men, both good and bad, (Mat 5:45,) and in all things, yea, even when thou afflictest. Teach me thy statutes Which is the good I chiefly desire.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
119:67 Before I was {b} afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.
(b) So Jeremiah says, that before the Lord touched him, he was like a calf untamed so that the use of God’s rod is to call us home to God.