Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 119:98
Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they [are] ever with me.
98. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser &c.] A scarcely possible rendering, though it has some support in the Ancient Versions. Better as R.V., Thy commandments make me wiser &c. For the sense cp. Deu 4:6.
for they are ever with me ] Lit. For it is mine for ever. The use of the singular ‘it,’ as well as of the singular verb in the preceding line, implies the unity of God’s law, though it includes many commandments. This law is his possession. Cp. Psa 119:111.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thou, through thy commandments – By the teaching and power of thy law.
Hast made me wiser than mine enemies – I have a better understanding of thee, of thy law, of the duties of this life, and in regard to the life to come, than my enemies have – not because I am naturally better, or because I have higher endowments by nature, but because thou hast made me wiser than they are. The rendering of this first clause of the verse now most approved by interpreters is, Thy commandments make me more wise than my enemies are, though this requires a singular verb to be construed with a plural noun (Professor Alexander). So DeWette renders it.
For they are ever with me – Margin, as in Hebrew, it is ever with me. The reference is to the law or commandments of God. The meaning is, that that law was never out of his mind; that he was constantly thinking about it; and that it unfolded such wisdom to him as to make him superior to all his foes; to give him a better understanding of life, its design, its duties, and its obligations, than his enemies had. The best instructor in true wisdom is the revealed word of God – the Bible.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 98. Wiser than mine enemies] Some have thought that this Psalm was composed by Daniel, and that he speaks of himself in these verses. Being instructed by God, he was found to have more knowledge than any of the Chaldeans, magicians, soothsayers, c., &c. and his wisdom soon appeared to the whole nation vastly superior to theirs.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Thou, through thy commandments, hast made me wiser than mine enemies, because by that means I have thy wisdom to guide me, and thy power engaged to protect and save me; which is a more certain and effectual way to obtain my desires and ends than all the policy and craft of mine enemies is to hinder them, as I have found by experience. They are ever with me; they are continually before mine eyes, as a rule by which to govern all my actions, whereby I am kept from splitting upon those rocks whereby others are ruined.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
98-100. of knowledge, both ofthe matter of all useful, moral truth, and an experience of itsapplication.
wiser than mine enemieswithall their carnal cunning (Deu 4:6;Deu 4:8).
they are ever with meTheHebrew is, rather singular, “it is ever with me”;the commandments forming ONEcomplete whole, Thy law.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies,…. David had his enemies, as every good man has: and these are often cunning and crafty ones, at least in wickedness; many of them are wise and prudent as to natural things, wiser in worldly things and political matters than the children of light, and often lay deep schemes and take crafty counsel against the saints; and yet they, by attending to the word and commands of God, and being under his direction and counsel, counterwork the designs of their enemies, and overturn their schemes and measures, which are brought to confusion; honesty being in the issue the best policy. However, the people of God are wiser than they in the best things; in the affair of salvation; in things relating to a future state, and their happiness there; which wisdom they attain unto through the Word of God, which is written for their learning; through the Scriptures, which are able to make men wise to salvation: these are the means, and no more; for it is God that is the efficient cause, or makes the means effectual, to make them wise, and wiser than others; it is owing to his divine teachings, to his Spirit and grace. The words may be rendered, “it hath made me wiser in thy commandments than mine enemies” d; that is, the law; and so is another reason why it was so greatly loved by him: or, “thy commandments”, that is, everyone of thy commandments, “have made me wiser”, c. e. Joseph Kimchi give, this as the sense,
“by mine enemies thou hast made me wise f thou hast learned me thy commandments, so that I see they cannot remove thy law from my mouth;”
for they [are] ever with me; that is, the commandments of God, or his law, and the precepts of it; they were his privy counsellors, with whom on all occasions he consulted, and so became wiser than his enemies, and outwitted them: these were always near him, in his heart and in his mouth; he was ever thinking and speaking of them, and so did not forget the instructions they gave him; they were ever before his eyes, as the rule of his conduct.
d So Junius & Tremellius. e So Cocceius, Muis, Gejerus and the Targum. f “Fas est et ab hoste doceri”, Ovid.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
98 Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. 99 I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. 100 I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.
We have here an account of David’s learning, not that of the Egyptians, but of the Israelites indeed.
I. The good method by which he got it. In his youth he minded business in the country as a shepherd; from his youth he minded business in the court and camp. Which way then could he get any great stock of learning? He tells us here how he came by it; he had it from God as the author: Thou hast made me wise. All true wisdom is from God. He had it by the word of God as the means, by his commandments and his testimonies. These are able to make us wise to salvation and to furnish the man of God for every good work. 1. These David took for his constant companions: “They are ever with me, ever in my mind, ever in my eye.” A good man, wherever he goes, carries his Bible along with him, if not in his hands, yet in his head and in his heart. 2. These he took for the delightful subject of his thoughts; they were his meditation, not only as matters of speculation for his entertainment, as scholars meditate on their notions, but as matters of concern, for his right management, as men of business think of their business, that they may do it in the best manner. 3. These he took for the commanding rules of all his actions: I keep thy precepts, that is, I make conscience of doing my duty in every thing. The best way to improve in knowledge is to abide and abound in all the instances of serious godliness; for, if any man do his will, he shall know of the doctrine of Christ, shall know more and more of it, John vii. 17. The love of the truth prepares for the light of it; the pure in heart shall see God here.
II. The great eminency he attained to in it. By studying and practising God’s commandments, and making them his rule, he learnt to behave himself wisely in all his ways, 1 Sam. xviii. 14. 2. He outwitted his enemies; God, by these means, made him wiser to baffle and defeat their designs against him than they were to lay them. Heavenly wisdom will carry the point, at last, against carnal policy. By keeping the commandments we secure God on our side and make him our friend, and therein are certainly wiser than those that make him their enemy. By keeping the commandments we preserve in ourselves that peace and quiet of mind which our enemies would rob us of, and so are wise for ourselves, wiser than they are for themselves, for this world as well as for the other. 2. He outstripped his teachers, and had more understanding than all of them. He means either those who would have been his teachers, who blamed his conduct and undertook to prescribe to him (by keeping God’s commandments he managed his matters so that it appeared, in the event, he had taken the right measures and they had taken the wrong), or those who should have been his teachers, the priests and Levites, who sat in Moses’s chair, and whose lips ought to have kept knowledge, but who neglected the study of the law, and minded their honours and revenues, and the formalities only of their religion; and so David, who conversed much with the scriptures, by that means became more intelligent than they. Or he may mean those who had been his teachers when he was young; he built so well upon the foundation which they had laid that, with the help of his Bible, he became able to teach them, to teach them all. He was not now a babe that needed milk, but had spiritual senses exercised, Heb. v. 14. It is no reflection upon our teachers, but rather an honour to them, to improve so as really to excel them, and not to need them. By meditation we preach to ourselves, and so we come to understand more than our teachers, for we come to understand our own hearts, which they cannot. 3. He outdid the ancients, either those of his day (he was young, like Elihu, and they were very old, but his keeping God’s precepts taught more wisdom than the multitude of their years, Job 32:7; Job 32:8) or those of former days; he himself quotes the proverb of the ancients (1 Sam. xxiv. 13), but the word of God gave him to understand things better than he could do by tradition and all the learning that was handed down from preceding ages. In short, the written word is a surer guide to heaven than all the doctors and fathers, the teachers and ancients, of the church; and the sacred writings kept, and kept to, will teach us more wisdom than all their writings.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
98. Thou hast made me wiser than my adversaries He here declares, that he was more learned than his adversaries, his instructors, and the aged, because he was a scholar of God’s law. It is in a different sense that he describes himself as endued with understanding above his adversaries, from that in which he describes himself as wiser than his teachers. He surpassed his enemies, because their cunning and artifices availed them nothing when they employed these to the utmost to effect his destruction. The malice of the wicked is always goading them to do mischief; and as they are often artful and deceitful, we are afraid lest our simplicity should be imposed upon by their deceits, unless we use the same crafts and underhand dealings which they practice. Accordingly, the prophet glories, that he found in God’s law enough to enable him to escape all their snares. When he claims the credit of being superior in knowledge to his instructors, he does not mean to deny that they also had learned from the word of God what was useful to be known. But he gives God thanks for enabling him to surpass, in proficiency, those from whom he had learned the first elements of knowledge. (432) Nor is it any new thing for the scholar to excel his master, according as God distributes to each man the measure of understanding. The faithful, it is true, are instructed by the pains and labor of men, but it is in such a way, as that God is still to be regarded as enlightening them. And it is owing to this that the scholar surpasses the master; for God means to show as it were, with the finger, that he uses the service of men in such a way as that he himself continues still the chief teacher. Let us therefore learn to commit ourselves to his tuition, that we may glory with David, that by his guidance we have proceeded farther than man’s instruction could lead us. He adds the same thing respecting the aged, for the more abundant confirmation of his statement. Age is of great avail in polishing, by long experience and practice, men who, by nature, are dull and rude. Now the prophet asserts, that he had acquired, by the Divine Law, more discretion than belongs to aged men. (433) In short, he means to affirm, that whoever yields himself with docility to God, keeps his thoughts in subjection to his word, and exercises himself diligently in meditating upon the Law, will thence derive wisdom sufficient for enabling him to consult his own safety in opposition to the stratagems of his enemies, to exercise circumspection requisite for escaping their deceits; and, finally, to match with the most eminent masters through the whole course of his life. David, however, does not adduce his wisdom, that he may boast of it before the world; but, by his own example, he warns us, that nothing is better for us than to learn at God’s mouth, since those only are perfectly wise who are taught in his school. At the same time, sobriety is here enjoined upon the faithful, that they may not seek for wisdom elsewhere than from God’s word, and that ambition or curiosity may not incite them to vain boasting. In short, all are here recommended to behave themselves with modesty and humility, that no man may claim to himself such knowledge as elevates him above the Divine Law; but that all men, however intelligent, may willingly yield themselves to the lessons of heavenly wisdom revealed in the Divine Word. When he says, that he kept God’s statutes, he teaches us what kind of meditation it is of which we have spoken, to let us know that he did not coldly philosophies upon God’s precepts, but devoted himself to them with earnest affection.
(432) “As he had entered into the spiritual nature of the law of God, and saw into the exceeding breadth of the commandment, he soon became wiser than any of the priests, or even prophets who instructed him.” — Dr. Adam Clarke
(433) “ I understand more than the ancients. God had revealed to him more of that hidden wisdom, which was in his law, than he had done to any of his predecessors. And this was most literally true of David, who spoke more fully about Christ than any who had gone before him; or, indeed, followed after him. His compositions are, I had almost said, a sublime gospel. ” — Ibid.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE BIBLE AND BEST WISDOM
Psa 119:98-100
THESE words of David are not the vain boast of an inflated spirit. They do what is sometimes erroneously supposed to be impossible; they combine a conscious sufficiency with a humble spirit. You had as well charge Paul with egotism for saying, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me (Php 4:13), as David for boasting his better wisdom as from the Word of the Lord. Familiarity with that Word is wisdom.
We speak often of the place of the Bible in education. The Bible is more than a book with a place in education; it is the bed-rock of all education, literary, historical and scientific. If you ask what book gives charm to the literary productions of a Ruskin, versatility of thought to Shakespeare, power to the eloquence of a Webster or Philipps, or permanence to the science of a Dawson or a Kelvin or a Sayce, you will be compelled to accept this answer: The Bible.
The man who digs into its treasures is the wisest miner, for he mines not for silver or gold, but for that infinitely more valuable and imperishable treasureviz. wisdom.
Our text suggests three great themes.
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ARE THE HIGHEST SOURCE OF WISDOM
It is the highest, because the only original source.
Frederick W. Farrar styles all other literatures runnels from the unemptiable fountain of Gods Word.
Gods Word is one with Gods mind and thought. Who supposes that any man thinks so far or deep that he is not still thinking Gods thoughts after Him, and that but imperfectly? When men read good poetry, they say, That verse, or ode, came from a man who has poetical genius! When men study scientific treatises that are clear and logical, they say, The author here is a scientist! When men look into philosophy and find well-balanced wisdom, they say, Another Socrates! But when men read the Bible until they understand it, they exclaim with Paul, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (2Ti 3:16).
God is the only sufficient answer to this Word. It is reported that when Columbus first saw the Orinoco River, some of his attendants said, You have discovered an island. Columbus looked at the broad stream a moment and then replied, No such river as that flows from an island. That mighty torrent drains a continent. And when we study the stream of life flowing through these pages, we say, That rises from another world; and from beneath the throne of God and the Lamb.
The Scriptures are also the highest, because the inerrant source of wisdom. Mark you, The Scriptures, not the Bible. The Bible is one thing. The Scriptures are another, The Bible is what the leather or board backs cover. The Scriptures are Gods expressed thoughts. The Apocrypha used to be in the Bible. It was never in the Scripture. There may be human impositions and interpolations in the Bible yet. The critics may do us a good work by ridding the book of its excrescences. But the Scriptures will stand, and all afforts to prove their errancy will fail, and the men who make such efforts will find themselves mere destroyers of the faith they themselves professed. There are men today who would fain take the doctrine of infallible inspiration from us, and yet have us expect the Bible to remain the light of the world, humanitys hope. But such a view destroys the foundations, and faith will fall with it. It is related that long ago Scotland had a chain bridge, famous for its massive strength. A French engineer saw it, and returning to his native land, built a similar one, save that it was lighter, and more artistic. He left out all things of clumsy mien, and among them the middle or King bolt. At last the bridge was opened for traffic, and the multitudes from Marly thought to cross the Seine upon it. But ere the crowd came to its middle, there was an ominous shudder in all its frame, and a moment later it crashed and carried into the drowning waves, the dead and dying. The man who takes the inerrancy from Gods Word destroys the King-bolt from faiths bridge, and souls perish in the waters of doubt that sweep them away. Goethe, the great German, poet and philosopher was an avowed infidel. But his natural wisdom showed him some truths that the supposedly great scholars of our timeprofessed followers of Christfail to see.
He said of the Bible, The whole drama of human life is in this book. Its eclipse would be the return of chaos, its extinction would be the epitaph of history.
Again, it can be affirmed that the Scriptures are the highest, because the inexhaustible source of wisdom. When Mr. Moody first faced a London audience, he said to the 20,000 that greeted him, If I came here to speak concerning your great dramatist, or of the law of the wonderful Republic from which I came, I should have no hope of holding this vast audience. Those themes would soon be exhausted and pall upon you. But I come to speak to you from the Word, and on the inexhaustible theme of Jesus1 love. No man ever yet preached the Bible outthough many, not knowing the Bible, have preached themselves out.
No man ever yet claimed to have exhausted Bible-study, and to have learned the last lesson it had to give. Such a claim would only prove insanity. The more familiar a man is with this Word, the surer he becomes of its deeper recesses, its untouched mines of wisdom! It takes an Ingersoll, with his solitary, superficial and hasty reading of the Word, to imagine that he has compassed it all and is capable of criticising and condemning it. When the Elder Spurgeon had put in nearly eighty summers in studying it, he was found in his 84th year, reading on and on, pausing before sentences to see the flash of truths that had always before, in his hundred readings, escaped him, and to exclaim, Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!
Oh, wonderful, wonderful Word of the Lord!True wisdom its pages unfold;And though we may read them a thousand times oerThey never, no never, grow old.Each line hath a treasure,Each promise a pearl,That all, if they will, may secure;And we know that when time and the world pass awayGods Word shall forever endure.
INCREASE IN WISDOM COMES FROM SCRIPTURE STUDY
The world denies that! It is literature, language, science and history that makes us wise, so the world says! David answers, Not so. It is a study of Gods Word! And he tells us how he did it.
First, he hid that Word in his heart. That is an argument for a daily reading of Scripture, No man can study the sacred Book for fifteen minutes a day, even, without hiding some of it in his heart. He may scarcely know that he has stored it, but a sentence here will go in, and a verse there will lodge, and one day, in some time of distress, he will find comfort within him, in the abiding words of God.
I remember when silver first began to be in general use, it seemed a most clumsy legal tender. I got a dollar one day, and not needing it just then, I tossed it into my cheap college trunk. At later times, I almost unconsciously cast other pieces into the same place. I was a student and living without luxuries, and often for days without a cent.
One day I needed money badly, and was blue because I didnt have it. Going into my trunk for some garment, I came upon a silver dollar. The find excited me, and I began to dig down, through collars, ties, shirts and socks, and with every upheaval I found another silver piece until I had $8.50, a small fortune in the poor students eyes.
The man who reads the Bible daily stores up for himself treasure above silver, and in his darkest hour, when life seems poverty-stricken, and the soul is sad, that treasure-chest of the spiritthe heartwill uncover its riches, and with Gods promises in your possession, you will rise in newborn strength to meet every demand of time.
How precious is the Book Divine,
By inspiration given!
Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine,
To guide our souls to Heaven.
Oer all the strait and narrow way,
Its radiant beams are cast;
A light whose never-weary ray
Grows brightest at the last.
It sweetly cheers our drooping hearts,
In this dark vale of tears;
Life, light, and joy it still imparts,
And quells our rising fears.
This lamp, through all the tedious night
Of life, shall guide our way,
Till we behold the clearer light
Of an eternal day.
Davids second method of study was meditation.
Thy Testimonies are my meditation (Psa 119:99).
It is a peculiar fact of much of Scripture that it only yields up its sweetest secrets to the man who meditates upon it. There are some preachers who select texts weeks or months ahead of the day of sermon-delivery, so that they may meditate upon them. Excellent method! Such men commonly bring from the treasure-chest things new and old.
I meet Christians who complain that they do read the Scriptures, but they dont get much from them. Well, in all probability your reading is both casual and superficial. The man who dug but a foot beneath the Cripple Creek soil, found no silver. The Christian who skims Scripture, and lays the Bible aside to think no more of it until reading time next morning, will perish of Spiritual poverty, despite a houseful of heavenly treasures, untouched. The great artist Wenkleman sent one of his students to the Apollo Belvedere to study that wonderful specimen of art. The student shortly returned saying, I see no beauty in that. Wenkleman replied, Go again, and if need be, again and again. The beauty is there. If you study long enough you will both feel and see it.
O how I love Thy holy Law!
Tis daily my delight;
And thence my meditations draw
Divine advice by night.
My waking eyes prevent the day
To meditate Thy Word;
My soul with longing melts away
To hear the Gospel, Lord.
Thy heavenly words my heart engage,
And well employ my tongue,
And in my weary pilgrimage
Yield me a heavenly song.
When nature sinks, and spirits droop,
Thy promises of grace,
Are pillars to support my hope,
And there I write Thy praise.
To all students of the Word, that counsel applies. The beauty is there. If you meditate upon the words of God, you will both see and feel it. Its purity will charm you; its power will strengthen you; its tenderness will move you; its truth will enlighten you; its beauty will entrance you. Its light will save you!
But David had yet a better method of Bible study, namely, the practice of its precepts.
I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy Precepts (Psa 119:100).
There is but one best way to study the Bible; that is the method of the Polytechnic School; applied science, practicing the precept, living out the truth taught. Better one precept of Christ learned by practice, than a whole Bible committed to memory only. Jesus meant that when He said, If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine. St. Gregory reminds us that when His two disciples walked with Jesus to Emmaus, He seemed a stranger to them. But when, in the act of obeying the Word on hospitality to strangers, and Christs injunction on breaking bread, He revealed Himself. It is in doing duty that the truth appears.
An evangelist once said, I know a woman who can neither read nor write. She came out of great tribulation into the Kingdom of God; her fathers door was closed against her; her mother cursed her; her brothers and sisters passed her by in silence or with a look of scorn, on the streets. All she knows of Gods Word is what she has heard in the reading in the Sanctuary. The church which she joined is a cultured one, but I believe that woman knows more about God and the deep things of God than all the rest of the members of that church combined. She has had no will for twenty years save to do Gods will, and I have never yet met a theologian, but might well come and sit at the feet of that humble woman and listen to her words about the work of the Spirit and the teachings of Jesus Christ.
She could say with David, I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy precepts (Psa 119:100). When first I read after A. J. Gordon, I wondered how he got his revelations of truth. They were so scriptural and so clear as compared with teachers of greater reputed learning. I know now. He kept Gods precepts, and God revealed the truth to him.
Father of mercies, in Thy Word
What endless glory shines!
Forever by Thy Name adored
For these celestial lines.
Tis here the tree of knowledge grows,
And yields a free repast;
Here purer sweets than nature knows,
Invite the longing taste.
Tis here the Saviours welcome voice
Spreads heavenly peace around,
And life and everlasting joys
Attend the blissful sound.
O may these heavenly pages be
My ever-dear delight;
And still new beauties may I see,
And still increasing light.
Davids last claim for the Bible is one that we make for it still.
SCRIPTURE KNOWLEDGE IS A SUPERIOR KIND
It is wisdom above the wiles of wicked men. David had a right to say so. Goliath, and Saul, and a host beside them, had thought they knew enough to overthrow this lad. But he walked in the wisdom of Gods Word, and his enemies went down before his face. The number and character of a mans enemies do not decide the danger in which he lives. It is not difficult for God to preserve David from beasts and beastly men, so long as David walks by the Word of God. I have never yet seen a man overthrown so long as he proved loyal to the Lord. Hyacinth said, Do you know why Prussia triumphed in the field of battle with Austria? It was not because there was lack of bravery on either side! It was not by superiority of numbers or weapons! It was because every Prussian soldier had a Bible with him. I have asserted, and I assert again, that that which constitutes the strength of the Protestant nation is when the people come home from work, they enter the family circle, and sitting by their hearths, read the Bible.
The nation, as well as the individual, is secure in Scripture practice. You cant overthrow the people who walk by the Word.
It transcends the wisdom of science. David said, I have more understanding than all my teachers: for Thy Testimonies are my meditation (Psa 119:99).
They can teach you science in Turkey, in India, and in China! But they cant tell you much of the Bible, and your science would be a poor exchange for a knowledge of the truth and power of Gods Word. Wendell Philipps said eloquently enough, The answer to the Shaster is India; the answer to Confucianism is China; the answer to Mohammedanism is Turkey. The answer to the Bible is Christian civilization of Protestant Europe and America. My prayer for the youth of the land is that they may know the Scriptures, and see science and literature and all history in their sacred light.
David was right again in declaring that Bible knowledge is better than the wisdom of age and experience.
Experience is the best teacher! Christians cant afford to believe that! As a rule they dont believe it. If they did, then young men would quit our pulpits, and the aged would be called to them. One of the things that has made a profound impression upon me, in my ministry, illustrates Davids speech. It is this: Old men, men whose heads have whitened with experience and age, have characterized every congregation to which I have ministered, and all others more than this one. Among those men I have never had an enemy, never heard from a one of them an unkind criticism. In my first pastorate I used to look at old Brother G_____ seventy-five years he had seen, and ask myself, Why is he willing to listen to the boy? How can he, who knows so much more of life come to me at the close of the sermon and affirm profit from the preaching? At Lafayette it was always a wonder to me that M. L. P_____, Deacon A. H_____ and Deacon B_____, those old saints of God, grand men of affairs, wonderful students of the Word, were such auditors. At Bloomington half my Deacons were past threescore, and yet how faithful to every word. In this church no auditors have been more to me of inspiration than those grand old men who so long graced its membership and have passed one by one to their graves. Their confidence in the Bible grew; their love of it waxed; and their devotion to it deepened with the advance of age.
Men are not wont to throw away the pillow of Divine promises as they approach the hour when it will be most needed; on the contrary, they treasure it increasingly. During the Civil War, after the battle of Richmond had been over for several weeks, one passing over the field of conflict came upon a dead man. The flesh had fallen away from the fingers but the tip of the finger lay upon an open passage in the Bible and when the discoverer stooped down to see what might have been the last words upon which the dying eyes had rested, he read, Yea, though 1 walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. An interest in books is an evidence of intellectual life but as old age creeps on the engaging novel and even the accurate history, will wane, while that in the Book of books, the Word of God, grows, for it is through its revelation that one gets the vision of the open gate.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
MEM.
(98) Better, Thy commandments make me wiser than my enemies. The same correspondence of wisdom with loyal obedience to the Law is found in the Book of Proverbs.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 119:98. For they are ever with me For they (i.e. thy commandments) are ever with me, always before me, to direct and advise me in right, to exhort and restrain me from wrong. For the same reason Psa 119:99, I have more understanding than all my teachers: All those doctors of the law, of whom I have formerly learned; all those ancients, Psa 119:100 those elders and grave counsellors, who perhaps rely more on their own wisdom and sagacity, than on that wisdom which springs from a meditation on thy truth. Such meditation, such an employment of parts, says Mr. Boyle, often invites God to increase them; as he who had most talents committed to him, was, for improving them to his Lord’s service, trusted with more.
NUN.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 119:98 Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they [are] ever with me.
Ver. 98. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than my enemies ] So that I outwit them; and my holy simplicity is too hard for their sinful subtlety. “Be wise as serpents.”
For they are ever with me
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
through: Psa 119:104, Deu 4:6, Deu 4:8, 1Sa 18:5, 1Sa 18:14, 1Sa 18:30, Pro 2:6, Col 3:16
they are ever: Heb. it is ever, Psa 119:11, Psa 119:30, Psa 119:105, Jam 1:25
Reciprocal: Deu 6:6 – shall be 1Ki 2:3 – prosper Ezr 7:25 – the wisdom Psa 19:8 – enlightening Psa 37:31 – law Psa 119:153 – for I Pro 1:5 – wise Pro 6:23 – the commandment Pro 8:9 – General Pro 14:6 – knowledge Jer 8:9 – lo Dan 1:17 – God Rom 2:18 – being instructed 2Ti 3:17 – the man