Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 119:144
The righteousness of thy testimonies [is] everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live.
144. The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting ] Righteous (lit. righteousness) are thy testimonies for ever, reflecting Thine own eternal righteousness. They are neither imperfect nor temporary. Cp. Mat 5:17 ff.
give me understanding &c.] He ends this contemplation of the character of God’s law with a prayer for fuller understanding of it, for through knowledge of it and obedience to it man really lives, truly realises the purpose of his being. Cp. Psa 119:17 ; Psa 119:77 ; Psa 119:116; Pro 4:4; Pro 4:13; Deu 32:47.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The righteousness of thy testimonies – The principles of righteousness on which they are founded. Those testimonies – those laws – are not arbitrary, or the mere expressions of will. They are founded on right and justice as seen by God, and his laws are his testimony as to what truth and justice are.
Is everlasting – See the notes at Psa 119:142.
Give me understanding, and I shall live – Give me a right view of thy law, and thy truth, and I shall have real life. See the notes at Psa 119:34.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 119:144
The righteousness of Thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live.
Alive
I. Consider this prayer in its simplicity.
1. It is a suitable prayer for the awakened sinner. Christ is our life; but we need understanding, or we shall miss it.
2. It is equally applicable to one who is a Christian, and who is struggling against temptation.
3. It will often well up from the heart of the suffering believer.
4. It is suitable for workers. I want to get alive to the utmost; not only having life, but having it more abundantly. I have some life in me, thank God; but I want it to quicken me more completely.
5. It is a very proper and blessed prayer for aspiring minds in the Church of God.
6. Last of all, when we shall not be so much aspiring saints as expiring saints,–when we come to lie upon our last bed, and to look into the unseen, then may we still pray after the same fashion.
II. The prayer is to be more fully opened up.
1. Here is a want confessed, because it is deeply felt.
2. The prayer is evidently put upon the footing of free grace. Understanding must be a gift from God.
3. The psalmist speaks of understanding in a general way–Give me understanding–as if he wanted the faculty for use in many directions. We bear within our own natures so much to confuse, and confound, and entangle, that if we are not taught prudence and understanding we shall certainly never escape from the mischief that is within us.
4. Still, while the understanding sought for in the prayer is evidently of a general character, the former portion of the verse links it with a special understanding of the Word of God; and, oh, beloved, we need above all things to understand what God has revealed. Take care first that you know it.
III. Now we will go deeper, laying bare the argument of this prayer.
1. I think he means this–that the Word of God, when it is practically and experimentally understood by the mind, is a pledge of life. Do you think that God would take one of us to be His child and teach us His Word, and then after all permit us to be condemned to die? Is that His fashion?
2. The understanding of the Word of God is life, because we are told that the Word of God is the living and incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth for ever. Very well, then, if that seed is sown in my heart, my heart must live for ever. There can be no death where the seed is incorruptible. If the Word of the Lord be living within us, then there is within us a life eternal.
3. The Word of God is not only the seed of life, but it is the food of life. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live; and if you live on the word that cometh out of Gods mouth you cannot die.
4. The understanding of Gods Word is the very flower, and crown, and glory of true life. When a man so understands Gods Word as to experience it, and to practise it, he has reached a high point of spiritual culture, and his life will be loaded, like Aarons rod, with buds, and blossoms, and fruit unto Gods glory. He will be such a man that he shall only need to take one step and be in heaven. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 144. The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting] Thy moral law was not made for one people, or for one particular time; it is as imperishable as thy nature, and of endless obligation. It is that law by which all the children of Adam shall be judged.
Give me understanding] To know and practise it.
And I shall live.] Shall glorify thee, and live eternally; not for the merit of having done it, but because thou didst fulfil the work of the law in my heart, having saved me from condemnation by it.
ANALYSIS OF LETTER TSADDI. – Eighteenth Division
In this division the psalmist –
I. Commends the law of God, from its Author, its equity, its purity, and its perpetuity.
II. A consideration of which led him to love and delight in it, though opposed by many enemies.
I. 1. “Righteous art thou.” Thou alterest not with times, thou changest not with persons, thou art ever the same.
2. Thy judgments, in giving rewards and dispensing punishments, are upright.
3. Thy testimonies, that declare this, are righteous and faithful.
He consequently felt an ardent zeal for God’s glory.
1. This “zeal consumed him,” and he expresses the cause.
2. Men “forgot God’s words.” He pined away for grief on this account. He turns to another character of God’s law.
“Thy word is very pure.”
1. It is pure in itself, and the purifier of the heart.
2. On this account he loved it; and we know that “love is the fulfilling of the law.”
A third effect was a careful remembrance of it, though tried by his enemies.
1. “I am small.” Of no weight nor authority; have no secular power.
2. “Despised.” Have no credit nor respect.
3. “Yet do I not forget thy precepts.” Nothing can move me while upheld by thee; and thou wilt uphold me while I cleave unto thee.
A fourth commendation of God’s law is its immutability.
1. It is immutable, and can never be dispensed with. It is a righteousness that is everlasting.
2. It is the truth: 1. It has priority of all laws; 2. Contains no falsehood.
3. Its promises and threatenings shall all be punctually fulfilled.
II. He loved and delighted in it, notwithstanding he had trouble and anguish.
1. Trouble and anguish. The righteous are often under the cross.
2. Yet “thy commandments are my delights.” While faithful to thee, all my afflictions are sanctified to me, so that I can rejoice while I suffer.
He speaks again about the immutability of God’s word.
1. “The righteousness of thy testimonies,” Thy word is like thyself, for it comes from thee.
2. “Give me understanding.” I always stand in need of teaching.
3. “And I shall live.” All is death without thee. Live in me, that I may live by thee.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I shall be kept from those sins which deserve and bring death.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
The righteousness of thy testimonies [is] everlasting,…. Or, “for ever” b. The righteousness which they require, or which they publish; the righteousness revealed in the Gospel, which is the righteousness of Christ; [See comments on Ps 119:142];
give me understanding, and I shall live; an understanding of the testimonies of the Lord, of the word of God, the law of God, and Gospel of Christ; an understanding of divine and spiritual things; a clearer and larger understanding of them, which is the gift of God; both that itself at first, and an increase of it here prayed for, the end, issue, and effect of which is life. Such live spiritually, and by faith; they live cheerfully and comfortably, and “for ever”, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi repeat from the former clause: for “this is life eternal know the only true God and Jesus Christ”; or to have spiritual understanding of them, and of those things which relate to spiritual peace and comfort here, and eternal happiness hereafter, Joh 17:3.
b “in seculum”, Pagninus, Montanus, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius “in aeternum”, V. L.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
144. The righteousness of thy testimonies endureth forever. The Psalmist repeats what he had already before stated, that there is a great dissimilarity between the righteousness of God’s testimonies and man’s inventions; the splendor of the last quickly vanishing away, whereas the other continues steadfast for ever. He repeats this twice; for although the world is forced to attribute the praise of righteousness to the law of God, yet the majority of mankind are carried away after their own speculations, so that there is nothing more difficult than to hold us fast in our obedience to God. David’s drift is to show that everlasting righteousness is not comprehended elsewhere than in God’s law, and that it is in vain to seek for it anywhere else; and there is accordingly here laid down a clearer definition of righteousness, which is, that righteousness consists in our keeping ourselves within the bounds of the law. As to the last clause of the verse, Give me understanding and I shall live, I read it in connection with the preceding clause; for although David desires to have his mind enlightened by God, yet he does not conceive of any other way by which he was to obtain an enlightened understanding than by his profiting aright in the study of the law. Farther, he here teaches, that men cannot, properly speaking, be said to live when they are destitute of the light of heavenly wisdom; and as the end for which men are created is not that, like swine or asses, they may stuff their bellies, but that they may exercise themselves in the knowledge and service of God, when they turn away from such employment, their life is worse than a thousand deaths. David therefore protests that for him to live was not merely to be fed with meat and drink, and to enjoy earthly comforts, but to aspire after a better life, which he could not do save under the guidance of faith. This is a very necessary warning; for although it is universally acknowledged that man is born with this distinction, that he excels the lower animals in intelligence, yet the great bulk of mankind, as if with deliberate purpose: stifle whatever light God pours into their understandings. I indeed admit that all men desire to be sharp-witted; but how few aspire to heaven, and consider that the fear of,God is the beginning of wisdom. Since then meditation upon the celestial life is buried by earthly cares, men do nothing else than plunge into the grave, so that while living to the world, they die to God. Under the term life, however, as I have elsewhere said, the Prophet denotes the utmost he could wish. Lord, as if he had said, although I am already dead, yet if thou art pleased to illumine my mind with the knowledge of heavenly truth, this grace alone will be sufficient to revive me.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Psa 119:144 The righteousness of thy testimonies [is] everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live.
Ver. 144. The righteousness of thy testimonies, &c. ] This is the same with Psa 119:142 .
Give me understanding
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
righteousness: Psa 119:138, Psa 119:152, Mat 5:18, 1Pe 1:23-25
give me: Psa 119:34, Psa 119:66, Psa 119:73, Psa 119:169, 2Co 4:6, 1Jo 5:20, 1Jo 5:21
understanding: Pro 10:21, Isa 6:9, Isa 6:10, Isa 27:11, Jer 4:22, Dan 12:10, Hos 4:6, Mat 13:19, Joh 17:3
Reciprocal: 1Ki 3:9 – Give therefore Psa 93:5 – Thy Psa 111:3 – righteousness Psa 119:142 – an everlasting Psa 119:160 – and every one Joh 17:17 – word 2Ti 2:7 – and
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
119:144 The righteousness of thy testimonies [is] everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall {d} live.
(d) So that the life of man without the knowledge of God is death.