Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 119:68
Thou [art] good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.
68. God is good in nature and in action, kind and beneficent. ‘Bonus es tu, beneficus’ (Jer.). Cp. Deu 8:16. To such a loving God he can appeal with confidence to teach him (Mat 7:11).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thou art good – See the Psa 100:5, note; Psa 107:1, note.
And doest good – As the expression or manifestation of goodness. The goodness of God is not a mere sentiment; not mere feeling; not an inactive principle; not a mere wish: it finds expression in acts which tend to promote the happiness of his creatures everywhere.
Teach me thy statutes – See Psa 119:12, note; Psa 119:26, note. As one of the acts of the divine goodness, the psalmist prays that God will make him more and more acquainted with his law.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 119:68
Thou art good and doest good.
God good in being and good in action
I. God good in being. Thou art good. Good in the sense of kindness and in the sense of moral perfection,–the primal Font of all happiness in the universe, and the immutable Standard of all excellence.
1. Essentially good. His goodness is not a quality of Himself, it is Himself.
2. Immutably good. Because Himself absolutely unalterable, His goodness is immutable.
II. God good in action. And doest good. This follows of necessity, a good being must do good. (Homilist.)
The goodness of God
I. Describe it.
1. It is absolutely pure, and free from everything of a selfish or sinful nature.
2. Permanent and immutable as His existence.
3. Universal.
II. Show that it moves Him to do good.
1. The goodness of God must have moved Him to form, before the foundation of the world, the best possible method of doing the greatest possible good. His goodness must have moved Him to employ His wisdom in the best possible manner.
2. It must have moved Him to bring into existence the best possible system of intelligent creatures.
3. It continually moves Him to exert His power and wisdom in governing all His creatures and all His works in the wisest and best manner.
4. It must move Him to make the intelligent universe as holy and happy as possible, through the interminable ages of eternity.
III. Improvement.
1. The goodness of God is discoverable by the light of nature. Actions speak louder than words.
2. Then all the objections that ever have been made, or ever can be made, against any part of His conduct, are objections against His goodness, which must be altogether unreasonable and absurd.
3. Then no creature in the universe ever has had, or ever will have, any just cause to murmur or complain under the dispensations of Providence.
4. Then it is owing to the knowledge, and not to the ignorance of sinners, that they hate God.
5. Then He will display His goodness in the everlasting punishment of the finally impenitent.
6. Then those who are finally happy will for ever approve of the Divine conduct towards the finally miserable.
7. Then while sinners remain impenitent, they have no grounds to rely upon His mere goodness to save them. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
The goodness of God
I. As subsisting in himself.
1. It constitutes the perfection of His nature. Godhead and goodness are convertible terms.
2. It is original and underived.
3. It harmonizes with all the perfections of His nature.
4. It is impressed with the immutability of His will.
II. Its display.
1. The rich provision which God has made for the happiness of man.
2. The mysterious price by which man is redeemed.
3. The modes employed for the recovery of man.
4. The glorious result of all this in time and in eternity. (T. Lessey.)
Pain and pity
We will not deny that evil is evil, we will make no hard pretence that pain is anything but painful; but leaving that insoluble problem, we may rest, at any rate, in the conviction that pain and misery are the accidents–to a great extent the avoidable accidents–of life, not its end and object; that happiness and blessing so far preponderate over them that every one of us may sincerely thank God for His creation.
1. First, as regards ourselves, pain and sickness are chiefly due to the working of laws which have this obviously beneficent nature that they are meant to warn us against things inherently vile, hateful to God, and destructive to our own nature. Physical anguish and moral remorse, often in the individual, and always in the race, are nothing in the world but a part of the stream of sin taken a little lower down in its course. Man himself, if he would but keep the Ten Commandments, if he would but live in temperance, soberness, and chastity, might, to an immense extent, sweep his own life clean of foul diseases.
2. But even as regards ourselves, pain and sorrow are not only salutary warnings against impurity and excess, but, when rightly borne, they uplift us in every other respect. They help us to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, they make us yearn for unrealized ideals beyond our small moods and our vulgar comforts; they turn us from the near and the present to the distant and the future; they enable us to pass the death-doom on our mean and shivering egotisms. Take even the most innocent of all our sorrows–the aching anguish of bereavement. When we have lost those whom we have loved, has it not been to thousands simply as a golden chain between their hearts and God?
3. I turn to the lessons which pain and sorrow have for us as regards the world in general. I do not hesitate again to say that they are the stern saviours of society, that they have enriched humanity with its noblest types of character, that they have been as the storms which lash into fury the lazy elements lest they should stagnate in pestilence.
(1) For, first of all, they save society from itself. A dissolute society, says a thoughtful writer, is the most tragical spectacle which history has ever to present; a nest of disease, of jealousy, of ruin, of despair, whose last hope is to be washed off the world and to disappear. Such societies must die sooner or later by their own gangrene, by their own corruption, because the infection of evil, spreading into unbounded selfishness, ever intensifying and reproducing passions which defeat their own aim, can never end in anything except moral desolation. They go too far, such societies; they overreach themselves; they culminate at last in some hideous crime which awakens the flame of a moral indignation in which all their social shame and gorgeous gluttonies become as scum in the avenging flame. Nor do pain and sorrow only help the deliverers of the oppressed. They tend further to enrich the blood and uplift the ideals of the world. It is the pity for them which kindles the passion of the prophet standing undaunted before angry kings and mocking peoples, and the supremacy of the martyr who wields Gods lightning while he stands in his shirt of flame. (Dean Farrar.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 68. Thou art good] And because thou art good, thou doest good; and because thou delightest to do good, teach me thy statutes.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Thou art good; gracious and bountiful in thy nature.
And doest 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 that I desire above all things.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
68. Compare as to the Lord Jesus(Ac 10:38).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou [art] good, and doest good,…. Essentially, originally, and only good, and the fountain of all goodness to his creatures; who does good to all men in a providential way, and especially to his own people; to whom he is good in a way of special grace and mercy, in and through his Son Jesus Christ; and even he is good to them, and does good to them, when he afflicts them; he makes their afflictions work for their good, either temporal, spiritual, or eternal;
teach me thy statutes; as a fresh instance of goodness; this had been often desired, being what lay much on his mind, and was of moment and importance; see Ps 119:12.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
68 Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.
Here, 1. David praises God’s goodness and gives him the glory of it: Thou art good and doest good. All who have any knowledge of God and dealings with him wilt own that he does good, and therefore will conclude that he is good. The streams of God’s goodness are so numerous, and run so full, so strong, to all the creatures, that we must conclude the fountain that is in himself to be inexhaustible. We cannot conceive how much good our God does every day, much less can we conceive how good he is. Let us acknowledge it with admiration and with holy love and thankfulness. 2. He prays for God’s grace, and begs to be under the guidance and influence of it: Teach me thy statutes. “Lord, thou doest good to all, art the bountiful benefactor of all the creatures; this is the good I beg thou wilt do to me,–Instruct me in my duty, incline me to it, and enable me to do it. Thou art good, and doest good; Lord, teach me thy statutes, that I may be good and do good, may have a good heart and live a good life.” It is an encouragement to poor sinners to hope that God will teach them his way because he is good and upright, Ps. xxv. 8.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
(68) It is characteristic of this psalm that the higher the conception of the Divine nature, the more earnest becomes the prayer for knowledge of His will in relation to conduct.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
DISCOURSE: 705
THE GOODNESS OF GOD
Psa 119:68. Thou art good, and doest good: teach me thy statutes.
THE perfections of God, if considered only in a speculative view, must excite our admiration; but, if contemplated in reference to our state and conduct, they will be to us a source of unspeakable comfort, and a spring of incessant activity. What emotions a knowledge of the Divine goodness will produce in the soul, we see in the words before us; in discoursing upon which we shall notice,
I.
The goodness of God
In conformity with the text, we shall call your attention to,
1.
His essential goodness
[This is not an indiscriminate regard to all, whether they be good or evil; for such a regard would not consist with justice, or holiness, or truth: but it is a general benevolence towards the whole creation, operating incessantly for the good of the whole. The manner in which it discovers itself is as various as the states of men: but, however diversified its operations may be, it is the same principle in God. It is the sum of all his perfections: towards the undeserving it is grace; and to the ill-deserving, mercy: to the indigent it is bounty; to the distressed, pity and compassion: towards the impenitent it is forbearance; and to the obstinate and incorrigible it is justice. This is the view which God himself gives us of his goodness [Note: Moses prays for a sight of Gods glory; God promises to shew him his goodness; and then represents it as consisting in an united exercise of all his perfections. Exo 33:18-19; Exo 34:6-7.]; and, in this view, it resides in him necessarily, in him only, and in him continually.]
2.
His communicative goodness
[This he manifests to the world at large. When first he created the world, he formed every thing very good. And if we look around us, we shall be constrained to say, The earth is full of his goodness.
Towards man in particular, his goodness is more abundantly displayed. Towards the ungodly he has shewn it, by giving his only dear Son to die for them, and his good Spirit to instruct them: yea, he has set apart an order of men also to entreat them in his name to accept the proffered salvation. Towards the godly he has abounded yet still more in the exceeding riches of his grace: for, in addition to all that he has done for the ungodly, he has made his word effectual for their conversion; and he watches over them with paternal care, supplying all their wants, and protecting them in all their dangers; and, to complete the whole, he will crown them finally with his glory [Note: Psa 103:1-5.].]
Such a view of God as this cannot but lead us to adopt,
II.
The petition grounded upon it
The petition itself is such as all ought to offer for themselves
[By the statutes of God we understand both the truths he has revealed, and the precepts he has enjoined. Of these we are by nature ignorant; nor can we by mere human exertions ever acquire a right understanding of them [Note: 1Co 2:14.]. We must be taught of God: our eyes must be opened by his Spirit: then only shall we keep his statutes, when God himself shall write them on the fleshy tables of our hearts.]
But the petition has peculiar force as grounded on a discovery of Gods goodness; for, in that, as in a glass, we see,
1.
Our duties
[The law of God primarily declares our duty towards him: but none ever attain a just knowledge of that duty from the law alone; they cannot see the necessity of loving God with all their hearts, till they have some idea of the obligations they lie under to him for the stupendous work of redemption. But let the love of God in Christ Jesus be once clearly revealed to the soul, and the excellency of the law will instantly appear; and obedience to it will be considered as perfect freedom.]
2.
Our defects
[We are naturally averse to acknowledge our vileness and wickedness. But a sight of the Divine goodness softens the mind, and renders it ingenuous. Hence the more we are acquainted with God, the more we know of ourselves; and the more we have experienced of his love, the more we abhor ourselves for our ingratitude to him, and our want of conformity to his image [Note: Job 42:5-6. Eze 16:63.].]
3.
Our encouragements
[Wherever we look, we have no encouragement but in God. Indeed, if only we be acquainted with his goodness, we want no other encouragement: for, what will not He do, who is so good in himself? and what will He refuse us, who has done so much for us already [Note: Rom 8:32.]? Such considerations as these are sufficient to counterbalance every difficulty that the world, or the flesh, or the devil can place in our way. Having this God for our God, we can want nothing for time or for eternity.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 119:68 Thou [art] good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.
Ver. 68. Thou art good, and doest good ] Good in thyself (indeed there is none good but thyself) and good to thy creatures, inexpressibly bounteous and beneficial.
Teach me thy statutes
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
good = kind. doest good = actest kindly.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
good: Psa 86:5, Psa 106:1, Psa 107:1, Psa 145:7-9, Exo 33:18, Exo 33:19, Exo 34:6, Exo 34:7, Isa 63:7, Mat 5:45, Mat 19:17, Mar 10:18, Luk 18:19
teach: Psa 119:12, Psa 119:26, Psa 25:8, Psa 25:9
Reciprocal: 2Ch 30:18 – The good Psa 100:5 – For the Psa 135:3 – for the Lord Psa 136:1 – Give thanks