Psalms 119:16

I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word. I WILL DELIGHT MYSELF IN THY STATUTES - (.)...

9-16 To original corruption all have added actual sin. The ruin of the young is either living by no rule at all, or choosing false rules: let them walk by Scripture rules. To doubt of our own wisdom and strength, and to depend upon God, proves the purpose of holiness is sincere. God's word is treasure worth laying up, and there is no laying it up safe but in our hearts, that we may oppose God's precepts to the dominion of sin, his promises to its allurements, and his threatenings to its violence. Let this be our plea with Him to teach us his statutes, that, being partakers of his holiness, we may also partake of his blessedness. And those whose hearts are fed with the bread of life, should with their lips feed many. In the way of God's commandments there is the unsearchable riches of Christ. But we do not meditate on God's precepts to good purpose, unless our good thoughts produce good...

Verse Psalms 119:16. _I WILL DELIGHT MYSELF_] The word is very emphatical: אשתעשע _eshtaasha, I will skip about and jump for joy_. 14. He must exult in God's word as his treasure, live in the spirit of obedience as his work, and ever glory in God, who has called him to such a _state_ of salvation. 15. He must never forget what God has _done for him, done in him_, and promised _farther to do_; and he must not _forget_ the _promises_ he had made, and the _vows_ of the Lord that are upon him. Any young man who attends to these _fifteen_ particulars will get his impure way cleansed; victory over his sin; and, if he abide faithful to the Lord that bought him, an eternal heaven at last among them that are _sanctified_. ANALYSIS OF LETTER BETH. - _SECOND DIVISION_...

I WILL DELIGHT MYSELF IN THY STATUTES - I will find my happiness in thy laws. See Psalms 1:2, note; Psalms 112:1, note. I WILL NOT FORGET THY WORD - I will not allow the world to crowd it out of my mind....

EXPOSITION This is an "alphabetic psalm" of a more stringent character than any other. It consists of twenty-two stanzas, each of eight verses, every verse in each stanza beginning with its own proper letter—those of stanza 1 with _aleph_,_ _the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet; those of stanza 2 with _both_,_ _the second letter; and so on. The writer, having thus fettered himself, moves with some difficulty, but still has produced what has been justly called "a sweetly monotonous meditation" (Cheyne). He takes the Law for his one and only subject, and, further, seems to have bound himself, almost absolutely, to introduce the word "Law," or something which he regards as a synonym of "Law," into every verse. The synonyms are nine in number— 1. TORAH, "the Law"_ _itself; but not merely the Law given on Mount Sinai; rather, God's law in the widest sense, all whereby he

I WILL DELIGHT MYSELF IN THY STATUTES,.... In looking over them; in meditating on them; in obeying them, and walking according to them; as every good man does delight in the law of the Lord, after the inward man, Romans 7:22; see Psalms 119:24; I WILL NOT FORGET THY WORD: he took all proper methods to fix it in his memory; he laid it up in his mind; he meditated upon it in his heart, and he talked of it with his lips, Psalms 119:11....

The first eight verses of this Psalm, in the Hebrew, begin with the letter A, and the second eight begin with the letter B. The whole Psalm is the good man's alphabet; the Holy Spirit condescended to use these expedients to help the memory of the readers of Holy Scripture. We should be thankful for this. I have sometimes heard preachers blamed for dividing their discourses in such a way as to help the memory of their hearers. The preacher may well bear that blame without any regret, since the Spirit of God here condescends to alliteration, and to alphabetical arrangement, in order to help the memories of readers. Thus the Psalm begins Psalms 119:1. _Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD._ If there are any people in the world who are blessed, surely it must be those who are in God's way, and who take care to keep their garments unspotted

Psalms 119 The Law Written on Their Hearts and the Praise of the Word This is the longest and most perfect Psalm in the whole collection. It is an alphabetical acrostic. It is composed of 22 sections, each having eight verses, 176 verses in all. Each section begins with a different letter of the alphabet and each verse of the different sections begins also with the corresponding letter of the section. Eight times each letter of the alphabet is mentioned in the 22 sections. The number eight in the Word has the meaning of resurrection, death is gone and life has come. Israel has passed from death to life and now extols the Word and the Law of God. The time has come when it is fulfilled what the Lord spoke through Jeremiah concerning the new covenant, “I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts.” We behold then in this Psalm the joy of Israel in knowing the Word

CXIX. PRAISE OF THE LAW. This is the longest and most artificial Ps. in the whole collection. It is divided into twenty-two strophes, each beginning with one of the twenty-two letters of the Heb. alphabet in regular order. Again each strophe contains eight verses, and each verse begins with the same letter which introduces the strophe. The number of strophes then is determined by the number of the Heb. letters. But what of the eight verses in each strophe? The Psalmist had derived from a kindred Ps., viz. Psalms 19, the eight synonyms for the conception Word of God and impresses these terms on his readers by introducing them all into each stanza of his work. So Cheyne, in his _Book of Psalms_ (1904), following D. H. Mü ller. It is right, however, to bear in mind that this theory involves considerable, though by no means extravagant or arbitrary, changes in the received text both of Psalm...

WORD. Same word as in Psalms 119:9 (not Psalms 119:11): but some codices, with two early printed editions, Aramaean, Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate, read "words" (plural)...