Psalms 119:161

Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word. PRINCES HAVE PERSECUTED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE - as Saul did David (; ; ). Virtually Saul and his party were trying to drive David to transgress God's Word. BUT MY HEART STANDETH IN AWE OF THY WORD - I was more "in awe of thy word," lest I should in any way transgress, than I was in awe of the "princes" who persecuted me. Not slavish, but reverential fear. It was accompanied with faith and hope (; ), such as Josiah felt, his "heart being tender, so that...

161_Princes have persecuted me without a cause. _(34) Here the Psalmist, informs us that sore and grievous as his temptation had been, he was restrained by the fear of God from desiring to attempt anything unworthy of the character of a godly man. We are prone to fall into despair when princes who are armed with power to overwhelm us are hostile to and molest us. The evil is also aggravated from the consideration that it is the very persons who ought to be asbucklers to defend us, who employ their strength in hurting us. Yea, when the afflicted are stricken by those in high places, they in a manner think that the hand of God is against them. There was also this peculiarity in the case of the Prophet, that he had to encounter the grandees of the chosen people — men whom God had placed in such honor-able stations, to the end they might be the pillars of the Church. Some give, more restrict...

89-96 The settling of God's word in heaven, is opposed to the changes and revolutions of the earth. And the engagements of God's covenant are established more firmly than the earth itself. All the creatures answer the ends of their creation: shall man, who alone is endued with reason, be the only unprofitable burden of the earth? We may make the Bible a pleasant companion at any time. But the word, without the grace of God, would not quicken us. See the best help for bad memories, namely, good affections; and though the exact words be lost, if the meaning remain, that is well. I am thine, not my own, not the world's; save me from sin, save me from ruin. The Lord will keep the man in peace, whose mind is stayed on him. It is poor perfection which one sees and end of. Such are all things in this world, which pass for perfections. The glory of man is but as the flower of the grass. The psa...

LETTER ש SCHIN. - _TWENTY-FIRST DIVISION_ Verse Psalms 119:161. _PRINCES HAVE PERSECUTED ME_] This may refer to what was done by _prime ministers_, and the rulers of provinces, to sour the king against the _unfortunate Jews_, in order still to detain them in bondage. In reference to _David_, the plotting against him in Saul's court, and the dangers he ran in consequence of the jealousies of the Philistine lords while he sojourned among them, are well known. _MY HEART STANDETH IN AWE_] They had probably offers made them of enlargement or melioration of condition, providing they submitted to some idolatrous conditions; but they knew they had to do with a jealous God; their hearts _stood in awe_, and they were thereby kept from sin....

PRINCES HAVE PERSECUTED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE - This commences a new division of the psalm, indicated by the Hebrew letter _Schin_ (שׂ _ś_, and שׁ _sh_) - corresponding to our “s,” or “sh.” On the meaning of the expression here, see Psalms 119:23, note; Psalms 119:76, note. BUT MY HEART STANDETH IN AWE OF THY WORD - I still reverence thy word. I am not deterred from keeping thy law by any threats or intimidations. This is in accordance with the uniform statements in the psalm, that nothing deterred him from manifesting his adherence to the law of God....

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

v, SCHIN.--THE TWENTY-FIRST PART. Ver. 161. SCHIN. PRINCES HAVE PERSECUTED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE,.... These were either the princes of the Philistines at the court of Achish; or the princes of Israel, who joined in the conspiracy with Absalom; or the princes in Saul's court, as Kimchi observes; who insinuated that David had evil designs against the king, drove him from abiding in the Lord's inheritance, and pursued him from place to place, as a partridge on the mountains, 1 Samuel 29:4; and all which was without any cause or reason on his part; and which, as it was an aggravation of the sin of his persecutors, so it was an alleviation of his affliction: in this he was, a type of Christ, against whom the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers took counsel together; Herod, Pontius Pilate, and others, the princes of this world, who crucified the Lord of glory, and ha

Psalms 119:145. _I cried with my whole heart; hear me. O LORD: I will keep thy statutes._ It is sweet to look back upon our prayers, if those prayers were uttered with our whole heart, for it is no small work of divine grace to enable us to throw the whole heart into prayer; and when we get that we may be quite sure that our prayer will succeed. The God who gives us grace to pray with the whole heart will be sure to reply to the prayer. After prayer David uttered a resolution, «I will keep thy statutes.» He was resolved upon this with his whole heart, and though a resolution is not enough, for many make resolves and break them, yet no man is likely to keep God's word who does not resolve to do so. Therefore is it needful, first, to cry in prayer, and then to resolve with the whole heart to walk according to God's will....

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...