Psalms 119:25

My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word. MY SOUL CLEAVETH UNTO THE DUST: QUICKEN THOU ME ACCORDING TO THY WORD. The first clause is from ; cf. ; . The dust is the place of the afflicted, the wounded, and the dead. 'Quicken me'-namely, to life, peace, and joy....

25._My soul cleaveth to the dust _(409) He means that he had no more hope of life than if he had been shut up in the tomb; and this must be carefully attended to, that we my not become impatient and grieved, whenever it may please God to make us endure various kinds of death. And, by his own example, he instructs us, when death stares us in the face, and all hope of escape fails, to present our petitions to God, in whose hand, as we have elsewhere seen, are the issues of death, and whose peculiar prerogative it is to restore life to those that are dead, (Psalms 68:21) As the combat is hard, he betakes himself to the promises of God, and invites others to do the same. The expression, _according to thy word, _(410) is an acknowledgment, that should he depart from God’s word, no hope would be left for him; but as

25-32 While the souls of the children of this world cleave to the earth as their portion, the children of light are greatly burdened, because of the remains of carnal affections in their hearts. It is unspeakable comfort to a gracious soul, to think with what tenderness all its complaints are received by a gracious God. We can talk of the wonders of redeeming love, when we understand the way of God's precepts, and walk in that way. The penitent melts in sorrow for sin: even the patient spirit may melt in the sense of affliction, it is then its interest to pour out its soul before God. The way of lying means all false ways by which men deceive themselves and others, or are deceived by Satan and his instruments. Those who know and love the law of the Lord, desire to know it more, and love it better. The way of serious godliness is the way of truth; the only true way to happiness: we must...

LETTER ד DALETH. - _FOURTH DIVISION_ Verse Psalms 119:25. _MY SOUL CLEAVETH UNTO THE DUST_] It would be best to translate נפשי _naphshi, my life_; and then _cleaving to the dust_ may imply an apprehension of _approaching death_; and this agrees best with the petition. _QUICKEN THOU ME_] חיני _chaiyeni_, "make me alive." Keep me from going down into the dust....

MY SOUL CLEAVETH UNTO THE DUST - This commences a new division of the psalm, in which each verse begins with the “fourth” letter of the Hebrew alphabet - _Daleth_ (ד _d_), equivalent to the English “d.” There is nothing in the sense to separate it from the other parts of the psalm. The word rendered “cleaveth” means to be glued to; to stick fast. It has the sense of adhering firmly to anything, so that it cannot easily be separated from it. Compare the notes at Psalms 63:8. The word “dust” here may mean either the earth, and earthly things, considered as low, base, unworthy, worldly; or it may mean the grave, as if he were near to that, and in danger of dying. DeWette understands it in the latter sense. Compare Psalms 44:25;...

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

d DALETH.--THE FOURTH PART. Ver. 25. DALETH. MY SOUL CLEAVETH UNTO THE DUST,.... Either to the dust of death, having the sentence of it; being almost in despair of life, upon the brink of the grave seemingly, and free among the dead: or in a very low estate of mind, in great dejection and humiliation, rolling himself in the dust, and putting his mouth in it; if there might be any hope of deliverance; but despairing of it, unless the Lord appeared; or finding a proneness in him to the corruption of nature, the body of sin and death, which was very powerful and prevalent, ensnaring and captivating; and particularly to worldly things, comparable to dust, for their lightness, emptiness, and unprofitableness; which often have an undue influence on good men, and to which their affections are too much glued; and which greatly affect the exercise of grace and religious duties, and bring a deadn...

Psalms 119:9. _Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word._ «Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?» A vital and solemn question. His way is full of temptations, and he himself has strong passions. How shall he make his way clean, and keep it so? «By taking heed thereto according to thy word.» Without heed he will soon be in the mire, but carefully walking with God's word as his rule, by the blessing of God's grace it will keep him out of sin. Psalms 119:10. _With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandment._ There might be thought in this confession to be some commendation of himself, and therefore he salts it with this prayer: «I have sought thee, Lord, sincerely, but stil

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...