Psalms 119:56

This I had, because I kept thy precepts. THIS I HAD, BECAUSE I KEPT THY PRECEPTS - "this" good I have had as my reward (namely, that thy statutes are "my songs in my pilgrimage," and that "I remember thy name" as my comfort "in the night") "because I have (so ardently) kept thy precepts." The Rabbis say, The reward of the precept is the precept; and the precept draws on the precept. Whosoever keeps one precept is gratuitously rewarded by God with grace to keep another and a harder one. Just as, on the contrary, sin is the penalty of sin; and one sin draws on another (Muis) (). Hengstenberg translates, 'This I have (and in it the hope of salvation, ), that I keep thy precepts.'...

56._This was done to me. _I doubt not that the prophet, under the term זאת, _zoth, _comprehends all God’s benefits; but as he comes before God in relation to blessings then being enjoyed by him, he speaks as if he were pointing to them. Hence, under this term is included an acknowledgment of all the benefits with which he had been crowned; or, at all events, he declares that God had borne testimony, by some signal deliverance, to the integrity of his conduct. He does not boast of meriting any thing, as the Pharisees in our day do, who, when they meet with any such matter in Scripture, pervert it to prove the merit of works. But the prophet had no other design, than to set himself in diametrical opposition to the despisers of God, who either impute all their prosperity to their own industry, or ascribe it to chance, and malignantly overlook or conceal God’s superintending providence. He t...

49-56 Those that make God's promises their portion, may with humble boldness make them their plea. He that by his Spirit works faith in us, will work for us. The word of God speaks comfort in affliction. If, through grace, it makes us holy, there is enough in it to make us easy, in all conditions. Let us be certain we have the Divine law for what we believe, and then let not scoffers prevail upon us to decline from it. God's judgments of old comfort and encourage us, for he is still the same. Sin is horrible in the eyes of all that are sanctified. Ere long the believer will be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. In the mean time, the statutes of the Lord supply subjects for grateful praise. In the season of affliction, and in the silent hours of the night, he remembers the name of the Lord, and is stirred up to keep the law. All who have made religion the first thing, will o...

Verse Psalms 119:56. _THIS I HAD, BECAUSE I KEPT THY PRECEPTS._] Though thou didst leave us under the power of our enemies, yet thou hast not left us without the consolations of thy Spirit. ANALYSIS OF LETTER ZAIN. - _SEVENTH DIVISION_ In this part the psalmist - I. Prays. II. Shows his trust in God, notwithstanding his discouragements. III. Commends the word of God, by showing what blessed effects it had produced in him. I. 1. He prays: "Remember;" accomplish and perfect thy promise. God's promises are made to prayer and faith; if men do not exert these, God will not fulfil the others. 2. "Made to thy servant:" The promises are made to the _obedient_. It is in vain to desire God to remember _his promises_ made to us

THIS I HAD, BECAUSE I KEPT THY PRECEPTS - literally, “This was to me;” that is, This has happened to me; this has occurred. This joyful remembrance of thy law in the night of affliction Psalms 119:50; this stability and firmness on my part in keeping thy law when proud men have derided me Psalms 119:51; this comfort which I have derived from meditating on thy statutes Psalms 119:52; this solicitude for the welfare of others Psalms 119:53; this peace which I have enjoyed in thy law in the house of my pilgrimage Psa

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

THIS I HAD, BECAUSE I KEPT THY PRECEPTS. Either the comfort he had from the word, the pleasure and delight he had in it, being his songs in his pilgrimage, Psalms 119:50; see Psalms 119:165; or this knowledge of the name of God, and the remembrance of it, and his carefulness and diligence in it in the night season, were of the Lord, and gifts of his: or rather this he had from the Lord, that he kept the precepts and commands of God in the manner that he did; it was all owing to grace and strength received from him; for so the words may be rendered, "this was [given] unto me, that I have kept thy precepts" k. k כי "quod", Pagninus, Montanus....

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...

THIS. Supply Ellipsis (App-6) thus: "This [comfort]. had"....