Psalms 119:124
EXPOSITION Verse 124. Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy. Here he recollects himself: although before men he was so clear that he could challenge the word of righteousness, yet before the Lord, as his servant, he felt that he must appeal to mercy. We feel safest here. Our heart has more rest in the cry, "God be merciful to me," than in appealing to justice. It is well to be able to say, "I have done judgment and justice," and then to add in all lowliness, yet "deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy." The title of servant covers a plea; a master should clear the character of his servant if he be falsely accused, and rescue him from those who would oppress him; and, moreover, the master should show mercy to a servant? even if he deal severely with a stranger. The Lord condescendingly deals, or has communications with his servants, not spurning them, but communing with them; and this he does in a tender and merciful way, for in any other form of dealing we should be crushed into the dust. "And teach me thy statutes." This will be one way of dealing with us in mercy. We may expect a master to teach his own servant the meaning of his own orders. Yet since our ignorance arises from our own sinful stupidity, it is great mercy on God's part that he condescends to instruct us in his commands. For our ruler to become our teacher is an act of great grace, for which we cannot be too grateful. Among our mercies this is one of the choicest. EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS Verse 124. -- Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy. If I am a "servant" of God, I can bring my services before him only upon the ground of "mercy"; feeling that for my best performances I need an immeasurable world of mercy -- pardoning -- saving -- everlasting mercy; and yet I am emboldened by the blood of Jesus to plead for my soul -- "Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy." But then I am ignorant as well as guilty; and yet I dare not pray for divine teaching, much and hourly as I need it, until I have afresh obtained mercy. "Mercy" is the first blessing, not only in point of importance, but in point of order. I must seek the Lord, and know him as a Saviour, before I can go to him with any confidence to be my teacher. But when once I have found acceptance to my petition -- "Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy" -- my way will be opened to follow on my petition -- "Teach me thy statutes. Give me understanding, that if may know thy testimonies" -- that I may know, walk, yea, "run in the way of thy commandments" with an enlarged heart, Psalms 119:32. My plea is the same as I have before urged with acceptance (Psalms 119:94) -- "I am thy servant." --Charles Bridges. Verse 124. -- Thy mercy. All the year round, every hour of every day, God is richly blessing us; both when we sleep and when we wake, his mercy waits upon us. The sun may leave off shining, but our God will never cease to cheer his children with his love. Like a river, his lovingkindness is always flowing with a fulness inexhaustible as his own nature, which is its source. Like the atmosphere which always surrounds the earth, and is always ready to support the life of man, the benevolence of God surrounds all his creatures; in it, as in their element, they live, and move, and have their being. Yet as the sun on summer days appears to gladden us with beams more warm and bright than at other times, and as rivers are at certain seasons swollen with the rain, and as the atmosphere itself on occasions is fraught with more fresh, more bracing, or more balmy influences than heretofore, so is it with the mercy of God; it hath its golden hours, its days of overflow, when the Lord magnifies his grace and lifteth high his love before the sons of men. --C.H.S. Verse 124. -- Teach me. David had Nathan and Gad the prophets; and beside them, the ordinary Levites to teach him. He read the word of God diligently, and did meditate in the law night and day; but he acknowledgeth all this was nothing unless God did teach him. Other teachers speak to the ear, but God speaks to the heart: so Paul preached to Lydia, but God opened her heart. Let us pray for this grace. --William Cowper. HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS Verse 124-125. -- The servant of God.Psalms 119:139
EXPOSITION Verse 139. In the last two verses David spoke concerning his God and his law; here he speaks of himself, and says, My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten thy words: this was no doubt occasioned by his having so clear a sense of the admirable character of God's word. His zeal was like a fire burning within his soul. The sight of man's forgetfulness of God acted as a fierce blast to excite the fire to a more vehement flame, and it blazed until it was ready to consume him. David could not bear that men should forget God's words. He was ready to forget himself, aye, to, consume himself, because these men forgot God. The ungodly were David s enemies: his enemies, because they hated him for his godliness; his enemies, because he abhorred them for their ungodliness. These men had gone so far in iniquity that they not only violated and neglected the commands of God, but they appeared actually to have forgotten them. This put David into a great heat; he burned with indignation. How dare they trample on sacred things! How could they utterly ignore the commands of God himself! He was astonished, and filled with holy anger. EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS Verse 139. -- My zeal hath consumed me. "Zeal" is a high degree of love; and when the object of that love is ill treated, it vents itself in a mixture of grief and indignation, which are sufficient to wear and "consume" the heart. This will be the case where men rightly conceive of that dishonour which is continually done to God by creatures whom he hath made and redeemed. But never could the verse be uttered, with such fulness of truth and propriety, by any one, as by the Son of God, who had such a sense of his Father's glory, and of man's sin, as no person else ever had. And, accordingly, when his zeal had exerted itself in purging the temple, St. John tells us, "his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal thine house hath eaten me up." The place where it is so written Ps 69:9, and the passage is exactly parallel to this before us. --Horne. Verse 139. -- My zeal hath consumed me, etc. Zeal is the heat or tension of the affections; it is a holy warmth, whereby our love and an are drawn out to the utmost for God, and his glory. Now, our love to and his ways, and our hatred of wickedness, should be increased, because ungodly men. Cloudy and dark colours in a table, make those that are and lively to appear more beautiful; others' sin should make God and godliness more amiable in thine eyes. Thy heart should take fire by striking on such cold flints. David by a holy antiperistasis, did kindle from of coldness: "My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten words." Cold blasts make a fire to flame the higher, and burn the hotter --George Swinnock. Verse 139. -- My zeal hath consumed me. The fire of zeal, like the fire which consumed Solomon's sacrifice, cometh down from heaven; and zealots are not those salamanders that always live in the fire of hatred contention; but seraphs, burning with the spiritual fire of divine And there true zeal inflames the desires and affections of the soul. If it be true zeal, then tract of time, multitude of discouragements, falseness of deserting the cause, strength of oppositions, will not tire out a man's s Zeal makes men resolute, difficulties are but whetstones to their fortitude steels men's spirits with an undaunted resolution. This was the zeal burned in the disciples (Luke 24), that consumed David here, and up the very marrow of Christ: John 2:17. --Abraham Wright. Verse 139. -- My zeal hath consumed me. There are divers kinds of there is a zeal of the world, there is a zeal of the flesh, there is a zeal of religion, there is a zeal of heresy, and there is a zeal of the true God. First, we see the zeal of the world maketh men to labour day night to get a transitory thing. The zeal of the flesh torments me minds early and late for a momentary pleasure. The zeal of heresy maketh travel and compass sea and land, for the maintaining and increasing of opinion. Thus we see every man is eaten up with some kind of zeal. The drunkard is consumed with drunkenness, the whoremonger is spent with his whoredom, the heretic is eaten with heresies. Oh, how ought this to ashamed, who are so little eaten, spent, and consumed with the zeal of word! And so much the rather, because godly zeal leaveth in us advantage and a recompence, which the worldly and carnally zealous have not. For when they have spent all the strength of their bodies, powers of their mind, they have no gain or comfort left, but torment conscience; and when they are outwardly spent, they are inwardly never better: whereas the godly being concerned for a good thing, and eaten with the zeal of God's glory, have this notable privilege and profit, howsoever their outward man perisheth and decayeth, yet their inward is still refreshed and nourished to everlasting life. Oh, what a benefit to be eaten up with the love and zeal of a good thing! --Richard Greenham. Verse 139. -- Have forgotten thy words. A proper phrase to set forth in the bosom of the visible church who do not wholly deny and reject word and rule of Scripture, but yet live on as though they had it: they do not observe it; as if God had never spoken any such thing, given them any such rule. They that reject and condemn such things as word enforces, surely do not remember to do them. --Thomas Manton. HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS Verse 139. -- Zeal.
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