Verse:
Psalms 119:40
Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness (justify / tsdaqah).
Commentary by Adam Clarke
Verse 40. Behold, I have longed Source
Thou searchest the heart; thou knowest that I have long desired thy salvation; thou seest that this desire still remains. Behold it! it is thy work; and through thy mercy I breathe after thy mercy.
Quicken me
I am dying; O give me the spirit of life in Christ Jesus!
ANALYSIS OF LETTER HE.-Fifth Division In this part, which is wholly precatory, the psalmist prays,-
I. That God would illuminate his mind.
II. That he would remove all those hinderances which might prevent him from doing his duty.
I. 1. The first petition is for illumination: "Teach me;" point me out what I am to learn, and how I am to learn it.
2. The second is, "Give me understanding." Let me comprehend, that I may profit by this teaching.
3. The end for which he asks,-that he "may keep the law."
He specifies the manner: 1. He will be no temporizer; he will keep it "to the end." 2. He will be no hypocrite; he will keep it "with his whole heart."
1. He prays for power: "Make me to go." Without thy Spirit's help I can do nothing: I do not know the way without thy teaching; I cannot walk in it without thy help.
2. He wishes to go in the path; the way in which all God's followers have walked.
3. It is a path, not a public road; a path where no beast goes, and men seldom.
4. He gives a reason why his petition should be granted: "Therein do I delight."
II. He prays to have all impediments removed.
1. "Incline my heart." Bind it down to a willing obedience.
2. "Not to covetousness." Keep me from the love of money, the world, the creature.
3. He prays against the desire of the eye: "Turn away mine eyes." Let the eye of my body be turned away from vanity; the eye of my mind turned away to thee.
4. Let me find the benefit of this turning: "Stablish thy word,"-make good thy word; give me grace to stand.
5. For which he gives this reason: "I am thy servant, and am devoted to thy fear."
6. He is afraid of the consequences if he be not faithful: "Turn away my reproach." Let it not be said, at the day of judgment, "I was hungry, and you gave me no meat,"
7. He knows if God condemns it must be justly: "For thy judgments are good." Man may condemn where thou approvest; he may approve where thou condemnest. Thy judgments alone are good.
8. He concludes, desiring the Lord to look on the state of his heart: "Behold!" 1. Is not my heart right before thee? 2. If so, quicken me; make me alive, and keep me alive! Without the latter, the former will answer no end.
Commentary by Coffman
Verses 33-40
Teach me, O Jehovah, the way of thy statutes; And I shall keep it unto the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; Yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; For therein do I delight. Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, And not to covetousness. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity, And quicken me in thy ways. Confirm unto thy servant thy word, Which [is in order] unto the fear of thee. Turn away my reproach whereof I am afraid; For thine ordinances are good. Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: Quicken me in thy righteousness.Source
(Psalms 119:37). In spite of the general monotony and constant repetition in the psalm, almost every strophe finds a line of significant fresh and challenging thought. This is such a line.
The lust of the eye entered into the temptation of our mother Eve; and Satan did not overlook the power of it when he tempted the Son of God in the wilderness, showing him "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them." Here the psalmist prays that God will control what he is tempted to "look upon."
The Lord has commanded, "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red" (Proverbs 23:31). There are also many other things upon which those who wish to live righteously simply should not allow their eyes to linger. Isaiah commended the man who, "shutteth his eyes from looking upon evil" (Isaiah 33:15).
Proverbs 23:31 Isaiah 33:15
Do not gaze at wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup,
when it goes down smoothly!And Job has this: "I made a solemn promise never to look with lust at a girl" (Job 31:1, the Good News Bible).
He who walks righteously
and speaks what is right,
who rejects gain from extortion
and keeps his hand from accepting bribes,
who stops his ears against plots of murder
and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil-
Job 31:1
"I made a covenant with my eyes
not to look lustfully at a girl.
Commentary by Geneva Study Bible
119:40 Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness. Source
Give me strength to continue in your word even to the end.
Commentary by Jamieson, Fausset and Brown
39, 40. Our hope of freedom from the reproach of inconsistency is in God's power, quickening us to live according to His Word, which He leads us to love. Source
for thy judgments are good--The time must therefore be at hand when Thy justice will turn the "reproach" from Thy Church upon the world (Isa 25:8; Isa 66:5; Zep 2:8-10).
Isa 25:8 Isa 66:5
he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove the disgrace of his people
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.Zep 2:8-10
Hear the word of the LORD ,
you who tremble at his word:
"Your brothers who hate you,
and exclude you because of my name, have said,
'Let the LORD be glorified,
that we may see your joy!'
Yet they will be put to shame.
8 "I have heard the insults of Moab
and the taunts of the Ammonites,
who insulted my people
and made threats against their land.
9 Therefore, as surely as I live,"
declares the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel,
"surely Moab will become like Sodom,
the Ammonites like Gomorrah-
a place of weeds and salt pits,
a wasteland forever.
The remnant of my people will plunder them;
the survivors of my nation will inherit their land."
10 This is what they will get in return for their pride,
for insulting and mocking the people of the LORD Almighty.
Commentary by John Gill
Behold, I have longed after thy precepts quicken me in thy righteousness:
After a greater degree of knowledge of them, and an opportunity of hearing them explained and enforced, and of yielding obedience to them; see (Psalms 119:7,20,27,30) ;
Psalms 119:7,20,27,30
7 I will praise you with an upright heart
as I learn your righteous laws.
20 My soul is consumed with longing
for your laws at all times.
27 Let me understand the teaching of your precepts;
then I will meditate on your wonders.
30 I have chosen the way of truth;
I have set my heart on your laws.
Source
in the way of righteousness, according to the word of righteousness, the Gospel, and with the righteousness of Christ revealed in it; and which is unto life, and quickens and comforts the heart, and from whence abundance of peace and joy flows.
Commentary by John Wesley
Longed In
- After a more solid knowledge and constant performance of them. Source
- According to thy faithfulness.
Commentary by Matthew Henry
Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness. Source
Here,
1. David professes the ardent affection he had to the word of God: "I have longed after thy precepts, not only loved them, and delighted in what I have already attained, but I have earnestly desired to know them more and do them better, and am still pressing forward towards perfection." Tastes of the sweetness of God's precepts will but set us a longing after a more intimate acquaintance with them. He appeals to God concerning this passionate desire after his precepts: "Behold, I have thus loved, thus longed; thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I am thus affected."
2. He prays for grace to enable him to answer this profession. "Thou hast wrought in me this languishing desire, put life into me, that I may prosecute it; quicken me in thy righteousness, in thy righteous ways, according to thy righteous promise." Where God has wrought to will he will work to do, and where he has wrought to desire he will satisfy the desire.
Commentary by C. H. Spurgeon
Behold, I have longed after thy precepts. Quicken me in thy righteousness.
He can at least claim sincerity. He is deeply bowed down by a sense of his weakness and need of grace; but he does desire to be in all things conformed to the divine will. Where our longings are, there are we in the sight of God. If we have not attained perfection, it is something to have hungered after it. He who has given us to desire, will also grant us to obtain. The precepts are grievous to the ungodly, and therefore when we are so changed as to long for them we have clear evidence of conversion, and we may safely conclude that he who has begun the good work will carry it on.
Give me more life wherewith to follow thy righteous law; or give me more life because thou hast promised to hear prayer, and it is according to thy righteousness to keep thy word. How often does David plead for quickening! But never once too often. We need quickening every hour of the day, for we are so sadly apt to become slow and languid in the ways of God. It is the Holy Spirit who can pour new life into us; let us not cease crying to him. Let the life we already possess show itself by longing for more.
The last verses of the octaves have generally exhibited an onward look of resolve, hope, and prayer. Here past fruits of grace are made the plea for further blessing. Onward in the heavenly life is the cry of this verse.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Verse 40. Behold, I have longed after, etc. This is given as a more intense form of the statement which he had just made, that he esteemed the judgments to be good. They were so good that he longed after them. Blot only so, but he desired to long after them even more. Thus he prays for even more life and rigour in pursuing the path which they pointed out -- Quicken me in thy righteousness. He who really longs after divine truth, mourns that he does not long more. When the heart has no love, thee mind has no light, and can only judge the precepts erroneously. "The pure in heart" see better with the mind than can the impure. "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." Love so enlarges discernment that he who really loves often finds that his judgment of the blessedness of truth has outstripped even his longing for it. Hence it is the quick who cry, "Quicken me"; it is those who have living desires who pray for yet more life in the way of righteousness.
Verse 40. I have longed after thy precepts. We are sometimes unconsciously led to "long" after the promises, more than "after the precepts" of God; forgetting that it is our privilege and safety to have an equal regard to both -- to obey his precepts in dependence on his promises, and to expect the accomplishment of the promises in the way of obedience to the precepts. Charles Bridges.
Verse 40. Precepts, from a word which means to place in trust, mean something entrusted to man, "that which is committed to thee"; appointments of God, which consequently have to do with the conscience, for which man is responsible, as an intelligent being. The precepts are not so obviously apprehended as the law and the testimonies. They must be sought out. "Behold, my desire is for thy precepts" (Psalms 119:40). "Thy precepts I seek" (Psalms 119:45). "Thy precepts I have sought" (Psalms 119:94)... They are a law of liberty: "And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts" (Psalms 119:45). John Jebb.
Verse 40. Quicken me in thy righteousness. He said before, "Quicken me in thy word," here, "in thy righteousness"; all is one; for the word of God is the righteousness of God, in which is set down the will of righteousness. In this the prophet desires to be quickened, that is, to be confirmed, that in cheerfulness and gladness of spirit he might rely upon the word of God. Richard Greenham.
Verse 40. Quicken me in thy righteousness. The petition is for liveliness in the knowledge and practice of holiness, according to the tenor of God's word and by its operation on the heart. If any prefer by "righteousness" to understand the faithfulness or justice of God, whereby he has bound himself to give grace to those who trust in him, there is no objection to such an interpretation. It is in fact implied in the others. Whoever can truly use the language of this verse is regenerate. Before renewing grace the law was a dead letter. It was more; it was a hated letter. The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. A sinner desires no restraint from the divine precepts. William S. Plumer.
HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONSSource
Gracious longings experienced.
Great necessity felt -- more life needed.
Wise petition offered.
About Commentary Authors
Prepared by William C. Barman for George Young Memorial United Methodist Church -- Palm Harbor, FL on 9/25/03; 5:18:14 PM