Psalm 119:102

I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

119:97-104 What we love, we love to think of. All true wisdom is from God. A good man carries his Bible with him, if not in his hands, yet in his head and in his heart. By meditation on God's testimonies we understand more than our teachers, when we understand our own hearts. The written word is a more sure guide to heaven, than all the fathers, the teachers, and ancients of the church. We cannot, with any comfort or boldness, attend God in holy duties, while under guilt, or in any by-way. It was Divine grace in his heart, that enabled the psalmist to receive these instructions. The soul has its tastes as well as the body. Our relish for the word of God will be greatest, when that for the world and the flesh is least. The way of sin is a wrong way; and the more understanding we get by the precepts of God, the more rooted will be our hatred of sin; and the more ready we are in the Scriptures, the better furnished we are with answers to temptation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I have not departed from thy judgments - Thy law; thy commands. This cannot mean that he had never done this, but that as a great rule of life he had not done it. The character and aim of his life had been obedience, not disobedience. A man may honestly say this, though he may be conscious of much imperfection, and may feel that he has not perfectly carried out such an aim and purpose. No one can be a truly pious man, or have evidence of personal religion, who cannot say in sincerity that he has "not departed in this sense, "from the judgments" (the commands) of God; who cannot look back on his life and say that his course - his aim - his character - since he became a professor of religion - has been, one of obedience to God. Compare 1 John 3:7-9.

For thou hast taught me - Not to himself was this to be traced, but to God; not to any wisdom of his own, but to that which was given him from on high.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

101-104. Avoidance of sinful courses is both the effect and means of increasing in divine knowledge (compare Ps 19:10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 102. To wit, by thy blessed Spirit, illuminating my mind, and working upon my heart, which other teachers cannot do.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I have not departed from thy judgments,.... From the precepts of the word, from the ways and worship and ordinances of God; he had not wickedly and on purpose departed from them; whenever he did, it was through inadvertency, the weakness of the flesh, and strength of temptation; nor from the doctrines of the word, which he held fast, knowing of whom he had learned them, as follows:

for thou hast taught me; the nature, excellency, and use of these judgments; he had taught him, by his Spirit, experimentally to understand the doctrines of the word, and practically to observe the precepts of it; and this preserved him from an apostasy from either of them.

Geneva Study Bible

I have not departed from thy judgments: for {c} thou hast taught me.

(c) So then of ourselves we can do nothing, but when God inwardly instructs us with his spirit, we feel his graces sweeter than honey.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

102. From thy judgements have I not turned aside;

For thou thyself hast instructed me.

God Himself has been his teacher, not men: therefore he has been enabled to keep in the path of right. Cp. Psalm 86:11.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 102. - I have not departed from thy judgments (comp. vers. 30, 31, 51, 157, 168, etc.). For thou hast taught me. Thy teaching, thy guidance, thy help, have kept me straight. Psalm 119:102

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The eightfold Mem. The poet praises the practical wisdom which the word of God, on this very account so sweet to him, teaches. God's precious law, with which he unceasingly occupies himself, makes him superior in wisdom (Deuteronomy 4:6), intelligence, and judgment to his enemies, his teachers, and the aged (Job 12:20). There were therefore at that time teachers and elders (πρεσβύτεροι), who (like the Hellenizing Sadducees) were not far from apostasy in their laxness, and hostilely persecuted the young and strenuous zealot for God's law. The construction of Psalm 119:98 is like Joel 1:20; Isaiah 59:12, and frequently. היא refers to the commandments in their unity: he has taken possession of them for ever (cf. Psalm 119:111). The Mishna (Aboth iv. 1) erroneously interprets: from all my teachers do I acquire understanding. All three מן in Psalm 119:98-100 signify prae (lxx ὑπὲρ). In כּלאתי, Psalm 119:101, from the mode of writing we see the verb Lamed Aleph passing over into the verb Lamed He. הורתני is, as in Proverbs 4:11 (cf. Exodus 4:15), a defective mode of writing for הוריתני. נמלצוּ, Psalm 119:103, is not equivalent to נמרצוּ, Job 6:25 (vid., Job, at Job 6:25; Job 16:2-5), but signifies, in consequence of the dative of the object לחכּי, that which easily enters, or that which tastes good (lxx ὡς gluke'a); therefore surely from מלץ equals מלט, to be smooth: how smooth, entering easily (Proverbs 23:31), are Thy words (promises) to my palate or taste! The collective singular אמרתך is construed with a plural of the predicate (cf. Exodus 1:10). He has no taste for the God-estranged present, but all the stronger taste for God's promised future. From God's laws he acquires the capacity for proving the spirits, therefore he hates every path of falsehood ( equals Psalm 119:128), i.e., all the heterodox tendencies which agree with the spirit of the age.