Psalm 119:165

Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(165) Nothing shall offend them.—See margin. Perhaps the verse should take the form of a wish: great peace to the lovers of Thy law; no stumbling-block to them. Or, it may be, great peace have they who love Thy word and who find no hindrance. It was not the fact that the faithful did not stumble.

MacLaren's Expositions

Psalms

SUBMISSION AND PEACE

Psalm 119:165.

The marginal note says ‘they shall have no stumbling block.’

We do great injustice to this psalm-so exuberant in its praises of ‘the law of the Lord’-if we suppose that that expression means nothing more than the Mosaic or Jewish revelation. It does mean that, of course, but the psalm itself shows that the writer uses the expression and its various synonyms as including a great deal more than any one method by which God’s will is made known to man. For he speaks, for instance, in one part of the psalm of God’s ‘word,’ as being settled for ever in the heavens, and of the heavens and earth as continuing to this day, ‘according to Thine ordinances.’

So we are warranted in giving to the thought of our text the wider extension of taking the divine ‘law’ to include not only that directory of conduct contained in Scripture, but the expressed will of God, involving duties for us, in whatever way it is made known. The love of that uttered will, the Psalmist declares, will always bring peace. Such an understanding of the text does not exclude the narrower reference, which is often taken to be the only thought in the Psalmist’s mind, nor does it obliterate the distinction between the written law of God and the disclosures of His will which we collect by the exercise of our faculties on events around and facts within us. But it widens the horizon of our contemplations, and bases the promised peace on its true foundation, the submission of the human to the divine will.

Let us then consider how true love to the will of God, however it is made known to us, either in the Book or in our consciousness, or in daily providences, or by other people’s hints, is the talisman that brings to us, in all circumstances, and in every part of our nature, a tranquillity which nothing can disturb.

Of course, by ‘love’ here is meant, not only delight in the expression of, but the submission of the whole being to, God’s will; and we love the law only when, and because, we love the Lawgiver.

I. Thus loving the law of God, not only with delight in the vehicle of its expression, but with inward submission to its behests, we shall have, first of all, the peacefulness of a restful heart.

Such a heart has found an adequate and worthy object for the outgoings of its affections. Base things loved always disturb. Noble things loved always tranquillise. And he to whom his judgment declares that the best of all things is God’s manifested will, and whose affections and emotions and actions follow the dictate of his judgment, has a love which grasps whatsoever things are noble and fair and of good report, and is lifted to a level corresponding with the loftiness of its objects. For our hearts are like the creatures in some river, of which they tell us that they change their colour according to the hue of the bed of the stream in which they float and of the food of which they partake. The heart that lives on the will of God will be calm and steadfast, and ennobled into reposeful tranquillity like that which it grasps and grapples.

Little boats which are made fast to the sides of a ship rise and fall with the tide, as does that to which they are attached. And our hearts, if they be roped to the fleeting, the visible, the creatural, the finite, partake of the fluctuations, and finally are involved in the destruction, of that which they have made their supreme good. And contrariwise, they who love that which is eternal shine with a light thrown by reflection from the object of their love, and ‘he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever,’ like the will which he doeth. ‘Great peace’-the peace of a restful heart-’have they that love Thy law.’

II. Then again, such love brings the calm of a submitted will.

Brethren! it is not sorrow that troubles us so much as resistance to sorrow. It is not pain that lacerates; it cuts, and cuts clean when we keep ourselves still and let it do its merciful ministry upon us. But it is the plunging and struggling under the knife that makes the wounds jagged and hard to heal. The man who bows his will to the Supreme, in quiet acceptance of that which He sends, is never disturbed. Resistance distracts and agitates; acquiescence brings a great calm. Submission is peace. And when we have learned to bend our wills, and let God break them, if that be His will, in order to bend them, then ‘nothing shall by any means hurt us’; and nothing shall by any means trouble us.

If you were ever on board a sailing-ship you know the difference between its motion when it is beating up against the wind and when it is running before it. In the one case all is agitation and uneasiness, in the other all is smooth and frictionless and delicious. So, when we go with the great stream, in not ignoble surrender, then we go quietly. It is God’s great intention, in all that befalls us in this life, to bring our wills into conformity with His. Blessed is the ministry of sorrow and of pain and of loss, if it does that for us, and disastrous and accursed is the ministry of joy and success if it does not. There is no joy but calm, and there is no calm but in-not the annihilation, but-the intensest activity of will, in the act of submitting to that higher will, which is discerned to be ‘good,’ and is gratefully taken as ‘acceptable,’ and will one day be seen to have been ‘perfect.’ The joy and peace of a submitted will are the secret of all true tranquillity.

III. Then again, there comes by such a love the peace of an obedient life.

When once we have taken it {and faithfully adhere to the choice} as our supreme desire to do God’s will, we are delivered from almost all the things that distract and disturb us. Away go all the storms of passion, and we are no more at the mercy of vagrant inclinations. We are no longer agitated by having to consult our own desires, and seeking to find in them compass and guide for our lives-a hopeless attempt! All these sources of agitation are dried up, and the man who has only this desire, to do his duty because God has made it such, has an ever powerful charm, which makes him tranquil whatever befalls.

And as thus we may be delivered from all the agitations and cross-currents of conflicting wishes, inclinations, aims, which otherwise would make a jumble and a chaos of our lives, so, on the other hand, if for us the supreme desire is to obey God, then we are delivered from the other great enemy to tranquillity-namely, anxious forecasting of possible consequences of our actions, which robs so many of us of so many quiet days. ‘I do the little I can do,’ said Faber, ‘and leave the rest with Thee,’ and that will bring peace. Instead of wondering what is to come of this step and that, whether our plans will turn out as we hope, and so being at the mercy of contingencies impossible to be forecasted, we cast all upon Him and say, ‘I have nothing to do with the far end of my actions. Thou givest them a body as it has pleased Thee. I have to do with this end of my actions-their motive; and I will make that right, and then it is Thy business to make the rest right.’ And so, ‘great peace have they which love Thy law.’

An obedient life not only delivers us from the distractions of miscellaneous desires, and from the anxiety of unforeseen results, but it contributes to tranquillity in another way. The thing that makes us most uneasy is either sin done or duty neglected. Either of these, however small it may appear, is like a horse-hair upon the sheets of a bed, or a little wrinkle in that on which a man lies, disturbing all his repose. No man is really at rest unless his conscience is clear. ‘The wicked is like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.’ But if the uttered will of the Lord is our supreme object, then in this direction, too, tranquillity is ours.

IV. Lastly, such a love gives the peace of freedom from temptations.

‘Nothing shall offend them.’ ‘There shall be no stumbling-block to them.’ The higher love casts out the lower. It is well, when, by reinforcing conscience by considerations of duty, or even sometimes by the lower thoughts of consequences, a man is able to pass by a temptation which appeals to him, and conquers the inclination to go wrong. But it is far better-and it is possible-to be lifted up into such a region as that the temptation does not appeal to him any more.

To take a very homely illustration, whether is it better for a man to steel himself, and walk past the door of a public-house, though the fumes appeal to his sense, and stir his inclinations; or to go past, and never know any attraction to enter? Which is best, to overcome our temptations, or to live away up in the high regions to which the malaria of the swamps never climbs, and where no disease-germs can ever reach?

That elevation is possible for us, if only we keep in close touch with God, and love the law because our hearts are knit to the Law-giver. ‘There shall be no occasion of stumbling in him,’ as the Apostle John varies the expression of my text. Within, there will be no traitors to surrender the camp to the enemy without. So Paul in the letter to the Philippians attributes to ‘the peace of God which passeth understanding’ a military function, and says that it will ‘garrison the heart and mind,’ and keep them ‘in Christ Jesus,’ which is but the Christian way of saying, ‘Great peace have they which love Thy law; and there is no occasion of stumbling in them.’

Benson Commentary

Psalm 119:165. Great peace have they which love thy law — Hebrew, great peace is, or shall be, to the lovers of thy law, that is, great inward peace, satisfaction, and tranquillity of mind, arising from the sense of thy love to them, and of thy watchful care over them. In other words: “amidst the storms and tempests of the world, there is a perfect calm in the breasts of those who not only do the will of God, but love to do it. They are at peace with God by the blood of reconciliation; at peace with themselves by the answer of a good conscience and the subjection of those desires which war against the soul; at peace with all men by the spirit of charity; and the whole creation is so at peace with them, that all things work together for their good.” And nothing shall offend them — Hebrew, ואין למו מכשׁול, to them is no stumbling-block, namely, such as they shall stumble at, and fall by, into sin and misery. “No external troubles can rob them of this great peace, no offences or stumbling-blocks, which are thrown in their way by persecution or temptation, by the malice of enemies, or the apostacy of friends, by any thing which they see, hear of, or feel, can detain or divert them from their course. Heavenly love surmounts every obstacle, and runs with delight the way of God’s commandments.” — Horne.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

119:161-168 Those whose hearts stand in awe of God's word, will rather endure the wrath of man, than break the law of God. By the word of God we are unspeakable gainers. Every man hates to have a lie told him, but we should more hate telling a lie; by the latter we give an affront to God. The more we see the beauty of truth, the more we shall see the hateful deformity of a lie. We are to praise God even for afflictions; through grace we get good from them. Those that love the world have great vexation, for it does not answer what they expect; those that love God's word have great peace, for it outdoes what they expect. Those in whom this holy love reigns, will not perplex themselves with needless scruples, or take offence at their brethren. A good hope of salvation will engage the heart in doing the commandments. And our love to the word of God must subdue our lusts, and root out carnal affections: we must make heart work of it, or we make nothing of it. We must keep the commandments of God by obedience to them, and his promises by reliance on them. God's eye is on us at all times; this should make us very careful to keep his commandments.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Great peace have they - See the notes at Isaiah 26:3; compare the notes at Philippians 4:6-7. They have great calmness of mind. They are not troubled and anxious. They believe and feel that all things are well-ordered by thee, and will be conducted to the best result. They, therefore, calmly leave all with thee. As a matter of fact, the friends of God have peace and calmness in their minds, even amidst the troubles, the disappointments, and the reverses of life. The love of God is the best - the only - way to secure permanent peace in the soul.

Which love thy law - It is the love of law, and the belief that the law of God is in accordance with justice, that gives peace to their minds. God's government is a government of law, and therefore it is loved.

And nothing shall offend them - Margin, "They shall have no stumbling-block." "Hebrew, "And to them no stumbling," or stumbling-block. See the notes at Matthew 5:29-30; notes at Matthew 18:6; notes at Matthew 16:23; notes at 1 Peter 2:8; notes at James 2:10. The meaning here is, that they would not fall into sin; they would be kept safe; they would be preserved from the power of temptation. The meaning is not, as it would seem to be in our version, that nothing would pain, grieve, or irritate them; but, as above, that as long as they were obedient to the law, and disposed to obey it, they would be safe from the power of temptation.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

165. nothing shall offend them—or, "cause them to offend" (compare Margin).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 165. Great peace; either outward prosperity and happiness, which God in his law hath expressly promised to good men; or at least inward peace, satisfaction and tranquility of mind, arising from the sense of God’s love to them and watchful care over them in all the concerns of this life and of the next.

Have they, Heb. is to them, or shall be to them; for the verb being not expressed, it may be understood either way. Although they may meet with some disturbance, yet their end shall be peace, as is said, Psalm 37:37.

Nothing shall offend them, Heb. they shall have no stumbling-block, to wit, such at which they shall stumble and fall into mischief and utter ruin, as ungodly men have, before whom God doth oft lay stumbling-blocks, or occasions of sin and destruction, as it is affirmed by God himself, Jeremiah 6:21 Ezekiel 3:20 Romans 9:33, out of Isaiah 8:14.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Great peace have they which love thy law,.... The Targum adds,

"in this world.''

Great prosperity, especially prosperity of soul, inward peace, peace of conscience, peace in Christ, and from him, flowing from his blood, righteousness, and sacrifice, and a view of interest therein; which is usually enjoyed in a way of believing, and frequently had in the ways, worship, and ordinances of God. Such as love the law of God, his word, precepts, and doctrines, have a large share of it; a peace so great, that it passes the understanding of unregenerate men, and cannot be fully expressed by the saints themselves; there is none to the wicked, it is peculiar to them that love the Lord, and what belong to him: the Arabic and Ethiopic versions render it, "which love thy name";

and nothing shall offend them; the Targum is,

"in the world to come.''

Nothing shall disturb their minds, and break their peace; nothing from without, though sin, temptations, and desertions do; not outward afflictions, the reproaches and persecutions of wicked men, nor the reproof of good men; nor what God does to them in a providential way: though in the world they have tribulation, in Christ they have peace, which the world can neither give nor take away. "There is no stumbling block unto them" (l), as it may be rendered; nothing that shall cause them to be offended and depart out of the good ways of God, which is the case of carnal formal professors, Matthew 13:21; such stumble not at the word, as others do, at any of the doctrines of it; and the true light shining in them, and the word without being a light unto them, there is no occasion of stumbling in them; they see their way, and what lies in it, and so avoid that at which they might stumble, 1 John 2:10. Moreover, such do not easily either give or take offence; they are possessed of that charity or love, which is not suspicious or easily provoked; and they endeavour to give no offence to any, but live without it, in the midst of a perverse generation, 1 Corinthians 13:5, Philippians 2:15.

(l) "non est ipsis offendiculum", Cocceius, Gejerus, Michaelis.

Geneva Study Bible

Great peace have they which {c} love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.

(c) For their conscience assures them that they please you, whereas they who do not love you have the contrary.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

165. Those who love the law find it a spring of constant inward peace, even in the midst of outward persecution: and they have none occasion of stumbling (R.V.). Cp. 1 John 2:10, and the LXX here, οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτοῖς σκάνδαλον. “They walk firmly and safely on the clear path of duty” without stumbling and falling through sin. Cp. Ezekiel 18:30, “Repent … and iniquity shall not be a stumblingblock unto you.” They are not ‘scandalized,’ made to stumble and driven into scepticism by the sight of the anomalies of the world, such as suffering goodness and triumphant wickedness. “They are free from the ‘stumbling of heart’ (1 Samuel 25:31)—the paralysing weakness—which follows on the consciousness of having wronged, or of bearing ill-will to, a brother” (Kay). The P.B.V. and they are not offended at it appears to be Coverdale’s mistaken paraphrase of the Zürich Version, “und werdend sich niemermer stossen.”

166 a. From Genesis 49:18, with the substitution of a later word sibbçr for hope for the sake of the initial letter.

and have done thy commandments] To the LXX the phrase seemed over-bold, and they substituted and loved (cp. Psalm 119:163). The same feeling may have prompted Coverdale to render “done after thy commandments.”

167 a. Cp. 129 b.

and I love] P.B.V. and loved is from LXX through Vulg. So also Jer.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 165. - Great peace have they which love thy Law (comp. Proverbs 3:1, 2; Isaiah 32:17; James 3:18). There is always disquietude where there is sin. A sense of perfect peace and rest belongs to those who love and keep God's Law. And nothing shall offend them; rather, and they shall have no stumbling-block. Nothing shall cause them to stumble, much less to fall away from grace. Psalm 119:165

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The eightfold ש (both Shin and Sin)

(Note: Whilst even in the oldest alphabetical Pijutim the Sin perhaps represents the Samech as well, but never the Shin, it is the reverse in the Biblical alphabetical pieces. Here Sin and Shin coincide, and Samech is specially represented.)).

In the midst of persecution God's word was still his fear, his joy, and his love, the object of his thanksgiving, and the ground of his hope. Princes persecute him without adequate cause, but his heart does not fear before them, but before God's words (the Ker likes the singular, as in Psalm 119:147), to deny which would be to him the greatest possible evil. It is, however, a fear that is associated with heartfelt joy (Psalm 119:111). It is the joy of a conflict that is rewarded by rich spoil (Judges 5:30, Isaiah 9:3). Not merely morning and evening, not merely three times a day (Psalm 55:18), but seven times (שׁבע as in Leviticus 26:18; Proverbs 24:16), i.e., ever again and again, availing himself of every prayerful impulse, he gives thanks to God for His word, which so righteously decides and so correctly guides, is a source of transcendent peace to all who love it, and beside which one is not exposed to any danger of stumbling (מכשׁול, lxx σκάνδαλον, cf. 1 John 2:10) without some effectual counter-working. In Psalm 119:166 he speaks like Jacob in Genesis 49:18, and can speak thus, inasmuch as he has followed earnestly and untiringly after sanctification. He endeavours to keep God's law most conscientiously, in proof of which he is able to appeal to God the Omniscient One. שׁמרה is here the 3rd praet., whereas in Psalm 86:2 it is imperat. The future of אהב is both אהב and אהב, just as of אחז both אחז and אאחז.