Psalm 119:50

This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

ZAIN.

(50) Comfort.—As in Job 6:10, where the same noun occurs, its only other use. We might render, “This is my comfort, that thy word quickeneth me.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

119:49-56 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 own that they have been unspeakable gainers by it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This is my comfort in my affliction - Compare Romans 15:4. The word here rendered "comfort" occurs only here and in Job 6:10. The obvious meaning is, that his only consolation in his affliction was derived from the word of God; the word which had caused him to hope, and the word by which he had been quickened or made alive. The particular design of this is to show the value of the word of God as a source of comfort in trouble.

For thy word hath quickened me - Has made me alive; or, caused me to live. That is, the word, the truth of God, had been the instrument of calling him from the death of sin, and of imparting to him new life, or had been the means of his regeneration. Compare James 1:18; 1 Corinthians 4:15; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Peter 1:23. As it was by this "word" that he had been made alive, so his only comfort was in that word, and it was to him a just ground of consolation that God had brought him from the death of sin, and had imparted to him spiritual life.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

50. for—rather, "This is my comfort … that," &c. [Maurer].

hath quickened—What the Word has already done is to faith a pledge of what it shall yet do.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This, to wit, thy word, as is evident both from the foregoing and following words.

Hath quickened me; hath preserved my life in manifold dangers, and hath revived and cheered my spirit.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

This is my comfort in my affliction,.... David had his afflictions, and so has every good man; none are without; it is the will and pleasure of God that so it should be; and many are their afflictions, inward and outward: the word of God is often their comfort under them, the written word, heard or read; and especially a word of promise, powerfully applied: this is putting underneath everlasting arms, and making their bed in sickness. This either respects what goes before, concerning the word of promise hoped in, or what follows:

for thy word hath quickened me; not only had been the means of quickening him when dead in am, as it often is the means of quickening dead sinners, being the savour of life unto life; but of reviving his drooping spirits, when in affliction and distress; and of quickening the graces of the Spirit of God in him, and him to the exercise of them, when they seemed ready to die; and to the fervent and diligent discharge of duty, when listless and backward to it.

Geneva Study Bible

This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

50. This] i.e. Thy word, if the rendering for is retained in the next line. But it is better to render, This is my comfort … that thy word &c. Past experience of the life-giving sustaining power of God’s promise is his comfort in affliction.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 50. - This is my comfort in my affliction. Nekhamah, "comfort," occurs only here and in Job 6:10; but the meaning is well ascertained. For thy Word hath quickened me; or, "thy promise." The "word," whatever it was, referred to in ver. 49. This had given the psalmist new life. Psalm 119:50

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The eightfold Zajin. God's word is his hope and his trust amidst all derision; and when he burns with indignation at the apostates, God's word is his solace. Since in Psalm 119:49 the expression is not דּברך but דּבר, it is not to be interpreted according to Psalm 98:3; Psalm 106:45, but: remember the word addressed to Thy servant, because Thou hast made me hope (Piel causat. as e.g., נשּׁה, to cause to forget, Genesis 41:51), i.e., hast comforted me by promising me a blessed issue, and hast directed my expectation thereunto. This is his comfort in his dejected condition, that God's promissory declaration has quickened him and proved its reviving power in his case. In הליצוּני (הליצוּני), ludificantur, it is implied that the זדים eht taht d are just לצים, frivolous persons, libertines, free-thinkers (Proverbs 21:24). משׁפּטיך, Psalm 119:52, are the valid, verified decisions (judgments) of God revealed from the veriest olden times. In the remembrance of these, which determine the lot of a man according to the relation he holds towards them, the poet found comfort. It can be rendered: then I comforted myself; or according to a later usage of the Hithpa.: I was comforted. Concerning זלעפה, aestus, vid., Psalm 11:6, and on the subject-matter, Psalm 119:21, Psalm 119:104. The poet calls his earthly life "the house of his pilgrimage;" for it is true the earth is man's (Psalm 115:16), but he has no abiding resting-place there (1 Chronicles 29:15), his בּית עולם (Ecclesiastes 12:5) is elsewhere (vid., supra, Psalm 119:19, Psalm 39:13). God's statutes are here his "songs," which give him spiritual refreshing, sweeten the hardships of the pilgrimage, and measure and hasten his steps. The Name of God has been in his mind hitherto, not merely by day, but also by night; and in consequence of this he has kept God's law (ואשׁמרה, as five times besides in this Psalm, cf. Psalm 3:6, and to be distinguished from ואשׁמרה, Psalm 119:44). Just this, that he keeps (observat) God's precepts, has fallen to his lot. To others something else is allotted (Psalm 4:8), to him this one most needful thing.