Psalm 119:70

Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(70) As fat as grease.—For this emblem of pride and insensibility, see Psalm 17:10; Psalm 73:7; Isaiah 6:10.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

119:65-72 However God has dealt with us, he has dealt with us better than we deserve; and all in love, and for our good. Many have knowledge, but little judgment; those who have both, are fortified against the snares of Satan, and furnished for the service of God. We are most apt to wander from God, when we are easy in the world. We should leave our concerns to the disposal of God, seeing we know not what is good for us. Lord, thou art our bountiful Benefactor; incline our hearts to faith and obedience. The psalmist will go on in his duty with constancy and resolution. The proud are full of the world, and its wealth and pleasures; these make them senseless, secure, and stupid. God visits his people with affliction, that they may learn his statutes. Not only God's promises, but even his law, his percepts, though hard to ungodly men, are desirable, and profitable, because they lead us with safety and delight unto eternal life.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Their heart is as fat as grease - They are prospered. They have health, property, influence, comforts of all kinds. heaven appears to smile upon them, and it seems as if it were one effect of a wicked course of life to make people prosperous. See Psalm 17:10, note; Psalm 73:7, note.

But I delight in thy law - Though its observance should not be attended by any such results as seem to follow wickedness, though I am poor, emaciated, pale - disappointed, slandered, persecuted - though my lot in life is among the lowly and the despised - yet I will adhere to my purpose to keep thy law. It is, and it shall be, my delight, whatever may be the effects of so observing it. See Psalm 119:35.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

70. fat as grease—spiritually insensible (Ps 17:10; 73:7; Isa 6:10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Their heart is as fat as grease; the sense is either,

1. They are stupid, and insensible, and past feeling, not affected either with the terrors or comforts of God’s word. So the like phrase is used Isaiah 6:10, compared with John 12:40. Or,

2. They prosper exceedingly, and are even glutted with the wealth and comforts of this life.

But I delight in thy law; but I do not envy them their jollity, and I have as much delight in God’s law as they have in worldly things.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Their heart is as fat as grease,.... Or tallow, a lump of it, fat or grease congealed. That is, the heart of the above proud persons, who abounded in riches, were glutted with the things of this world; had more than heart could wish, and so became proud and haughty: or their hearts were gross, sottish, senseless, and stupid, as persons fat at heart are; or as creatures over fat, which have little or no feeling: so these had no knowledge of the law of God, no sense of their duty, no remorse of conscience for sin; their hearts were hardened, and they past feeling, and given up to a reprobate mind; see Isaiah 6:9; The Targum is,

"the imagination of their heart is become gross as fat:''

the Septuagint is, "curdled like milk"; that is, hardened, as Suidas (s) interprets it;

but I delight in thy law; after the inward man; as the apostle did, Romans 7:22; as fulfilled in Christ; as in his hands, as King and Lawgiver; as written upon his own heart; and so yielding a ready and cheerful obedience to it; he delighted in reading the law, in meditating on it, and in observing it.

(s) In voce

Geneva Study Bible

{c} Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law.

(c) Their heart is indurate and hardened, puffed up with prosperity and vain estimation of themselves.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

70. Gross is their heart as fat (lit. the fat of the midriff), as insensible and incapable of receiving any spiritual impression as the fat near it (Psalm 17:10; Psalm 73:7; Isaiah 6:10); as for me, in thy law do I delight.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 70. - Their heart is as fat as grease; i.e. dull, gross, insensible to spiritual things (see Psalm 17:10; Isaiah 6:10). But I delight in thy Law. My heart is unlike theirs. Thy Law is a "delight" to it (comp. yore. 16, 24, 35, etc.). Psalm 119:70

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The eightfold Teth. The good word of the gracious God is the fountain of all good; and it is learned in the way of lowliness. He reviews his life, and sees in everything that has befallen him the good and well-meaning appointment of the God of salvation in accordance with the plan and order of salvation of His word. The form עבדּך, which is the form out of pause, is retained in Psalm 119:65 beside Athnach, although not preceded by Olewejored (cf. Psalm 35:19; Psalm 48:11; Proverbs 30:21). Clinging believingly to the commandments of God, he is able confidently to pray that He would teach him "good discernment" and "knowledge." טעם is ethically the capacity of distinguishing between good and evil, and of discovering the latter as it were by touch; טוּב טעם, good discernment, is a coupling of words like טוּב לב, a happy disposition, cheerfulness. God has brought him into this relationship to His word by humbling him, and thus setting him right out of his having gone astray. אמרה in Psalm 119:67, as in Psalm 119:11, is not God's utterance conveying a promise, but imposing a duty. God is called טּוב as He who is graciously disposed towards man, and מתיב as He who acts out this disposition; this loving and gracious God he implores to become his Teacher. In his fidelity to God's word he does not allow himself to be led astray by any of the lies which the proud try to impose upon him (Bttcher), or better absolutely (cf. Job 13:4): to patch together over him, making the true nature unrecognisable as it were by means of false plaster or whitewash (טפל, to smear over, bedaub, as the Targumic, Talmudic, and Syriac show). If the heart of these men, who by slander make him into a caricature of himself, is covered as it were with thick fat (a figure of insensibility and obduracy, Psalm 17:10; Psalm 73:7; Isaiah 6:10, lxx ἐτυρώθη, Aquila ἐλιπάνθη, Symmachus ἐμυαλώθη) against all the impressions of the word of God, he, on the other hand, has his delight in the law of God (שׁעשׁע with an accusative of the object, not of that which is delighted, Psalm 94:19, but of that which delights). How beneficial has the school of affliction through which he has attained to this, been to him! The word proceeding from the mouth of God is now more precious to him than the greatest earthly riches.