Psalm 19:14

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) Meditation.—Heb., higgaîon. (See Psalm 9:16; Psalm 92:3.)

Benson Commentary

Psalm 19:14. Let the words of my mouth, &c. — Having prayed that God would keep him from sinful actions, he now prays that God would govern and sanctify his words and thoughts. And this was necessary in order to his preservation, even from presumptuous sins, which have their first rise in the thoughts, and thence, probably, proceed to expressions before they break forth into actions. Be acceptable in thy sight — Be really good and holy, and so well pleasing to thee. O Lord, my strength — O thou who hast hitherto strengthened me, both against my temporal and spiritual enemies, and whose gracious and powerful assistance is absolutely necessary to keep me from being overcome by my sinful inclinations and other temptations. And my Redeemer — This expression seems to be added emphatically, and with a special respect to Christ, to whom alone this word, גאל, goel, properly belongs. See notes on Job 19:25. Through his blood and Spirit alone did and could David expect the pardon and grace for which he here prays.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

19:11-14 God's word warns the wicked not to go on in his wicked way, and warns the righteous not to turn from his good way. There is a reward, not only after keeping, but in keeping God's commandments. Religion makes our comforts sweet, and our crosses easy, life truly valuable, and death itself truly desirable. David not only desired to be pardoned and cleansed from the sins he had discovered and confessed, but from those he had forgotten or overlooked. All discoveries of sin made to us by the law, should drive us to the throne of grace, there to pray. His dependence was the same with that of every Christian who says, Surely in the Lord Jesus have I righteousness and strength. No prayer can be acceptable before God which is not offered in the strength of our Redeemer or Divine Kinsman, through Him who took our nature upon him, that he might redeem us unto God, and restore the long-lost inheritance. May our hearts be much affected with the excellence of the word of God; and much affected with the evil of sin, and the danger we are in of it, and the danger we are in by it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Let the words of my mouth - The words that I speak; all the words that Ispeak.

And the meditation of my heart - The thoughts of my heart.

Be acceptable in thy sight - Be such as thou wilt approve; or, be such as will be pleasing to thee; such as will give thee delight or satisfaction; such as will be agreeable to thee. Compare Proverbs 14:35; Isaiah 56:7; Isaiah 60:7; Jeremiah 6:20; Exodus 28:38; Leviticus 22:20-21; Leviticus 19:5. This supposes:

(a) that God has such control over our thoughts and words, that he can cause us to order them aright;

(b) that it is proper to pray to him to exert such an influence on our minds that our words and thoughts may be right and pure;

(c) that it is one of the sincere desires and wishes of true piety that the thoughts and words may be acceptable or pleasing to God.

The great purpose of the truly pious is, not to please themselves, or to please their fellow-men, (compare Galatians 1:10), but to please God. The great object is to secure acceptance with him; to have such thoughts, and to utter such words, that He can look upon them with approbation.

O Lord my strength - Margin, as in Hebrew, rock. Compare the note at Psalm 18:2.

And my redeemer - On the word used here, see the note at Job 19:25; compare Isaiah 41:14; Isaiah 43:14; Isaiah 44:6, Isaiah 44:24; Isaiah 47:4; Isaiah 63:16. The two things which the psalmist here refers to in regard to God, as the appellations dear to his heart, are

(a) that God is his Rock, or strength; that is, that he was his defense and refuge; and

(b) that he had rescued or redeemed him from sin; or that he looked to him as alone able to redeem him from sin and death.

It is not necessary to inquire here how far the psalmist was acquainted with the plan of salvation as it would be ultimately disclosed through the great Redeemer of mankind; it is sufficient to know that he had an idea of redemption, and that he looked to God as his Redeemer, and believed that he could rescue him from sin. The psalm, therefore, which begins with a contemplation of God in his works, appropriately closes with a contemplation of God in redemption; or brings before us the great thought that it is not by the knowledge of God as we can gain it from his works of creation that we are to be saved, but that the most endearing character in which he can be manifested to us is in the work of redemption, and that wherever we begin in our contemplation of God, it becomes us to end in the contemplation of his character as our Redeemer.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12-14. The clearer our view of the law, the more manifest are our sins. Still for its full effect we need divine grace to show us our faults, acquit us, restrain us from the practice, and free us from the power, of sin. Thus only can our conduct be blameless, and our words and thoughts acceptable to God.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Having prayed that God would keep him from sinful actions, he now prays that God would govern and sanctify his words and thoughts, wherein he had many ways offended, as he here implies, and oft in this book confesseth and bewaileth. And this he the rather doth, because this caution was very necessary to preserve him from presumptuous sins, which have their first rise in the thoughts, and thence proceed to words and expressions, before they break forth into actions.

Be acceptable in thy sight, i.e. be really good and holy, and so well-pleasing to thee.

My strength: O thou who hast hitherto strengthened me, both against my temporal and spiritual enemies, and whose gracious powerful assistance is absolutely necessary to keep me from my own corrupt inclinations, and from all temptations to sinful thoughts, and words, and actions.

My redeemer: this expression seems to be added emphatically, and with special respect to Christ, who was certainly much in David’s eyes, to whom alone this word Goel can here properly belong, as may appear See Poole "Job 19:25", to which I refer the reader, and by whose blood and Spirit alone David could and did expect the blessings and graces for which he here prayeth.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let the words of my mouth,.... Meaning either his speech in common conversation, which should not be filthy and foolish, rotten and corrupt; but such as ministers grace to the hearer: or else his address to God, both in prayer and thanksgiving;

and the meditation of my heart; his inward thoughts continually revolving in his mind; or his meditation on the word of God and divine things; or mental prayer, which is not expressed, only conceived in the mind;

be acceptable in thy sight; as words and thoughts are, when they are according to the word of God; and as the sacrifices of prayer, whether vocal or mental, and of praise, are through Jesus Christ our Lord. The psalmist, in order to strengthen his faith in God, that he should be heard and answered in the petitions he put up, makes use of the following epithets:

O Lord, my strength, or "rock" (l),

and my Redeemer; who had been the strength of his life and of his salvation, the rock on which he was built and established, and the Redeemer who had redeemed his life from destruction, and out of the hands of all his enemies, and from all his iniquities.

(l) "rupes mea", Musculus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius; "mea petra", Pagninus, Montanus, Rivetus; so Ainsworth.

Geneva Study Bible

Let the words of my mouth, and the {o} meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

(o) That I may obey you in thought, word and deed.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. be acceptable] An expression borrowed from the laws of sacrifice. See Leviticus 1:3-4 (R.V.); cp. Exodus 28:38. Prayer, “uttered or unexpressed,” is a spiritual sacrifice. Cp. Psalm 141:2; Hosea 14:2.

The P.B.V., be always acceptable, is from the LXX. The Heb. for always would be tâmîd. If this word may be restored to the text on the authority of the LXX, it would suggest a reference to the daily sacrifice which was to be offered continually (Exodus 29:38 ff.), and in later times was called the Tâmîd.

my strength &c.] My rock (see on Psalm 18:2), and my redeemer, delivering me from the tyranny of enemies and the bondage of sin, as He delivered Israel from the bondage of Egypt. Cp. Exodus 15:13; Isaiah 63:9.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight. Nor let my doings only be righteous; let the door of my lips be kept, that I utter no evil word, and the recesses of my heart be purged, that I think no evil thought. O Lord, my strength; literally, my Rock (צוּדִי), as in Psalm 18:1. And my Redeemer (comp. Psalm 78:35; and see Genesis 48:16; Exodus 15:13; Leviticus 25:48; Ruth 4:4; Job 19:25; Isaiah 63:9). As applied to God, the word "Redeemer" (גואֵל) always means a "Deliverer" from sin, or death, or danger.



Psalm 19:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(Heb.: 19:10-14) With הנּחמדים (for which, preferring a simple Sheb with the gutturals, Ben-Naphtali writes הנּחמּמדים) the poet sums up the characteristics enumerated; the article is summative, as in השּׁשּׁי at the close of the hexahemeron, Genesis 1:31. פּז is the finest purified gold, cf. 1 Kings 10:18 with 2 Chronicles 9:17. נפת צוּפים "the discharge (from נפת equals Arab. nft) of the honeycombs" is the virgin honey, i.e., the honey that flows of itself out of the cells. To be desired are the revealed words of God, to him who possesses them as an outward possession; and to him who has received them inwardly they are sweet. The poet, who is himself conscious of being a servant of God, and of striving to act as such, makes use of these words for the end for which they are revealed: he is נזהר, one who suffers himself to be enlightened, instructed, and warned by them. גּם belongs to נזהר (according to the usual arrangement of the words, e.g., Hosea 6:11), just as in Psalm 19:14 it belongs to חשׂך. He knows that בּשׁמרם (with a subjective suffix in an objective sense, cf. Proverbs 25:7, just as we may also say:) in their observance is, or is included, great reward. עקב is that which follows upon one's heels (עקב), or comes immediately after anything, and is used here of the result of conduct. Thus, then, inasmuch as the Law is not only a copy of the divine will, but also a mirror of self-knowledge, in which a man may behold and come to know himself, he prays for forgiveness in respect of the many sins of infirmity, - though for the most part unperceived by him, - to which, even the pardoned one succumbs. שׁניאה (in the terminology of the Law, שׁננה, ἀγνόημα) comprehends the whole province of the peccatum involuntarium, both the peccatum ignoranitiae and the peccatum infirmitatis. The question delicta quis intelligit is equivalent to the negative clause: no one can discern his faults, on account of the heart of man being unfathomable and on account of the disguise, oftentimes so plausible, and the subtlety of sin. Hence, as an inference, follows the prayer: pronounce me free also מנּסתּרות, ab occultis (peccatis, which, however, cannot be supplied on grammatical grounds), equivalent to mee`alumiym (Psalm 90:8), i.e., all those sins, which even he, who is most earnestly striving after sanctification, does not discern, although he may desire to know them, by reason of the ever limited nature of his knowledge both of himself and of sin.

(Note: In the Arab proverb, "no sin which is persisted in is small, no sin great for which forgiveness is sought of God," Arab. ṣgı̂rt, directly means a little and Arab. kbı̂rt, a great sin, vid., Allgem. Literar. Zeitschr. 1844, No. 46, p. 363.)

נקּה, δικαιοῦν, is a vox judicialis, to declare innocent, pronounce free from, to let go unpunished. The prayer for justification is followed in Psalm 19:14 by the prayer for sanctification, and indeed for preservation against deliberate sins. From זוּד, זיד, to seethe, boil over, Hiph. to sin wilfully, deliberately, insolently, - opp. of sin arising from infirmity, Exodus 21:14; Deuteronomy 18:22; Deuteronomy 17:12, - is formed זד an insolent sinner, one who does not sin בּשׁננה, but בּזדון (cf. 1 Samuel 17:28, where David's brethren bring this reproach against him), or בּיר רמה, and the neuter collective זדים (cf. סטים, Psalm 101:3; Hosea 5:2) peccata proaeretica or contra conscientiam, which cast one out of the state of grace or favour, Numbers 15:27-31. For if זדים had been intended of arrogant and insolent possessors of power (Ewald), the prayer would have taken some other form than that of "keeping back" (חשׂך as in 1 Samuel 25:39 in the mouth of David). זדים, presumptuous sins, when they are repeated, become dominant sins, which irresistibly enslave the man (משׁל with a non-personal subject, as in Isaiah 3:4, cf. Psalm 103:19); hence the last member of the climax (which advances from the peccatum involuntarium to the proaereticum, and from this to the regnans): let them not have dominion over me (בי with Dech in Baer; generally wrongly marked with Munach).

Then (אז), when Thou bestowest this twofold favour upon me, the favour of pardon and the grace of preservation, shall I be blameless (איתם 1 fut. Kal, instead of אתּם, with י as a characteristic of ē) and absolved (ונקּיתי not Piel, as in Psalm 19:13, but Niph., to be made pure, absolved) from great transgression. פּשׁע

(Note: The Gaja with מפּשׁע is intended in this instance, where מפשׁע רב are to be read in close connection, to secure distinctness of pronunciation for the unaccented ע, as e.g., is also the case in Psalm 78:13, ים בּקע (bāḳa‛jām).)

from פּשׁע (root פש), to spread out, go beyond the bounds, break through, trespass, is a collective name for deliberate and reigning, dominant sin, which breaks through man's relation of favour with God, and consequently casts him out of favour, - in one word, for apostasy. Finally, the psalmist supplicates a gracious acceptance of his prayer, in which both mouth and heart accord, supported by the faithfulness, stable as the rock (צוּרי), and redeeming love (גּואלי redemptor, vindex, root גל, חל, to loose, redeem) of his God. היה לרצון is a standing expression of the sacrificial tra, e.g., Leviticus 1:3. The לפניך, which, according to Exodus 28:38, belongs to לרצון, stands in the second member in accordance with the "parallelism by postponement." Prayer is a sacrifice offered by the inner man. The heart meditates and fashions it; and the mouth presents it, by uttering that which is put into the form of words.