Psalm 119 Stanza 7

 

Zayin

⁴⁹    Remember your word to your servant,

in which you have made me hope.

⁵⁰    This is my comfort in my affliction,

that your promise gives me life.

⁵¹    The insolent utterly deride me,

but I do not turn away from your law.

⁵²    When I think of your rules from of old,

I take comfort, O Lord.

⁵³    Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked,

who forsake your law.

⁵⁴    Your statutes have been my songs

in the house of mysojourning.

⁵⁵    I remember your name in the night, O Lord,

and keep your law.

⁵⁶    This blessing has fallen to me,

that I have kept your precepts. ^[1]

 

Devotion

            This portion of the psalm opens up the psalmist’s relationship with God. 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.^[2]

 

            Verse 49 Perhaps some special private message from God to the writer is meant here. The message is something upon which the writer can base his hope,

 

            Verse 50 This message mentioned in verse 49 gives new life to the writer.

 

            Verse 51 The word translated as insolent here perhaps is better translated as “proud”. The righteous are always exposed to this kind of hatred from unbelievers Even so, the writer will not be moved to break God’s commandments.

 

            Verse 52 The psalmist remembers God’s words to him. Not merely thy sentences upon wicked men, but all the course of thy providential government of the world, including thy deliverances of thy servants^[3]

Verse 53 The writer declares his anger at the wicked who ignore God’s laws and go their own way. They are lost to God’s ways and have no hope but repentance from their evil ways.

 

Verse 54 The writer here indicates that he sings songs (including the present one) made from God’s laws. The house of my sojournings” is either this present world, where all men are “strangers and pilgrims” (Heb. 11:13), or perhaps some foreign land in which the writer had been a sojourner.^[4]

 

Verse 55 The psalmist assures his listeners that he remembers the Lord and His commandments even in the nighttime. When the evil do most of their evil deeds is at night. The writer will keep the law of the Lord even in the darkest of nights.

 

Verse 56 Here the psalmist indicates that he has received a blessing from the Lord. It is found in keeping God’s precepts.

 

            This section of Psalm 119 indicates that the writer feels that he is blessed to be able to know and follow God’s laws and commandments. He will expand on this sense of blessing in the next stanza.

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^[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ps 119:49–56.

^[2] Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 5 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 740.

^[3] H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., Psalms, vol. 3, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 106.

^[4] H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., Psalms, vol. 3, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 106.