Charles Spurgeon Collection: Spurgeon - C.H. - The Golden Alphabet: 03 Exposition of Psalm 119:17-24
Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com
| Download
Charles Spurgeon Collection: Spurgeon - C.H. - The Golden Alphabet: 03 Exposition of Psalm 119:17-24
TOPIC: Spurgeon - C.H. - The Golden Alphabet (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 03 Exposition of Psalm 119:17-24
Other Subjects in this Topic:
Exposition of Psa_119:17-24
by Charles Spurgeon
17. Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy
word.
18. Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out
of thy law.
19. I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from
me.
20. My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy
judgments at all times.
21. Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err
from thy commandments.
22. Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept thy
testimonies.
23. Princes also did sit and speak against me: but thy servant did
meditate in thy statutes.
24. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.
In this section the trials of the way appear to be manifest to the Psalmist’s
mind, and he prays accordingly for the help which will meet his case, As in
the last eight verses he prayed as a youth newly come into the world, so
here he pleads as a servant, and a pilgrim, who growingly finds himself to
be a stranger in an enemy’s country. His appeal is to God alone, and his
prayer is specially direct and personal. He speaks with the Lord as a man
speaketh with his friend.
17. “Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy
word.”
“Deal bountifully with thy servant.” He takes pleasure in owning his
duty to God, and counts it the joy of his heart to be in the service of his
God. Out of his condition he makes a plea, for a servant has some hold
upon a master; but in this case the wording of the plea shuts out the idea of
legal claim, since he seeks bounty rather than reward. Let my wage be
according to thy goodness, and not according to my merit. Reward me
according to the largeness of thy liberality, and not according to the
scantiness of my service. The hired servants of our Father have all of them
bread enough and to spare, and he will not leave one of his household to
perish with hunger. If the Lord will only treat us as he treats the least of his
servants we may be well content; for all his true servants are sons, princes
of the blood, heirs of life eternal. David felt that his great needs required a
bountiful provision, and that his little desert would never earn such a
supply; hence he must throw himself upon God’s grace, and look for the
great things he needed from the great goodness of the Lord. He begs for a
liberality of grace, after the fashion of one who prayed, “O Lord, thou
must give me great mercy or no mercy, for little mercy will not serve my
turn.”
“That I may live.” Without abundant mercy he could not live. It takes
great grace to keep a saint alive. Even life is a gift of divine bounty to such
undeserving ones as we are. Only the Lord can keep us in being, and it is
mighty grace which preserves to us the life which we have forfeited by our
sin. It is right to desire to live, it is meet to pray to live, it is just to ascribe
prolonged life to the favor of God. Spiritual life, without which this natural
life is mere existence, is also to be sought of the Lord’s bounty; for it is the
noblest work of divine grace, and in it the bounty of God is gloriously
displayed. The Lord’s servants cannot serve him in their own strength, for
they cannot even live unless his grace abounds towards them.
“And keep thy word.” This should be the rule, the object, and the joy of
our life. We may not wish to live and sin; but we may pray to live and
keep God’s word. Being is a poor thing if it be not well-being. Life is only
worth keeping while we can keep God’s word; indeed, there is no life in
the highest sense apart from holiness: life while we break the law is but a
name to live.
The prayer of this verse shows that it is only through divine, bounty or
grace that we can live as faithful servants of God, and manifest obedience
to his commands. If we give God service it must be because he gives us
grace. We work for him because he works in us. Thus we may make a
chain out of the opening verses of the three first octaves of this psalm:
verse 1 blesses the holy man, verse 9 asks how we can attain to such
holiness, and verse 17 traces such holiness to its secret source, and shows
us how to seek the blessing. The more a man prizes holiness, and the more
earnestly he strives after it, the more will he be driven towards God for
help therein; for he will plainly perceive that his own strength is
insufficient, and that he cannot even so much as live without the bounteous
assistance of the Lord his God.
18. “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy
law.”
“Open thou mine eyes.” This is a part of the bountiful dealing which he
has asked for; no bounty is greater than that which benefits our person, our
soul, our mind, and benefits it in so important an organ as the eye. It is far
better to have the eyes opened than to be placed in the midst of the noblest
prospects and remain blind to their beauty. “That I may behold wondrous
things out of thy law.” Some men can perceive no wonders in the gospel,
but David felt sure that there were glorious things in the law: he had not
half the Bible, but he prized it more than some men prize the whole. He
felt that God had laid up great beauties and bounties in his word, and he
begs for power to perceive, appreciate, and enjoy the same. We need not
so much that God should give us more benefits, as the ability to see what
he has given.
The prayer implies a conscious darkness, a dimness of spiritual vision, a
powerlessness to remove that defect, and a full assurance that God can
remove it. It shows also that the writer knew that there were vast treasures
in the word which he had not yet fully seen, marvels which he had not yet
beheld, mysteries which he had scarcely believed. The Scriptures teem with
marvels; the Bible is wonder-land; it not only relates miracles, but it is itself
a world of wonders. Yet what are these to closed eyes? And what man can
open his own eyes, since he is born blind? God himself must reveal
revelation to each heart. Scripture needs opening, but not one half so much
as our eyes do; the veil is not on the book, but on our hearts. What perfect
precepts, what precious promises, what priceless privileges are neglected
by us, because we wander among them like blind men among the beauties
of nature, and they are to us as a landscape shrouded in darkness!
The Psalmist had a measure of spiritual perception, or he would never have
known that there were wondrous things to be seen, nor would he have
prayed, “Open thou mine eyes”; but what he had seen made him long for
a clearer and wider sight. This longing proved the genuineness of what he
possessed, for it is a test mark of the true knowledge of God that it causes
its possessor to thirst for deeper knowledge.
David’s prayer in this verse is a good sequel to verse 10, which
corresponds to it in position in its octave: there he said, “O let me not
wander”; and who so apt to wander as a blind man? and there, too, he
declared, “With my whole heart have I sought thee”; and hence the desire
to see the object of his search. Very singular are the interlacings of the
toughs of the huge tree of this psalm, which has many wonders even within
itself if we have opened eyes to mark them.
19. “I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.”
“I am a stranger in the earth.” This is meant for a plea. By divine
command men are bound to be kind to strangers, and what God commands
in others he will exemplify in himself. The Psalmist was a stranger for
God’s sake, else had he been as much at home as worldlings are: he was
not a stranger to God, but a stranger to the world, a banished man so long
as he was out of heaven. Therefore he pleads, “Hide not thy
commandments from me.” If these are gone, what have I else? Since
nothing around me is mine, what can I do if I lose thy word? Since none
around me know or care to know the way to thyself, what shall I do if I fail