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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 119:97 - 119:97
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The eightfold Mem. The poet praises the practical wisdom which the word of God, on this very account so sweet to him, teaches. God's precious law, with which he unceasingly occupies himself, makes him superior in wisdom (Deu 4:6), intelligence, and judgment to his enemies, his teachers, and the aged (Job 12:20). There were therefore at that time teachers and elders (πρεσβύτεροι), who (like the Hellenizing Sadducees) were not far from apostasy in their laxness, and hostilely persecuted the young and strenuous zealot for God's law. The construction of Psa 119:98 is like Joe 1:20; Isa 59:12, and frequently. הִיא refers to the commandments in their unity: he has taken possession of them for ever (cf. Psa 119:111). The Mishna (Aboth iv. 1) erroneously interprets: from all my teachers do I acquire understanding. All three מִן in Psa 119:98-100 signify prae (lxx ὑπὲρ). In כָּלִאתִי, Psa 119:101, from the mode of writing we see the verb Lamed Aleph passing over into the verb Lamed He. הֹורֵתָֽנִי is, as in Pro 4:11 (cf. Exo 4:15), a defective mode of writing for הורֵיתני. נִמְלְצוּ, Psa 119:103, is not equivalent to נִמְרְצוּ, Job 6:25 (vid., Job, at Job 6:25; Job 16:2-5), but signifies, in consequence of the dative of the object לְחִכִּי, that which easily enters, or that which tastes good (lxx ὡς gluke'a); therefore surely from מָלַץ = מָלַט, to be smooth: how smooth, entering easily (Pro 23:31), are Thy words (promises) to my palate or taste! The collective singular אִמְרָתֶךָ is construed with a plural of the predicate (cf. Exo 1:10). He has no taste for the God-estranged present, but all the stronger taste for God's promised future. From God's laws he acquires the capacity for proving the spirits, therefore he hates every path of falsehood (= Psa 119:128), i.e., all the heterodox tendencies which agree with the spirit of the age.