Matthew Poole Commentary - Psalms 119:113 - 119:113

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Matthew Poole Commentary - Psalms 119:113 - 119:113


(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

SAMECH



Ver. 113. Thoughts -this word signifies thoughts, Job_4:13 20:2, or opinions, 1Ki_18:21; which being indifferent to good and evil, is here taken in an evil sense, for vain thoughts, as we render it, or for thoughts, or opinions, or devices of men differing from or opposite to God’s law, as may be gathered from the next clause, where God’s law is opposed to these, and as some both Jewish and Christian expositors understand it. Nor is it unusual in the Hebrew text for one and the same word to be taken both in a good and an ill sense in several places; whereof we have one instance in a word of the same signification with this, mezimmah, which signifies a thought, and is sometimes taken in a good sense, as Pro_1:4 3:8 8:12 13:16 Jer_51:11; but elsewhere in a bad sense, as Job_21:27 Psa_10:2,4 Pr 12:2 14:17. The like hath been observed concerning another Hebrew word of the same or near signification, hormah which is taken in a good sense, Pro_1:4 13:16, &c., and in an ill sense, as Exo_21:14 Jos_9:4 Job_5:13. And the like may be said concerning this word also. But the ancient interpreters understand this word not of things, but of persons, and so it may be understood of men that think evil, that devise wicked devices, or that have false and evil opinions, opposite to God’s law, or tending to seduce men from it.