Psalm 119

Ver. 81-88.–Ver. 81. My soul thirsteth for thy word, I wait for thy salvation. Ver. 82. Mine eyes long after thy word, and I say: when wilt thou comfort me. Ver. 83. For I am like a bottle in the smoke, I forget not thy commandments. Ver. 84. How many are the days of thy servant? when wilt thou execute judgment upon my persecutors? Ver. 85. The proud have dug pits for me, who are not according to thy law. Ver. 80. All thy commandments are faithfulness, with lies they persecute me, help me. Ver. 87. They have almost destroyed me in the land, and I forsake not thy precepts. Ver. 88. According to thy mercy quicken me, I will keep the testimony of thy mouth.

After thy word, ver. 82, after the fulfilment of thy promise. What the smoke is for the bottle, which is hung in the smoke, an unsuitable position for it, and is thereby destroyed and rendered useless, that suffering is for the church. Being completely exhausted by it, she may well hope that the Lord will soon have mercy upon her, when the condition of salvation, zeal in obeying the law, exists in her, and has not been removed, but has been induced by her sufferings.—In yen 84 the prayer for judgment upon the enemies, is grounded upon the brevity of the space that is left for the divine recompence, comp. Ps. xxxix. 13. How narrow are the boundaries by which the existence of an individual or of a generation is shut up—In Ver. 86, the commandments come into notice in reference to those promises appended to them, which never deceive. — They have almost destroyed me in the land, ver. 87, as Israel, of whom only a very small remnant now is left, formerly destroyed the Canaanites, 2 Chron. viii. 8. The translation, “to the ground,” arose merely from not observing the national reference. The ‘baretz’ is just as in ver. 19.

Via E.W. Hengstenberg, Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 3