Psalms 119

Affliction looked on; deliverance asked; law not forgotten. Those in Wesley’s line hear a servant’s plea under fire—memory of the law as companionship with God, not a bill presented for pay.

Shared courage: adversity need not drive from God’s fear; the gate of prayer stays open.

Calvin: those devoted to God’s service and fear must not be discouraged though not rewarded in this world—condition is warfare; rest in the consolatory open gate of prayer. He does not boast law-keeping as wages but shows he is one of God’s servants. Forcible reason: not led away from God’s fear by adversity, but wrestling against temptations and seeking him even when he seems to drive us away.

Look on affliction; I have not forgotten. Servant-identity under fire, not merit-claim.

Cause pleaded; redemption and life according to promise. Arminians hear God as advocate and redeemer—life shining from what God said.

Without the promise, hope of life does not shine.

Calvin: specifies wrongful harassing by evil men—Plead my cause: undertake defense in judgment, maintain the right of the oppressed. Wrongfully oppressed by violence, calumnies, or craft; seeking to be redeemed intimates inability to resist or snares with no hope but God’s deliverance. Quicken: held in fetters, abased like a dead person. Aptly according to thy word—from promises of becoming our deliverer the hope of life shines. Earnestly desiring darkness to light, he sustains himself by the word. May also be read as praying for spiritual life—faith, fear of God, desire of holy living.

Plead, redeem, quicken according to the word. Promise-lit life for the entangled.

Salvation far from the wicked who skip the statutes. Listen here for a moral universe—seeking statutes and nearness of salvation belong together.

Shared warning: prosperity of the wicked does not cancel this distance. Seek the statutes.

Calvin: world governed by secret providence of a just judge—wicked far from safety, safety from them. Hence confidence of prayer: God turned from despisers of his word, ready to succor servants. When enemies elated by prosperity, lift the heart by faith to settled persuasion that their delights are cursed and tend to destruction. When wicked prosper and exult in fatness, lay hold on this buckler: they shall miserably perish because they seek not God’s commandments. Contrary: genuine believers walking in God’s fear may be as sheep for slaughter, yet salvation under special care of secret providence is at hand.

Salvation far—they do not seek statutes. Providence separates despisers from servants.

Great mercy; life according to the rules. Classical Arminians hear safety only for those who betake themselves to mercy—abundance of compassion against many temptations.

Shared approach: life asked from God via his worded judgments/rules, not from self-stock.

Calvin: no offenders safe but those who betake themselves to divine mercy. To approach with confidence he magnifies compassions—contented with them, not seeking aid from his own merits. Far from lightly troubled—forced to oppose vast abundance of mercy to temptations. Quicken according to thy judgments: referring to promises. Life cannot be hoped for or asked unless hope is produced by his word—often repeated because marvelously forgotten. Boldly appropriate promised grace; let doctrine of great manifold tender mercies be present. If we imagine God promises because bound or because we deserved, doubting shuts the gate; if persuaded the sole cause of promises is mercy inherent in his nature, we approach without hesitation—he bound himself of his own accord.

Great mercy; quicken according to judgments/word. Mercy alone opens; word births hope of life.

Many adversaries; no swerving from testimonies. The note struck is constancy under crowd-pressure—integrity when it would be easy to howl with wolves.

Shared need: both well-doing without retaliation and lively trust in promises. Half-virtue without depending on God cannot save.

Calvin: though provoked by many injuries, he had not departed from the right way—singular constancy. Easy to act well among the good; when wicked afflict, assault, rob, circumvent, calumniate, hard to persevere—we begin to howl among wolves. License without fear of punishment shakes faith—God winking seems to abandon us. Testimonies: not only rule of holy living but also promises. Not turned from integrity though wicked conduct tempted; not shaken off confidence in grace—waited patiently for succor. Both necessary: sufferer may refrain from retaliation yet without depending wholly on God that uprightness will not suffice to save. Salvation reserved for faithful who ask in lively faith. Whoever pillars the mind on divine promises will endeavor to overcome evil with good.

Many persecutors; unswerved testimonies. Promise-trust plus integrity under assault.

Disgust at faithless disregard of commands. Arminians hear holy aversion—not petty spite, but zeal that cannot shrug when the word is mocked.

Shared admonition: feel displeasure at contempt of God’s word until the heart grows hot even to chiding when opportunity allows.

Calvin: inflamed with holy zeal when he saw the law despised. Ethkotatah: prefer chid/debate from kut—could no longer endure impious mockery. May mean inward vexation or open rebuke; some: I shuddered. No one debates for God’s glory but who is first chafed within and grieved at heart; after holy indignation, action follows. Admonished by example: feel such displeasure at contempt of the word that the heart grows hot even to chiding—grief inward first; then when opportunity presents, repress forwardness and pride of the wicked, not hesitating from fear of their resentment.

Look on the faithless with grief-hot zeal. Inward horror, then faithful chiding.

Love of precepts set before God; life asked by steadfast love. Arminian readers hear sincere affection emboldening petition—love is no formality, yet life still begged from lovingkindness, not claimed as wage.

Shared order: voluntary love of the law; sense of free goodness needed to beget that love. He asks to be revived according to God’s loving kindness.

Calvin: when saints speak of piety before God they are not chargeable with obtruding merits as confidence’s ground; settled principle—God distinguishing servants from profane will be merciful because they seek him with whole heart. Unfeigned love of God’s law is undoubted evidence of adoption, since this love is the Spirit’s work. Prophet arrogates nothing, yet properly adduces piety to encourage more assured hope through grace experienced. No true keeping but what springs from free spontaneous love; God demands voluntary sacrifices; commencement of good life is to love him (Deut 10:12; 6:5). Love of law evidence; begin with voluntary obedience so nothing delights more than God’s righteousness. Sense of free goodness and fatherly love indispensably necessary for hearts to this affection. Bare commandments frighten rather than win; only having tasted God’s goodness from the law’s teaching does one apply the heart to love it in return. Frequency of quicken me: knew frailty—men live only as God every moment breathes life. Continuously besieged by deaths, betook to the fountain of life. Again rests faith on goodness—quicken according to loving-kindness—far from boasting merits when he protested he loved the law.

Behold my love—evidence of Spirit-wrought adoption; quicken by lovingkindness. Piety adduced without merit; life from free goodness every moment.

Wesley: The beginning—From the beginning of the world.

Wesley’s tradition hears the word’s total truth and forever-enduring rules—reliable from first to last. Shared confidence: nothing in God’s speech fails those who rely on it in time and eternity.

Calvin: design clear; words two ways—beginning as truth shining at first entrance into study; or word certain from the beginning and continuing to the end. Two clauses hang: God true to his word from the beginning; continues everlastingly and immutably. From the time God began to speak he has been faithful to promises, never disappointing hope; course of faithfulness uniform—from beginning to end his word is true and faithful.

Sum/head of the word is truth; every righteous judgment everlasting. Immutable fidelity from first speech onward.