Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is truth.
In verse 141 the psalmist calls himself small and despised, and here he answers that contempt with two facts about God that never move. The question is what it costs a man to say this when nothing around him looks righteous or true.
The man who says this speaks from no comfortable position. The world has written him off, and his courage comes from knowing whose words he is holding.
A person may be small and despised, and still have the courage to keep God's precepts despite the power of the world or its scorn. They are God's words. They are what God is as the One who judges evil and good; and He is everlasting. His righteousness is everlasting, and His law is truth.
The word "everlasting" stands against everything in the psalmist's life that has a time limit. His enemies and his distress belong to a season. God's righteousness does not.
He knows the truth will prevail, and that God's righteousness is everlasting. Enemies may surround him. Trouble and anguish may take hold of him. But trial and sorrow will pass away, while the righteousness of God's testimonies will remain.
The second half of the verse means more than facts being correct. One writer takes it as God's verdict on good and evil, set against a world that is false. He also marks a limit to it.
This is not the truth that came along with grace by Jesus Christ. Everything else on the earth is a lie; set against that, this is truth, true religion, God's mind about everything, in contrast with man's thoughts and all he sets up to be. And God will make His judgment revealed in it good for ever… It is not the absolute revelation of God as He is; that is in Christ. But it is the revelation of God's judgment about man, about good and evil, and that will be made good for ever.
Older translations read "your law is truth," the wording these writers use.
The two halves of the verse belong together: what God is, and what His law is. Another writer says neither one has a flaw in it.
God's righteousness is not temporary but eternal. His law is truth, never spoiled by the slightest error or deceit.
Elsewhere the same writer connects this section to the ground it gives for prayer: God's judgments "are upright, not influenced by change whether to the right hand or to the left… Wonderful anchor for the soul!"
The psalmist is not describing what he can see. Everything around him looks buried under confusion, and the verse is faith declaring what stays true anyway.
Everything might seem buried in confusion, yet faith declares that the Lord's righteousness is eternal righteousness, and that His law is truth which must always remain truth. Trouble and anguish have hold of him as he thinks of the madness of his enemies. But this does not bring even the shadow of a summer cloud over those commandments which are his delight.
What God says lasts as long as God does. One writer sets it against the words people speak, which come and go.
This is not just a word that I give out and it passes. It is a word that comes out from God, and it stays; it never changes, and never can change… It is the truth, and it always will be. Many things spoken long ago have passed, and many others may pass. But the word of God will be the truth in the future, just as much then as it is now.
- Small. A man the world despises speaks this verse. He keeps God's precepts because he knows they are God's own words, and that He is everlasting.
- Everlasting. Enemies, trouble and anguish all belong to a passing season. God's righteousness and the righteousness of His testimonies remain after they are gone.
- Truth. Commentators read God's law here as His mind about everything, set against a world that is a lie. It is His verdict on good and evil, and He will make it good for ever. One notes it is short of the full revelation of God, which is in Christ.
- Unmixed. God's righteousness is not temporary but eternal, and His law holds no error and no deceit — nothing in it will mislead you.
- Affirmed. Faith says this while confusion still covers everything. The trouble does not cast even the shadow of a cloud over the commandments the believer delights in.
Trouble and anguish have taken hold upon me thy commandments are my delights.
The writer did not go looking for trouble and anguish. They found him and gripped him — and in the same breath he says God's commandments are still his delight.
The section around this verse is full of enemies who have thrown off God's word. One writer traces the anguish to that source. He then shows what the pressure cannot touch, and what the psalmist still needs from God:
Everything might seem buried in confusion. Even so, faith affirms that the LORD's righteousness is eternal righteousness, and that His law is truth which must always remain truth. Trouble and anguish take hold of him as he thinks of the madness of his enemies. Yet this does not bring even the shadow of a summer cloud over those commandments which are his delight. He affirms again that God's testimonies are righteous forever. All he needs for himself is that God sustain him, giving him the ability to see how blessed those testimonies are, and bringing him into that life which alone is true life: man shall live "by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
Sorrow and delight in one heart at the same time sounds impossible. One writer explains what God's law does inside a person under affliction:
In man, as he is, God's law makes affliction a blessing, breaking him into this law and setting aside his own will. The heart taught this way will look for liberty and room to keep the law. But it delights in the law and is comforted when in trouble. The law sustains the soul in affliction, because it gives a moral joy which affliction cannot touch, and keeps the heart turning to God.
Faith gets tested. The real question comes when the evidence a person can see runs out:
God allows circumstances so overwhelming that, to sight, they would seem beyond His control. Will the tried soul keep its faith in God? God does sustain it: in his inner soul he delights in God's Word, even when he can no longer see God's hand in his outward circumstances.
The psalm never says God stopped the trouble. One writer lists what God did not prevent, and suggests why He might allow such a path:
God had not stopped the proud from lying about him (v. 69). His enemies had almost destroyed him (v. 87). Trouble and anguish had taken hold of him (v. 143). Sometimes God allows a situation, a path for us that we do not like, that we ourselves would not choose. The Lord allows it. Perhaps to test our faith, perhaps to discipline, perhaps to draw us closer to Him — but whatever the reason, God allows it. The psalmist responded by remembering God's words. He focuses on what God has written, meditating on it, keeping it with his whole heart and delighting in it.
That delight has a visible result:
Trouble and anguish so often overtake the believer (v. 143). Yet God's commandments continue to delight his soul without fail, so he is not given over to depression and discouragement.
One writer sets the trouble against what will outlast it:
He knows the truth will prevail, and that God's righteousness is everlasting. Enemies may surround him, and trouble and anguish may take hold of him. But trial and sorrow will pass away, while the righteousness of God's testimonies will remain. So he finds his delight in God's commandments. He looks to God for guidance into the path that leads to life beyond all trouble and anguish.
One writer applies the verse first to a faithful group facing persecution in a coming day. He then applies it to believers now:
The tribulation of the power of evil will take hold of the remnant. But they will have this comfort: the commandments are their delight in the inner man. So it is with us in all sorrow, in the evil day, in a yet higher way.
- Found, not chosen. The trouble came from outside. God did not restrain the enemies, and He allowed the path instead of removing it.
- Untouched. The pressure never reaches the delight. Not even the shadow of a summer cloud falls on the commandments.
- Inward. The delight holds where the outward evidence fails — when the soul can no longer see God's hand at work.
- Guarding. That delight does not fail, so depression and discouragement never take over.
- Outlasting. Trial and sorrow pass. God's testimonies stay righteous, and the path leads to life beyond all trouble and anguish.
The righteousness of thy testimonies is for ever give me understanding, and I shall live.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.