Establish thy word unto thy servant, who is [devoted] to thy fear.
Psalm 119:38 sits in the fifth section of the psalm (verses 33–40), where every line is a request rather than a statement. It asks God to make His own word stand firm in the life of one servant, and it ties that request to the fear of God.
The verses before this one ask for teaching, for understanding, and for the strength to walk. One writer notes that their order matters.
Every believer does well to pray these three prayers, and in their God-given order: "Teach me O Lord," "Give me understanding," and "Make me to go."
Verse 38 follows two dangers: the pull of gain inside and the pull of empty things outside (vv. 36–37).
Kept in this way from evil inside and empty things outside, he prays that God would establish him in the truth. He asks to be devoted to God, to walk in His fear, and to be kept from giving any cause for reproach.
One writer gives the Hebrew word behind the request:
Verse 38: HA-KOOM … "Make rise … (or establish, confirm)"
Another writer takes the request as asking God to back His word with action in one person's life.
The second part is still an appeal, but in a different way: that God, as a living God, would confirm His Word by His deed, and so answer the faith of His people in a glorious way… There are also special promises that bring Him still nearer to the individual, and into the most hidden lives. This runs through the experience of these psalms; and here is the very place to find it spoken of — in the fifth section of this great psalm of experience.
The same writer adds a note on the wording, and on the state of the one praying:
"Establish Your saying to Your servant" would then be a prayer for the fulfillment of a specific promise. The one praying may bring his own state forward as something that does not, at least, bar the claim of faith. "Devoted" is perhaps too strong a word to add, since the text has only the preposition. But it is enough to note that it has been added, and the difficulty goes.
Older translations end the verse "your servant, who is devoted to your fear," while the ESV has "that you may be feared." Commentators differ over how much weight "devoted" should carry, since translators supply the word.
The request is not for a fresh burst of feeling but for something that stays.
Then follows the deeply needed request, "Establish Your Word to Your servant" (v. 38). Scripture should not be only an occasional enjoyment. It should be so deeply settled in our souls that it becomes our constant source of instruction, correction and guidance — and especially so for one who is devoted to fearing God.
Someone unsettled in the word will move with whoever speaks last.
There must be a fixed purpose in our hearts. "So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes" (Eph. 4:14). The more we are "rooted and grounded" in the Word of God, the less open we are to deception. There is no excuse for ignorance of the Word… So it is the responsibility of every believer to read and study the Word, so that he may be well-grounded and well-established in it.
The second half of the verse gives the reason the request is made at all.
"Your servant, who is devoted to Your fear" is the motivation for seeking to be established in the Word of God. We do not want to grieve the Lord, or the Holy Spirit. The fear of the Lord also means this: if we disobey, we should fear the discipline that is sure to follow, because we are children of our Father.
That fear is not terror of God:
This fear of the Lord is not the slavish dread that marks the superstitious. No. It is a reverent trustfulness accompanied by hatred of evil. "The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil" (Prov. 8:13). "The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever." Where we keep this fear, the presence of the Lord is a reality and a joy.
- Order. The prayers stack: teach me, give me understanding, make me go — and only then, establish me.
- Establish. The word means to make rise, to confirm; it asks the living God to back His promise with His deed in one ordinary life.
- Constant. Scripture should teach, correct and guide us all the time, not now and then.
- Stability. A believer rooted in the word is not tossed about by every wind of doctrine, so reading and studying it is each believer's own responsibility.
- Fear. The motive behind the whole request is reverent trust that hates evil and will not grieve the Lord.
Turn away my reproach which I fear; for thy judgments are good.
This verse is a short prayer about shame. The psalmist asks God to take away a reproach he dreads, and he gives his reason: God's rules are good. It sits in a run of requests that ask God to guard him from evil inside and from empty things outside.
The verses just before this one form a chain of requests, each one admitting a further layer of helplessness. One writer sets them out in the order they come.
Further we are dependent upon the Lord for any practical results that may follow divine teaching. So the prayer follows, "Make me to go." Well indeed for every saint to pray these three prayers, and in their divine order, "Teach me O Lord," "Give me understanding," and "Make me to go."
By the time verse 39 arrives, the two great obstacles have already been named and prayed against, and this request completes the set.
So he is kept from evil within and from empty things without. Now he prays that God would settle him in the truth, and make him devoted to God, walking in His fear, and keep him from giving any cause for reproach in himself. Knowing that God's judgments are good, the godly man longs deeply for the Lord's precepts, and wants to be given energy for the path of righteousness.
The verse does not hide the emotion. The psalmist names the fear instead of denying it, and puts the matter in hands stronger than his own. (Where the ESV says "rules," the older translation these writers quote says "judgments.")
As well as asking God to turn his eyes away from empty things, he now asks God to turn away his reproach. Reproach comes from others, of course. He admits he dreads it, and he can only depend on the Lord to cancel it (v. 39). "For Your judgments are good" in contrast to the reproachful judgments of the ungodly.
Commentators differ on the source of the reproach. One reading takes the Hebrew word as "shame" and turns the fear inward. The fear is not of being mocked. It is the fear of doing something that would disgrace God's name.
The literal rendering from the Hebrew is: "Turn away my shame which I fear …". The psalmist may have thought that he might do some evil act, some unfaithfulness, that would bring shame on the Name of the Lord as well as on himself. So he asks the Lord to keep him from this. Paul expresses a similar thought in Philippians 1:20: "as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body". What Paul feared was this: under pressure from the Lord's enemies, he might in some measure deny the Lord's claims and so dishonour Him. This is indeed a prayer we would do well to pray daily!
The same writer sorts scorn into two kinds. One a believer should accept. The other he should pray against.
No doubt those who do not fear God, and even deny His existence, will ridicule us and mock us and reproach us! It is not easy or pleasant for a believer to realise that if he wants to be faithful he may not be popular. There is definite reproach attached to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. This may be a healthy fear! Perhaps he asks here that he might not suffer reproach for holding to the Word of God. But reproach suffered for righteousness is something to rejoice in.
The second half of the verse is not a change of subject. The reason the psalmist gives points to the taunt behind the reproach.
This verse, by the reason it gives — "for your judgments are good" — shows that the reproach has to do with some apparent failure of these judgments to show themselves in the way God governs men. Enemies often throw such reproaches at the Lord's people: "Where is their God?" (Ps. 115:2.) But the heart of the psalmist knows the goodness of these "judgments" — the decisions about good and evil. In the day of God's patience, His dealings with men do not always seem to confirm them.
The same writer notes that this puzzle was heavier before the cross, and that it lies behind an old and famous argument.
Under the Old Testament dispensation; this was necessarily a much greater enigma than since the cross; and it is the occasion of much of the misapprehension of the friends of Job. With the enemies of the believer it is always a favorite reproach against him.
- Faithful, not popular. Following Jesus carries real reproach; a believer who wants to be faithful may find he is not popular.
- Kept in, kept out, kept clean. Verse 39 completes a set: kept from evil inside, kept from empty things outside, kept from giving anyone cause to reproach him.
- Named, not hidden. The psalmist admits he dreads the reproach. Then he leaves it with the Lord. He names the fear instead of hiding it.
- Two shames, one prayer. Reproach for doing right is something to rejoice in. The shame worth praying against is unfaithfulness that would dishonour God's name. That was Paul's own fear in Philippians 1:20.
- Good rules answer the taunt. The mockery runs, "Where is their God?" — as if God's decisions never come true. The psalmist's reply is that they are good, whatever the delay looks like.
Behold, I have longed after thy precepts quicken me in thy righteousness.
Verse 40 closes a section of Psalm 119 that begins at verse 33. In it the writer asks to be taught, given understanding, and made to walk. Now he points to the one thing he can show God: his own longing. And he asks for life on the ground of God's righteousness.
The word that opens the verse points at something. The psalmist has already prayed to have his heart inclined and his eyes turned away from worthless things; now he lays his desire itself before God as the surest plea he has.
But the third verse takes ground that seems clearer and surer. How can God fail to answer the longing of a heart after His precepts, when that heart feels the drag of earth and pleads against it? The appeal is more confident to that degree, however lowly it is by nature: "in your righteousness give me life."
Notice which word he chooses. A precept is a charge God lays on us, and longing for that is more than human.
This whole section of eight verses has shown us our own nothingness and helplessness. This should not be a passing, emotional feeling. It should be what we realise all the time! Here he expresses that sense of need again: "… in your righteousness give me life." This is a confession of felt weakness. It admits our need for God to give us life and to strengthen us with might by His Spirit in our inner being. To say, "I long for your promises," would be quite human. But he says, "I long for your precepts." We remember from the introduction that the meaning of the word "precept" is: a charge given to us by God for which we are responsible. We must always remember that privileges are inseparable from responsibilities.
Longing of this kind shows itself in how a person spends his hours.
He has an intense desire for God's word. It is that important to him and gives him so much pleasure that he is always wanting God's word — he longs for it. I can imagine him, as he goes about his busy schedule, fervently wishing that he had more time to spend with his Scriptures. We have already seen that he meditates on God's word through the night.
The prayer is not for new birth. It asks for practical power in someone already alive toward God.
He sought deliverance, no doubt, but he loves the word itself. In the soul these things go together… Still he looked to God with a true heart, and in distress, as we shall too — so did Christ Himself, in order to be heard. He looked according to the kindness of Jehovah. But he also longed for God to work with power in him, and to give him life according to the mind of God. That is, a life whose nature and desires match God's judgment. He does not speak as a dead man. He speaks of being made alive in the way he lives. We know it must be a new life.
He does not point to his own record. He points to what God is, and to what God must therefore do. That is a step beyond the earlier prayers here.
The heart was right. It longed for God's precepts. It looked to the Lord for liveliness of heart, for the energy of a renewed will, and for freedom from distraction. All this comes through the faithfulness of God — that consistency with His own goodness and favour which we can count on in Him. "In your righteousness give me life." This assumes a growing knowledge of God, so that we can count on Him… but the last words here show a deeper intimacy of faith. That faith counts on what God must be.
Read with verses 33 to 35, this closing prayer completes a sequence worth copying.
We are also dependent on the Lord for any practical results that may follow divine teaching. So the prayer follows, "Make me to go." It is well indeed for every saint to pray these three prayers, and in their divine order: "Teach me, O Lord," "Give me understanding," and "Make me to go."
The last verse gathers up the section: kept from evil inside and emptiness outside, he asks for the energy to walk.
In the knowledge that God's judgments are good, the godly man, with deep longing after the Lord's precepts, desires to be energized in the path of righteousness.
- Longing. He pleads his desire for God's precepts. Longing for a charge laid on us, not just for a promise, is more than human.
- Weakness. That longing rests on an honest confession of helplessness. It should be constant, not occasional.
- Life. "Give me life" asks for power to live by the mind of God. It is the prayer of a man who is weak, not dead.
- Righteousness. He asks on the ground of God's consistency with Himself. Faith learns to count on what God must be.
- Order. Pray as he does: teach me, give me understanding, make me go.