159 Consider how I love your precepts. Revive me, Yahweh, according to your loving kindness.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Behold, O Jehovah how I have loved thy commandments. What I have state before must be remembered -- that when the saints speak of their own piety before God they are not chargeable with obtruding their own merits as the ground of their confidence; but they regard this as, a settled principle, that God, who distinguishes his servants from the profane and wicked, will be merciful to them because they seek him with their whole heart. Besides, an unfeigned love of God's law is an undoubted evidence of adoption, since this love is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Prophet, therefore, although he arrogates nothing to himself, very properly adduces his own piety for the purpose, of encouraging himself to entertain the more assured hope of obtaining his request, through the grace of God which he had experienced. At the same time we are taught that there can be no true keeping of the law but what springs from free and spontaneous love. God demands voluntary sacrifices, and the commencement of a good life is to love him, as Moses declares, (Deuteronomy 10:12,) "And now, O Israel! what doth the Lord require of thee, but to love him." The same thing is also repeated in the summary of the law: (Deuteronomy 6:5,) "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." For this reason David has previously stated, that the law of God was not only precious but also delightful to him. Now as in keeping the law it behoves us to begin with voluntary obedience, so that nothing may delight us more than the righteousness of God, so on the other hand, it must not be forgotten that a sense of the free goodness of God and of his fatherly love is indispensably necessary in order to our hearts being beheld to this affection. So far are the bare commandment's from winning men to obey them, that they rather frighten them away. Hence it is evident, that it is only when a man shall have tasted the goodness of God from the teaching of the law, that he will apply his heart to love it in return. The frequency with which the Prophet repeats the prayer, that God would quicken him, teaches us that he knew well the frailty of his own life, so that in his estimation men live only in so far as God every moment breathes life into them. Besides, it is probable that he had been continually besieged by many deaths, to the end he might the more earnestly betake himself to the fountain of life. He again rests his faith upon the goodness of God as its foundation -- quicken me according to thy loving-kindness -- from which we perceive how far he was from boasting of his own merits when he protested in the preceding sentence that he loved God's law.
Consider how I love thy precepts - Search me. Behold the evidence of my attachment to thy law. This is the confident appeal of one who was conscious that he was truly attached to God; that he really loved his law. It is similar to the appeal of Peter to the Saviour John 21:17, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." A man who truly loves God may make this appeal without impropriety. He may be so confident - so certain - that he has true love for the character of God, that he may make a solemn appeal to him on the subject - as he might appeal to a friend, to his wife, to his son, to his daughter, with the utmost confidence that he loved them. A man "ought" to have such love for "them," that he could affirm this without hesitation or doubt; a man "ought" to have such love for God, that he could affirm this with equal confidence and propriety.
Quicken me - See the notes at Psalm 119:25.
Consider how I (d) love thy precepts: quicken me, O LORD, according to thy lovingkindness.
(d) It is a sure sign of our adoption, when we love the Law of God.
Consider how I love thy precepts,.... How ardently and affectionately, how cordially and sincerely, Psalm 119:127; and that was the reason why he was so grieved and distressed when wicked men transgressed and despised them;
quicken me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness; See Gill on Psalm 119:88.
(Compare Psalm 119:121-126, Psalm 119:153-155).
quicken me, O Lord, according to thy lovingkindness-- (Psalm 119:88). This prayer occurs here for the ninth time, showing a deep sense of frailty.
*More commentary available at chapter level.