97 MEM. Oh how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
98 Thy commandments make me wiser than mine enemies; for they are ever with me. 99 I have more understanding than all my teachers; for thy testimonies are my meditation. 100 I understand more than the aged, because I have observed thy precepts.
101 I have refrained my feet from every evil path, that I might keep thy word.
102 I have not departed from thy judgments; for it is thou that hast taught me.
103 How sweet are thy ·words unto my taste! more than honey to my mouth! 104 From thy precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false path.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 119:97-104
Commentary on Psalm 119:97-104
(Read Psalm 119:97-104)
What we love, we love to think of. All true wisdom is from God. A good man carries his Bible with him, if not in his hands, yet in his head and in his heart. By meditation on God's testimonies we understand more than our teachers, when we understand our own hearts. The written word is a more sure guide to heaven, than all the fathers, the teachers, and ancients of the church. We cannot, with any comfort or boldness, attend God in holy duties, while under guilt, or in any by-way. It was Divine grace in his heart, that enabled the psalmist to receive these instructions. The soul has its tastes as well as the body. Our relish for the word of God will be greatest, when that for the world and the flesh is least. The way of sin is a wrong way; and the more understanding we get by the precepts of God, the more rooted will be our hatred of sin; and the more ready we are in the Scriptures, the better furnished we are with answers to temptation.