40 How I long for your precepts! In your righteousness preserve my life.
40 Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness.
40 Behold, I long for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life!
40 See how hungry I am for your counsel; preserve my life through your righteous ways!
40 Behold, I long for Your precepts; Revive me in Your righteousness.
40 I long to obey your commandments! Renew my life with your goodness.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 119:40
Commentary on Psalm 119:33-40
(Read Psalm 119:33-40)
Teach me thy statutes, not the mere words, but the way of applying them to myself. God, by his Spirit, gives a right understanding. But the Spirit of revelation in the word will not suffice, unless we have the Spirit of wisdom in the heart. God puts his Spirit within us, causing us to walk in his statutes. The sin here prayed against is covetousness. Those that would have the love of God rooted in them, must get the love of the world rooted out; for the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Quicken me in thy way; to redeem time, and to do every duty with liveliness of spirit. Beholding vanity deadens us, and slackens our pace; a traveller must not stand gazing upon every object that presents itself to his view. The promises of God's word greatly relate to the preservation of the true believer. When Satan has drawn a child of God into worldly compliances, he will reproach him with the falls into which he led him. Victory must come from the cross of Christ. When we enjoy the sweetness of God's precepts, it will make us long for more acquaintance with them. And where God has wrought to will, he will work to do.