Page:An Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1828) vol 3.djvu/577

Rh God on our side, and make him our Friend, and therein are certainly wiser than those that make him their Enemy: by keeping the commandments, we preserve to ourselves that peace and quiet of mind which our enemies would rob us of, and so are wise for ourselves, wiser than they are for themselves, for this world as well as for the other. (2.) He outstript his teachers, and had more understanding than all of them. He means either those who would have been his teachers, who blamed his conduct, and undertook to prescribe to him: by keeping God's commandments, he managed his matters so, that it appeared, in the event, he had taken the right measures, and they had taken the wrong. Or, he may mean those who should have been his teachers, the priests and Levites, who sat in Moses's chair, and whose lips ought to have kept knowledge, but who neglected the study of the law, and minded their honours and revenues, and the formalities only of their religion; and so David, who conversed much with the scriptures, by that means became more intelligent than they. Or, he may mean those who had been his teachers when he was young; he built so well upon the foundation which they had laid, that, with the help of his Bible, he became able to teach them, to teach them all. He was not now a babe that needed milk, but had spiritual senses exercised, Heb. v. 14. It is no reflection upon our teachers, but rather an honour to them, to improve so as really to excel them, and not to need them. By meditation we preach to ourselves, and so we come to understand more than our teachers, for we come to understand our own hearts, which they cannot. (3.) He outdid the ancients; either those of his day, he was young, like Elihu, and they were very old, (but his keeping of God's precepts taught him more wisdom than the multitude of their years, Job xxxii. 7, 8.) or those of former days: he himself quotes the proverb of the ancients; (1 Sam. xxiv. 13.) but the word of God gave him to understand things better than he could do by tradition, and all the learning that was handed down from preceding ages. In short, the written word is a surer guide to heaven than all the doctors and fathers, the teachers and ancients, of the church; and the sacred writings kept, and kept to, will teach us more wisdom than all their writings.

101. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep thy word.

Here is, 1. David's care to avoid the ways of sin; "I have refrained my feet from the evil ways they were ready to step aside into; I checked myself, and drew back, as soon as I was aware that I was entering into temptation." Though it was a broad way, a green way, a pleasant way, and a way that many walked in, yet, being a sinful way, it was an evil way, and he refrained his feet from it, foreseeing the end of that way. And his care was universal; he shunned every evil way. By the words of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer, xvii. 4.

2. His care to be found in the way of duty; That I might keep thy word, and never transgress it. His abstaining from sin was, (1.) An evidence that he did conscientiously aim to keep God's word, and had made that his rule. (2.) It was a means of his keeping God's word in the exercises of religion; for we cannot, with any comfort or boldness, attend on God in holy duties, so as in them to keep his word, while we are under guilt, or in any by-way.

102. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me.

Here is, 1. David's constancy in his religion. He had not departed from God's judgments; he had not chosen any other rule than the word of God, nor had he wilfully deviated from that rule. A constant adherence to the ways of God, in trying times, will be a good evidence of our integrity.

2. The cause of his constancy; "For thou hast taught me, they were divine instructions that I learned; I was satisfied that the doctrine was of God, and therefore I stuck to it." Or rather, "It was divine grace in my heart that enabled me to receive those instructions." All the saints are taught of God, for he it is that gives the understanding; and those, and those only, that are taught of God, will continue to the end in the things that they have learned.

103. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! 104. Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.

Here is, 1. The wonderful pleasure and delight which David took in the word of God; it was sweet to his taste, sweeter than honey. There is such a thing as a spiritual taste, an inward savour and relish of divine things; such an evidence of them to ourselves, by experience, as we cannot give to others. We have heard him ourselves, John iv. 42. To this scripture-taste the word of God is sweet, very sweet, sweeter than any of the gratifications of sense, even those that are most delicious. David speaks as if he wanted words to express the satisfaction he took in the discoveries of the divine will and grace no pleasure was comparable to it.

2. The unspeakable profit and advantage he gained by the word of God; (1.) It helped him to a good head; "Through thy precepts I get understanding, to discern between truth and falsehood, good and evil, so as not to mistake either in the conduct of my own life, or in advising others." (2.) It helped him to a good heart; "Therefore, because I have got understanding of the truth, I hate every false way, and am steadfastly resolved not to turn aside into it." Observe here, The way of sin is a false way, it deceives, and will ruin, all that walk in it; it is the wrong way, and yet it seems to a man right, Prov. xiv. 12. It is the character of every good man, that he hates the way of sin, and hates it because it is a false way; he not only refrains his feet from it, (v. 101.) but he hates it, has an antipathy to it, and a dread of it. Those who hate sin as sin, will hate all sin, hate every false way, because every false way leads to destruction. And the more understanding we get by the word of God, the more rooted will our hatred of sin be; for, to depart from evil, that is understanding; (Job xxviii. 28.) and the more ready we are in the scriptures, the better furnished we are with answers to temptation.

14. NUN. 105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Observe here, 1. The nature of the word of God, and the great intention of giving it to the world; it is a lamp and a light, it discovers to us that, concerning God and ourselves, which otherwise we could not have known; it shows us what is amiss, and will be dangerous; it directs us in our work and way, and a dark place indeed the world would be without it; it is a lamp which we may set up by us, and take into our hands for our own particular use, Prov. vi. 23. The commandment is a lamp kept burning with the oil of the Spirit; it is like the lamps in the sanctuary, and the pillar of fire, to Israel.

2. The use we should make of it. It must be not only a light to our eyes, to gratify them, and fill our heads with speculations, but a light to our feet and III.—4 C