119:45 I will be secure, 1
for I seek your precepts.
119:47 I will find delight in your commands,
which I love.
119:48 I will lift my hands to 2 your commands,
which I love,
and I will meditate on your statutes.
119:103 Your words are sweeter
in my mouth than honey! 3
119:104 Your precepts give me discernment.
Therefore I hate all deceitful actions. 4
119:127 For this reason 5 I love your commands
more than gold, even purest gold.
119:128 For this reason I carefully follow all your precepts. 6
I hate all deceitful actions. 7
119:140 Your word is absolutely pure,
and your servant loves it!
1 tn Heb “and I will walk about in a wide place.” The cohortative with prefixed vav (ו) conjunctive gives a further consequence of the anticipated positive divine response (see vv. 43-44). Another option is to take the cohortative as expressing the psalmist’s request. In this case one could translate, “and please give me security.”
2 tn Lifting the hands is often associated with prayer (Pss 28:2; 63:4; Lam 2:19). (1) Because praying to God’s law borders on the extreme, some prefer to emend the text to “I lift up my hands to you,” eliminating “your commands, which I love” as dittographic. In this view these words were accidentally repeated from the previous verse. (2) However, it is possible that the psalmist closely associates the law with God himself because he views the law as the expression of the divine will. (3) Another option is that “lifting the hands” does not refer to prayer here, but to the psalmist’s desire to receive and appropriate the law. (4) Still others understand this to be an action praising God’s commands (so NCV; cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).
3 tn Heb “How smooth they are to my palate, your word, more than honey to my mouth.” A few medieval Hebrew
4 tn Heb “every false path.”
5 tn “For this reason” connects logically with the statement made in v. 126. Because the judgment the psalmist fears (see vv. 119-120) is imminent, he remains loyal to God’s law.
6 tn Heb “for this reason all the precepts of everything I regard as right.” The phrase “precepts of everything” is odd. It is preferable to take the kaf (כ) on כֹּל (kol, “everything) with the preceding form as a pronominal suffix, “your precepts,” and the lamed (ל) with the following verb as an emphatic particle. See L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 138.
7 tn Heb “every false path.”