119:127 For this reason 1 I love your commands
more than gold, even purest gold.
119:128 For this reason I carefully follow all your precepts. 2
I hate all deceitful actions. 3
פ (Pe)
119:129 Your rules are marvelous.
Therefore I observe them.
119:130 Your instructions are a doorway through which light shines. 4
They give 5 insight to the untrained. 6
119:131 I open my mouth and pant,
because I long 7 for your commands.
1 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.
2 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.
3 tn Heb “every false path.”
4 tn Heb “the doorway of your words gives light.” God’s “words” refer here to the instructions in his law (see vv. 9, 57).
5 tn Heb “it [i.e., the doorway] gives.”
6 tn Or “the [morally] naive,” that is, the one who is young and still in the process of learning right from wrong and distinguishing wisdom from folly. See Pss 19:7; 116:6.
7 tn The verb occurs only here in the OT.