Divine Assistance in Keeping God’s Statutes – Psalm 119:8 Insights

Psalm 119:8 NKJV

I will keep Your statutes;
Oh, do not forsake me utterly!

My Thoughts

In Psalm 119:8, David expresses a committed intention to uphold God’s statutes while at the same time pleading for divine assistance, recognizing human frailty, raise your hand if you’ve ever done this. Through various commentaries, noted theologians underscore the balance between resolve and dependence on God’s grace. The plea not to be “forsaken utterly” reflects a profound fear of spiritual abandonment, underscoring the necessity of divine support in adhering to God’s commandments. This reminds of me of when David cried out to the Lord in Psalm 51 and said “Cast me not away from Your presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me….” Overall, the verse illustrates the relationship between human determination and the need for God’s continued presence.

Psalm 119 is an acrostic pattern. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet; each of the 22 sections is given a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and each line in that section begins with that letter. Today, we’re looking at the 8th verse in the section of ALEPH, which describes the blessedness of those who walk in God’s word and their longing to do so.

…..Bill

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Commentaries:

Charles Spurgeon

“I will keep thy statutes.” A calm resolve. When praise calms down into solid resolution, it is well with the soul. Zeal which spends itself in singing, and leaves no practical residuum of holy living, is little worth: “I will praise“ should be coupled with “I will keep.” This firm resolve is by no means boastful, like Peter’s “though I should die with thee, yet will I not forsake thee,” for it is followed by a humble prayer for divine help,

“O forsake me not utterly.” Feeling his own incapacity, he trembles lest he should be left to himself, and this fear is increased by the horror which he has of falling into sin. The “I will keep“ sounds lightly enough now that the humble cry is heard with it. This is a happy amalgam: resolution and dependence. We meet with those who to all appearance humbly pray, but there is no force of character, no decision in them, and consequently the pleading of the closet is not embodied in the life: on the other hand, we meet with abundance of resolve attended with an entire absence of dependence upon God, and this makes as poor a character as the former. The Lord grant us to have such a blending of excellences that we may be “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

This prayer is one which is certain to be heard, for assuredly it must be highly pleasing to God to see a man set upon obeying his will, and therefore it must be most agreeable to him to be present with such a person, and to help him in his endeavors. How can he forsake one who does not forsake his law?

The peculiar dread which tinges this prayer with a sombre hue is the fear of utter forsaking. Well may the soul cry out against such a calamity. To be left, that we may discover our weakness, is a sufficient trial: To be altogether forsaken would be ruin and death. Hiding the face in a little wrath for a moment brings us very low: an absolute desertion would land us ultimately in the lowest hell. But the Lord never has utterly forsaken his servants, and he never will, blessed be his name. If we long to keep his statutes, he will keep us; yea, his grace will keep us keeping his law.

There is rather a descent from the mount of benediction with which the first verse began to the almost wail of this eighth verse, yet this is spiritually a growth, for from admiration of goodness we have come to a burning longing after God and communion with him, and an intense horror lest it should not be enjoyed. The sigh of Psa 119:5 is now supplanted by an actual prayer from the depths of a heart conscious of its undesert, and its entire dependence upon divine love. The two “I wills“ needed to be seasoned with some such lowly petition, or it might have been thought that the good man’s dependence was in some degree fixed upon his own determination. He presents his resolutions like a sacrifice, but he cries to heaven for the fire.

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Enduring Word

I will keep Your statutes: This was a promise to keep, in the sense of guarding, the statutes (huqqim), the engraved, inscribed, written word of God. (Guzik)

i. We never forget that in a real sense, only Jesus could say I will keep Your statutes. “The many strong expressions of love toward the law, and the repeated resolutions and vows to observe it, will often force us to turn our thoughts to the true David, whose ‘meat and drink it was, to do the will of him that sent him.’” (Horne)

Oh, do not forsake me utterly: We sense the note of desperation in the psalmist. He knows and loves God’s word, yet is also very conscious of his inability, apart from the work of God in his life, to live God’s word. If God did forsake him, he would be lost. (Guzik)

i. “Forsaken we may be – but not utterly. David was forsaken, not like Saul. Peter was forsaken, not like Judas, utterly and forever…. Mark his dealings with you. Inquire into their reason. Submit to his dispensation. If he forsakes, beg his return: but trust your forsaking God.” (Bridges)

ii. The heart that sings do not forsake me utterly is a heart that longs to be close to God. “Apparently unconsciously, that is without intention, the song reveals the fact that a man who obeys the will of God as revealed comes to a personal fellowship with God. From beginning to end, the singer sang as one who had personal knowledge of God and direct dealing with Him.” (Morgan)

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Albert Barnes

I will keep thy statutes – Thy commands; thy laws. This expresses the firm purpose of the psalmist. He meant to keep the law of God; he could confidently say that he would do it, yet coupled with the prayer which follows, that God would not forsake him.

O forsake me not utterly – Hebrew, “To very much;” so as to leave me to myself. His confidence that he would keep the commandments of God was based on the prayer that God would not leave him. There is no other ground of persuasion that we shall be able to keep the commandments of God than that which rests on the belief and the hope that He will not leave us.

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John Gill

I will keep thy statutes,…. This is a resolution taken up in the strength of divine grace, to answer the end of learning the judgments of God; which he did, not merely to have a notional knowledge of them, but to put them in practice; and not that he thought he could perfectly keep them, but was desirous of observing them in the best manner he could, as assisted by the grace of God; from love to God, in the faith and name of Christ, and with a view to the glory of God; without dependence upon them for life and salvation;

O forsake me not utterly; totally and finally, or not at all; otherwise as if he should say, I shall never be able to keep thy statutes; so sensible was he of the necessity of the divine Presence and grace, to assist him in the observance of them: or, “for ever,” as Ben Balaam interprets it, and so the Ethiopic version; R. Moses reads the words, “O forsake me not,” in a parenthesis, and joins the rest thus, “I will keep thy statutes vehemently”; or with all my strength and might; and so Kimchi reads them: but such an interpretation is very forced, and contrary to the accents.

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Matthew Henry

That he might himself come under the government of that learning: When I shall have learned thy righteous judgments I will keep thy statutes. We cannot keep them unless we learn them, but we learn them in vain if we do not keep them. Those have well learned God’s statutes who have come up to a full resolution, in the strength of his grace, to keep them.

His prayer to God not to leave him: “O forsake me not! that is, leave me not to myself, withdraw not thy Spirit and grace from me, for then I shall not keep thy statutes.” Good men see themselves undone if God forsakes them; for then the tempter will be too hard for them. “Though thou seem to forsake me, and threaten to forsake me, and dost, for a time, withdraw from me, yet let not the desertion be total and final; for that is hell. O forsake me not utterly! For woe unto me if God departs from me.”

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Adam Clarke

O forsake me not utterly. — עד מאד ad meod, “to utter dereliction;” never leave me to my own strength, nor to my own heart!

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Miscellaneous Quotes

“I will.” David setteth a personal example of holiness. If the king of Israel keep God’s statutes, the people of Israel wilt be ashamed to neglect them. Caesar was wont to say, Princes must not say, Ite, go ye, without me; but, Venite, come ye, along with me. So said Gideon (Jdg 7:17): “As ye see me do, so do ye.”

—R. Greenham.

“O forsake me not utterly.” This prayer reads like the startled cry of one who was half afraid that he had been presumptuous in expressing the foregoing resolve. He desired to keep the divine statutes, and like Peter, he vowed that he would do so; but remembering his own weakness, he recoils from his own venturesomeness, and feels that he must pray. ‘I have made a solemn vow, but what if I have uttered it in my own strength? What if God should leave me to myself?’ He is filled with terror at the thought. He breaks out with an “O.” He implores and beseeches the Lord not to test him by leaving him even for an instant entirely to himself. To be forsaken of God is the worst ill that the most melancholy saint ever dreams of. Thank God, it will never fall to our lot; for no promise can be more express than that which saith, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” This promise does not prevent our praying, but excites us to it. Because God will not forsake his own, therefore do we cry to him in the agony of our feebleness, “O forsake me not utterly.”

—C. H. S.

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Cross-References

Psalm 38:21 (KJV )

²¹ Forsake me not, O Lord:

O my God, be not far from me.

Psalm 71:18 (KJV )

¹⁸ Now also when I am old and grayheaded,

O God, forsake me not;

Until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation,

And thy power to every one that is to come.

2 Corinthians 5:19 (KJV )

¹⁹To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Psalm 51:11 (KJV )

¹¹ Cast me not away from thy presence;

And take not thy holy spirit from me.

Psalm 119:116 (KJV )

¹¹⁶ Uphold me according unto thy word, that I may live:

And let me not be ashamed of my hope.

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Closing Thoughts

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 NKJV

Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith— to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen. Romans 16:25-27 NIV

Meditations on the Excellencies of the Word of God

א ALEPH

119

Blessed are the undefiled in the way,
Who walk in the law of the Lord!

Blessed are those who keep His testimonies,
Who seek Him with the whole heart!

They also do no iniquity;
They walk in His ways.

You have commanded us
To keep Your precepts diligently.

Oh, that my ways were directed
To keep Your statutes!

Then I would not be ashamed,
When I look into all Your commandments.

I will praise You with uprightness of heart,
When I learn Your righteous judgments.

I will keep Your statutes;
Oh, do not forsake me utterly!