David’s Reflection as a Sojourner in Psalm 119

Psalm 119:19 NKJV

I am a stranger in the earth;
Do not hide Your commandments from me.

My Thoughts

Psalm 119:19 shows how David saw himself while writing; he acknowledges his status as a stranger on earth and requests that God not hide His commandments from him. This verse reflects a deep desire for guidance and connection to divine laws while navigating a foreign world. The commentaries below suggest that being a stranger aligns with a spiritual pilgrimage, underscoring the significance of God’s commandments as a source of solace and guidance. David’s desire points out our need for spiritual wisdom amidst worldly challenges and shows that the knowledge of God’s word is crucial for navigating life as a sojourner.

Note: 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 verse 19 which is in the 3rd section which is called Gimel ג. According to the hebrews4christians.com website: “the letter Gimmel is the third letter of the “Aleph-Bet”, having the numerical value of three. The pictograph for Gimmel is a camel. In the Talmud it is said that the Gimmel symbolizes a rich man running after a poor man (the next letter Dalet) to give him tzedakah (charity).”

…..Bill

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Commentaries:

Charles Spurgeon

“I am a stranger in the earth.” This is meant for a plea. By divine command, men are bound to be kind to strangers, and what God commands in others he will exemplify in himself. The Psalmist was a stranger for God’s sake, else had he been as much at home as worldlings are: he was not a stranger to God, but a stranger to the world, a banished man so long as he was out of heaven. Therefore, he pleads, “Hide not thy commandments from me.” If these are gone, what have I else? Since nothing around me is mine, what can I do if I lose thy word? Since none around me know or care to know the way to thyself, what shall I do if I fail to see thy commands, by which alone I can guide my steps to the land where thou dwellest? David implies that God’s commands were his solace in his exile: they reminded him of home, and they showed him the way thither, and therefore he begged that they might never be hidden from him, by his being unable either to understand them or to obey them. If spiritual light be withdrawn, the command is hidden, and this a gracious heart greatly deprecates. What would be the use of opened eyes if the best object of sight were hidden from their view? While we wander here we can endure all the ills of this foreign land with patience if the word of God is applied to our hearts by the Spirit of God; but if the heavenly things which make for our peace were hid from our eyes we should be in an evil case,—in fact, we should be at sea without a compass, in a desert without a guide, in an enemy’s country without a friend.

This prayer is a supplement to “open thou mine eyes,” and, as the one prays to see, the other deprecates the negative of seeing, namely, the command being hidden, and so out of sight. We do well to look at both sides of the blessing we are seeking, and to plead for it from every point of view. The prayers are appropriate to the characters mentioned: as he is a servant he asks for opened eyes that his eyes may ever be towards his Lord, as the eyes of a servant should be; as a stranger he begs that he may not be strange to the way in which he is to walk towards his home. In each case, his entire dependence is upon God alone.

Note how the third of the second octave (Psa 119:11) has the same keyword as this third of the third octave: “Thy word have I hid;” “Hide not thy commandments from me.” This invites a meditation upon the different senses of hiding in and hiding from.

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Enduring Word

I am a stranger in the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me: This is the same request as in the previous verse, but made for a different reason. The psalmist wants to know and keep God’s word, and prays for it to be so; but now he makes the request because he recognizes that the earth is not his home, and he needs communication with his true homeland.

When we think of the man who says I am a stranger in the earth, we should not think of the man who wanders alone through the wilderness. We should think of the man who lives among others and is surrounded by the vanity of the world’s joys, but all the while knows, “I don’t really belong here.” (Guzik)

i. “If you are trying to follow God, the world is going to treat you as an alien, for that is what you will be. You cannot expect to be at home in it, and if you are, well, it is an indication that you really do not belong to Christ or at least are living far from him.” (Boice)

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Albert Barnes

I am a stranger in the earth – A wayfaring man; a pilgrim; a sojourner; a man whose permanent home is not in this world. The word is applicable to one who belongs to another country, and who is now merely passing through a foreign land, or sojourning there for a time. Compare the notes at Hebrews 11:13. The home of the child of God is heaven. Here he is in a strange – a foreign – land. He is to abide here but for a little time, and then to pass on to his eternal habitation.

Hide not thy commandments from me – Make me to know them; keep them continually before me. In this strange land, away from my home, let me have the comfort of feeling that thy commands are ever with me to guide me; thy promises to comfort me. The feeling is that of one in a strange land who would desire, if possible, to keep up constant communications with his home, his family, his friends, his kindred there. On earth, the place of our sojourning – of our pilgrimage – the friend of God desires to have constant contact with heaven, his final home; not to be left to the desolate feeling that he is cut off from all contact with that world where he is forever to dwell.

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John Gill

I [am] a stranger in the earth,…. As all his fathers were, and all the saints are; not to divine and spiritual things; to God, and communion with him; to Christ, and the knowledge of him; to the Spirit, and his operations in their hearts; to their own hearts, and the plague of them; to the Gospel, and its truths; nor to the people of God, and fellowship with them: but to the world, among whom they are, not being known, valued, and respected by them; and they also behaving as strangers to the world, having no fellowship with them in their sinful works; as also not being natives here, but belonging to another city and country, an heavenly one; see 1 Chronicles 29:15;

hide not thy commandments from me; the doctrines of the Gospel, the word which God has commanded to a thousand generations; which is pure, and enlightens the eyes, and so needful to strangers in their pilgrimage, Psalm 19:8; which God sometimes hides from the wise and prudent, and which the psalmist here deprecates with respect to himself, Matthew 11:25. Or the precepts of the world may be meant, which are a light to the feet, and a lamp to the paths, a good direction to travelers and strangers in the way: David, being such an one, prayed that these might not be hid from him, but be showed unto him; that he might know his way, and not go out of it; but walk as a child of light, wisely and circumspectly.

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Matthew Henry

Here we have,

The acknowledgment which David makes of his own condition: I am a stranger in the earth. We all are so, and all good people confess themselves to be so; for heaven is their home, and the world is but their inn, the land of their pilgrimage. David was a man that knew as much of the world, and was as well known in it, as most men. God built him a house, established his throne; strangers submitted to him, and people that he had not known served him; he had a name like the names of the great men, and yet he calls himself a stranger. We are all strangers on earth and must so account ourselves.

The request he makes to God thereupon: Hide not thy commandments from me. He means more: “Lord, show thy commandments to me; let me never know the want of the word of God, but, as long as I live, give me to be growing in my acquaintance with it. I am a stranger, and therefore stand in need of a guide, a guard, a companion, a comforter; let me have thy commandments always in view, for they will be all this to me, all that a poor stranger can desire. I am a stranger here, and must be gone shortly; by thy commandments let me be prepared for my removal hence.”

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The Pulpit Commentaries

I am a stranger in the earth; or, “a sojourner” (Cheyne, Kay, Revised Version); compare Psalms 39:12; Hebrews 11:13-16. Earth is not our true home. We all “seek a country.” Hide not thy commandments from me. God “hides” things from the wise and prudent, which he reveals to “babes.” The psalmist prays that the true meaning of God’s Word may not be kept back from him.

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Miscellaneous Quotes

“I am a stranger in the earth.” David had experience of peace and war, of riches and poverty, of pleasure and woe. He had been a private and public person; a shepherd, a painful calling; a soldier, a bloody trade; a courtier, an honorable slavery, which joins together in one the lord and the parasite, the gentleman and the drudge; and he was a king,—a glorious name, filled up with fears and cares. All these he had passed through, and found least rest when he was at the highest, less content on the throne than in the sheepfolds. All this he had observed and laid up in his memory, and this his confession is an epitome and brief of all; and in effect he telleth us, that whatsoever he had seen in this his passage, whatsoever he had enjoyed, yet he found nothing so certain as this,—that he had found nothing certain, nothing that he could abide with or would abide with him, but that he was still as a passenger and “stranger in the earth.”

—Anthony Farindon, 1596-1658.

“I am a stranger in the earth,” etc. As a sojourner, he hath renounced the world, which is therefore become his enemy; as “a stranger“ he is fearful of losing his way; on these accounts he requests that God would compensate the loss of earthly comforts by affording the light of heaven; that he would not “hide his commandments,” but show and teach him those steps, by which he may ascend toward heaven, rejoicing in hope of future glory.

—George Horne, 1730-1792.

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Cross-References

Psalm 39:12 (KJV )

¹² Hear my prayer, O Lord,

And give ear unto my cry;

Hold not thy peace at my tears:

For I am a stranger with thee,

And a sojourner, as all my fathers were.

Hebrews 11:13 (KJV )

¹³These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

1 Chronicles 29:15 (KJV )

¹⁵For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.

Genesis 47:9 (KJV )

⁹And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

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Closing Thoughts

Proverbs 2 New American Standard Bible 1995

The Pursuit of Wisdom Brings Security

My son, if you will receive my words
And treasure my commandments within you,

Listen to the Word

Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;

Pray

For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;

Seek

If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;

Find

Then you will discern the fear of the Lord
And discover the knowledge of God.

Gimel ג: The word of God and the trials of life.

Deal bountifully with Your servant,
That I may live and keep Your word.

Open my eyes, that I may behold

Wondrous things from Your law.

I am a stranger in the earth;
Do not hide Your commandments from me.

My soul is crushed with longing
After Your ordinances at all times.

You rebuke the arrogant, the cursed,
Who wander from Your commandments.

Take away reproach and contempt from me,
For I observe Your testimonies.

Even though princes sit and talk against me,
Your servant meditates on Your statutes.

Your testimonies also are my delight;
They are my counselors.