David’s Longing: A Soul’s Deep Desire for God

Psalm 119:20 NKJV

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

My Thoughts

As I was looking at this verse and some of the cross-references for it, a praise song came to mind from the 80’s, it was called “As the deer pants for the water”, the lyrics are below:

As the deer pants for the water, So my soul longs after You. You alone are my heart’s desire And I long to worship You.

You alone are my strength, my shield, To You alone may my spirit yield. You alone are my heart’s desire And I long to worship You.

I want You more than gold or silver, Only You can satisfy. You alone are the real joy-giver And the apple of my eye.

You alone are my strength, my shield, To You alone may my spirit yield. You alone are my heart’s desire And I long to worship You.

You’re my Friend and You are my brother, Even though You are a King. I love You more than any other, So much more than anything.

You alone are my strength, my shield, To You alone may my spirit yield. You alone are my heart’s desire And I long to worship You.

Psalm 119:20 expresses an intense yearning for God’s commandments, with David’s soul feeling crushed by this longing at all times. The commentaries below highlight David’s consistent longing regardless of circumstances, whether in prosperity or adversity. Their insights reveal that genuine godliness consists in insatiable desires for spiritual knowledge and righteousness. The author’s thoughts underscore that true longing for God’s word reflects a living soul, illustrating a profound connection between desire and spiritual fulfillment.

“Longing lingers not within a lifeless corpse. Where the heart is breaking with desire, there is life. This may comfort some of you: you have not attained as yet to the holiness you admire, but you long for it: ah, then, you are a living soul, the life of God is in you.”….Charles H. Spurgeon.

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 verse 20, 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

______________________________________________________

Commentaries:

Thomas Manton

“At all times.” Some prize the word in adversity, when they have no other comfort to live upon; then they can be content to study the word to comfort them in their distresses; but when they are well at ease, they despise it. But David made use of it “at all times;” in prosperity, to humble him; in adversity, to comfort him; in the one, to keep him from pride; in the other, to keep him from despair; in affliction, the word was his cordial; in worldly increase, it was his antidote; and so at all times his heart was carried out to the word either for one necessity or another.

______________________________________________________

Frederick G. Marchant

“My soul breaketh,” etc. This breaking is by rubbing, chafing, or crushing. The spirit was so fretted with its yearning desire after the things which Jehovah had spoken, that it was broken as by heavy friction. The “longing” to find out and follow the hidden wonders was almost unbearable. This longing continued with the Psalmist “at all times,” or “in every season.” Prosperity could not make him forget it; adversity could not quench it. In sickness or health, in happiness or sadness, in company or alone, nothing overcame that longing. “The wondrous things“ were so wonderful, and still so hidden. To see a little of “the beauty of the Lord“ is to get to know how much there is which we fail to see, and thus to long more than ever. He who pursues ardently the wonders of the word of the Lord will never set that longing at rest as long as he remains “in the earth.” It is only when we shall “be like him,” and “shall see him as he is,” that we shall cry, “Enough, Lord!” “I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness.”

______________________________________________________

Matthew Henry

David had prayed that God would open his eyes (v. 18) and open the law (v. 19); now here he pleads the earnestness of his desire for knowledge and grace, for it is the fervent prayer that avails much.

1. His desire was importunate: My soul breaketh for the longing it hath to thy judgments, or (as some read it) “It is taken up, and wholly employed, in longing for thy judgments; the whole stream of its desires runs in this channel. I shall think myself quite broken and undone if I want the word of God, the direction, converse, and comfort of it.”

2. It was constant at all times. It was not now and then, in a good humor, that he was so fond of the word of God; but it is the habitual temper of every sanctified soul to hunger after the word of God as its necessary food, which there is no living without.

______________________________________________________

Charles Spurgeon

“My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times.” True godliness lies very much in desires. As we are not what we shall be, so also we are not what we would be. The desires of gracious men after holiness are intense—they cause a wear of heart, a straining of the mind, till it feels ready to snap with the heavenly pull. A high value of the Lord’s commandment leads to a pressing desire to know and to do it, and this so weighs upon the soul that it is ready to break in pieces under the crush of its own longings. What a blessing it is when all our desires are after the things of God. We may well long for such longings.

God’s judgments are his decisions upon points which else had been in dispute. Every precept is a judgment of the highest court upon a point of action, an infallible and immutable decision upon a moral or spiritual question. The word of God is a code of justice from which there is no appeal.

This is the Judge which ends the strife
Where wit and reason fail;
Our guide through devious paths of life.
Our shield when doubts assail.

—Watts.

David had such reverence for the word, and such a desire to know it, and to be conformed to it, that his longings caused him a sort of heartbreak, which he here pleads before God. Longing is the soul of praying, and when the soul longs till it breaks, it cannot be long before the blessing will be granted. The most intimate communion between the soul and its God is carried on by the process described in the text. God reveals his will, and our heart longs to be conformed thereto. God judges, and our heart rejoices in the verdict. This is fellowship of heart, most real and thorough.

Note well that our desire after the mind of God should be constant; we should feel holy longings “at all times.” Desires which can be put off and on like our garments are at best but mere wishes, and possibly they are hardly true enough to be called by that name—they are temporary emotions born of excitement, and doomed to die when the heat which created them has cooled down. He who always longs to know and do the right is the truly right man. His judgment is sound, for he loves all God’s judgments and follows them with constancy. His times shall be good, since he longs to be good and to do good at all times.

______________________________________________________

Enduring Word

My soul breaks with longing for Your judgments at all times: His soul longed for God’s word so much because he was indeed a stranger in the earth; for those who feel perfectly at home in this world, the word that comes to them from heaven is less precious. (Guzik)

i. My soul breaks: “We have a similar expression: It broke my heart, That is heart-breaking, She died of a broken heart. It expresses excessive longing, grievous disappointment, hopeless love, accumulated sorrow. By this we may see the hungering and thirsting which the psalmist had after righteousness, often mingled with much despondency.” (Clarke)

ii. “Spiritual desires are the shadows of coming blessings. What God intends to give us he first sets us longing for. Hence the wonderful efficacy of prayer, because prayer is the embodiment of a longing inspired of God because he intends to bestow the blessing. What are thy longings, then, my hearer?” (Spurgeon)

iii. “Longing lingers not within a lifeless corpse. Where the heart is breaking with desire, there is life. This may comfort some of you: you have not attained as yet to the holiness you admire, but you long for it: ah, then, you are a living soul, the life of God is in you.” (Spurgeon)

______________________________________________________

Albert Barnes

My soul breaketh – This word means to break; to crush; to break in pieces by scraping, rubbing, or grating. The idea would seem to be, not that he was crushed as by a single blow, but that his soul – his strength – was worn away by little and little. The desire to know more of the commands of God acted continually on him, exhausting his strength and overcoming him. He so longed for God that, in our language, “it wore upon him” – as any ungratified desire does. It was not the possession of the knowledge of God that exhausted him; it was the intenseness of his desire that he might know more of God.

For the longing – For the earnest desire.

That it hath unto thy judgments at all times – Thy law; thy commands. This was a constant feeling. It was not fitful or spasmodic. It was the steady, habitual state of the soul on the subject. He had never seen enough of the beauty and glory of the law of God to feel that all the needs of his nature were satisfied, or that he could see and know no more; he had seen and felt enough to excite in him an ardent desire to be made fully acquainted with all that there is in the law of God. Compare the notes at Psalms 17:15.

______________________________________________________

John Gill

My soul breaketh for the longing,…. His heart was just ready to break, and his soul fainted; he was ready to die, through a vehement desire of enjoying the object longed for, after mentioned; “hope deferred makes the heart sick,” Proverbs 13:1; the phrase is expressive of the greatness, vehemence, and eagerness of his mind after the thing he desired, which follows:

[that it hath] unto thy judgments at all times; not the judgments of God on wicked men, though these are desirable for the glorifying of his justice; nor his dark dispensations of providence, though good men cannot but desire and long for the time when these judgments shall be made manifest: but rather the righteous laws and precepts of God are designed, which he desired to have a more perfect knowledge of, and yield a more constant obedience unto; or, best of all, the doctrines of grace and righteousness, that should be more clearly revealed in the times of the Messiah; who was to set judgment in the earth, his Gospel; and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and glorify the justice of God; than which nothing was more earnestly and importunately wished and longed for by Old Testament saints; see Psalm 119:81.

______________________________________________________

Miscellaneous Quotes

“My soul breaketh,” etc. Here is a protestation of that earnest desire he had to the obedience of the word of God; he amplifies it two ways: first, it was no light motion, but such as being deeply rooted made his heart to break when he saw that he could not do in the obedience thereof what he would. Next, it was no vanishing motion, like the morning dew; but it was permanent, omni tempore, he had it at all times.

—William Cowper.

“My soul breaketh for the longing,” etc. The desire after God’s appointments becomes painfully intense. A longing—an intense longing—for the judgments of the Lord, at all times. These are the particulars of his breaking soul. His whole mind is toward the things of God. He prays that he may behold the wondrous things of Jehovah’s law, and that he may not hide his commandments from him; and here his soul breaks for longing towards his judgments at all times. The state of the Psalmist’s mind would not lead us here to suppose that he was awaiting the manifestation of the Lord’s judgments in vindicating his cause against ungodly men, or that he was longing for opportunity of fulfilling all the deeds of righteousness towards his fellow men; for this he was doing to the utmost. Evidently, he is intent upon the ordinances of religion, which were called “judgments” in reference to the solemn sanctions with which they were enjoined. The man of God so longed to join with the Lord’s people in these that his heart was ready to break with desire, as he was forced from place to place in the wilderness. The renewed heart is here. Another might long to be delivered from persecution, to be at rest, to be restored to home, relations, and comfort. The man of God could not but desire those natural enjoyments; but, over all, his holy mind longed with ardour for the celebration of Jehovah’s worship.

—John Stephen.

“Thy judgments.” God’s judgments are of two sorts: first, his commands, so called because by them right is judged and discerned from wrong. Next, his plagues executed upon transgressors according to his word. David here refers to the first. Let men who have not the like of David’s desire, remember, that they whose heart cannot break for transgressing God’s word because they love it, shall find the plagues of God to bruise their body and break their heart also. Let us delight in the first sort of these judgments, and the second shall never come upon us.

—William Cowper.

______________________________________________________

Cross-References

Psalm 63:1 (KJV )

¹ O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee:

My soul thirsteth for thee,

My flesh longeth for thee

In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;

Psalm 84:2 (KJV )

² My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord:

My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.

Psalm 42:1 (KJV )

¹ As the hart panteth after the water brooks,

So panteth my soul after thee, O God.

Matthew 5:6 (KJV )

⁶ Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

______________________________________________________

Closing Thoughts

Happy is the man who finds wisdom, And the man who gains understanding; For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, And her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand, In her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, And happy are all who retain her. Proverbs 3:13-18 NKJV

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.