29
Remove from me the way of lying,
And grant me Your law graciously.
David’s Prayer to Overcome Deceit
My Thoughts
This is one of those verses that is hard to read, and the temptation to skip over it is hard to resist. I think it’s because when we examine our lives, conversations, and daily interactions with people, we often resort to white lies and exaggerations. Even if we justify these actions by saying we were trying to avoid confrontation, it’s still a lie. Spurgeon said, “if the law be not in our hearts, the lie will enter.” which is another way of saying that when we are seeking God with all of our hearts and communicating with God through our prayers and His word, that the lie will not come to mind and then not be spoken.
This verse expresses a plea for divine intervention against deceitful ways and a desire for understanding God’s law as a gracious gift. David recognizes the struggle against the temptation to lie and acknowledges his vulnerability to falsehood. The verse is part of the fourth section, “Daleth,” which symbolizes the state of neediness and the decision to embrace truth. The commentaries emphasize the importance of sincerity and the role of grace in understanding God’s commandments. David views God’s law as essential in resisting the allure of lies, highlighting the connection between grace, truth, and spiritual integrity.
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 29, which is in the 4th section, which is called ד DALETH. According to the hebrews4christians.com website, the letter Daleth is the 4th letter of the Aleph-Bet, having the numeric value of four. The pictograph for Dalet looks something like a closed (hanging) tent door. The bent shape of the valet symbolizes a needy person who is bent over; the meaning of the word Daleth is poor or impoverished, and it represents the lowliness of possessing nothing of one’s own. As a door, Daleth also symbolically represents the choice to open ourselves to the hope of our dreams or to remain closed off and alienated.
The eight verses of “ד DALETH” alphabetically arranged:
Verse 25. (D)epressed to the dust is my soul: quicken thou me according to thy word.
Verse 26. (D)eclared have I (to thee) my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes.
Verse 27. (D)eclare thou to me the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.
Verse 28. (D)ropping (marg.) is my soul for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.
Verse 29. (D)eceitful ways remove from me; and grant me thy law graciously.
Verse 30. (D)etermined have I upon the way of truth; thy judgments have I laid before me.
Verse 31. (D)eliberately I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O Lord, put me not to shame.
Verse 32. (D)ay by day I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.
—Theodore Kubber.
……….Bill
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Commentaries:
Charles Spurgeon
“Remove from me the way of lying.” This is the way of sin, error, idolatry, folly, self-righteousness, formalism, and hypocrisy. David would not only be kept from that way, but have it kept from him; he cannot endure to have it near him, he would have it swept away from his sight. He desired to be right and upright, true and in the truth; but he feared that a measure of falsehood would cling to him unless the Lord took it away, and therefore he earnestly cried for its removal. False motives may at times sway us, and we may fall into mistaken notions of our own spiritual condition before God, which erroneous conceits may be kept up by a natural prejudice in our own layout, and so we may be confirmed in a delusion, and abide under error unless grace comes to the rescue. No true heart can rest in a false view of itself; it finds no anchorage, but is tossed to and fro till it gets into the truth and the truth into it. The true-born child of heaven sighs out and cries against a lie, desiring to have it taken away as much as a man desires to be set at a distance from a venomous serpent or a raging lion.
“And grant me thy law graciously.” He is in a gracious state who looks upon the law itself as a gift of grace. David wishes to have the law opened up to his understanding, engraved upon his heart, and carried out in his life; for this, he seeks the Lord, and pleads for it as a gracious grant. No doubt he viewed this as the only mode of deliverance from the power of falsehood: if the law be not in our hearts, the lie will enter. David would seem to have remembered those times when, according to the eastern fashion, he had practiced deceit for his own preservation, and he saw that he had been weak and erring on that point; therefore he was bowed down in spirit and begged to be quickened and delivered from transgressing in that manner any more. Holy men cannot review their sins without tears, nor weep over them without entreating to be saved from further offending.
There is an evident opposition between falsehood and the gracious power of God’s law. The only way to expel the lie is to accept the truth. Grace also has a clear affinity to truth: no sooner do we meet with the sound of the word “graciously” than we hear the footfall of truth: “I have chosen the way of truth.” Grace and truth are ever linked together, and a belief of the doctrines of grace is a grand preservative from deadly error.
In the fifth of the preceding octave (Psa 119:21) David cries out against pride, and here against lying—these are much the same thing. Is not pride the greatest of all lies?
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Enduring Word
Remove from me the way of lying…. I have chosen the way of truth: The psalmist sensed the common temptation to lie; yet he determined to choose the way of truth. (Guzik)
i. Remove me from the way of lying: “…a sin that David, through diffidence, fell into frequently. See 1 Samuel 21:2,8, where he roundly telleth three or four lies; and the like he did, 1 Samuel 27:8,10; this evil he saw by himself, and here prayeth against it.” (Trapp)
ii. Grant me Your law graciously: The verb translated graciously “…actually has the sense of ‘graciously teach,’ a single word. The full thought is, If we are to be kept from sin, it must be by the grace of God exercised through the teaching of his Word.” (Boice)
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Albert Barnes
Remove from me – Take it from me; cause it to depart; let me not be under its influence or power.
The way of lying – Every false, deceitful, hypocritical way. We are not to suppose that the psalmist was addicted to lying, but that he felt he was, like all people, in danger of acting from false views, from wrong motives, or under the influence of delusion and deceit. It is a prayer that he might always be sincere and truthful. No man who knows his own heart can doubt the propriety of this prayer. On nothing does a man need more to examine himself; in nothing does he more need the grace of God, than that he may be sincere.
And grant me thy law graciously – The knowledge of thy law; grace to obey thy law. The single word rendered “grant graciously” is a word which implies the idea of mercy or favor. It was not a thing which he claimed as a right; it was that for which he was dependent on the mercy of God.
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John Gill
Remove from me the way of lying,…. Not the sin of lying to men, and a course of it, which David was not addicted to; but a “false way,” or “way of falsehood”; as it may be rendered, and so the Targum; and is the same with what he expresses his abhorrence of, Psalm 119:128; and is opposed to the way of truth in Psalm 119:30; and designs all false doctrine and false worship, all errors and heresies, superstition and idolatry; which he desired to be at the utmost distance from, and those from him, as having a dislike and abhorrence of them; and as knowing how prejudicial they would be to him, and how contrary to the glory of God;
and grant me thy law graciously; not the fiery law, which works wrath, curses and condemns; the voice of words, which they that heard entreated they might hear no more; and which to have is no act of grace and favour, unless as fulfilled in Christ, and as it is a rule of walk and conversation in his hands: but rather “doctrine,” as the word signifies; the doctrine of the Gospel, the law or doctrine of faith; which to have and understand is a gift of grace; it is the Gospel of the grace of God, the grace of God itself; and instructs in it, and shows that salvation is purely by it.
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Matthew Henry
That God would keep him from using any unlawful indirect means for the extricating of himself out of his troubles (v. 29): Remove from me the way of lying. David was conscious to himself of a proneness to this sin; he had, in a strait, cheated Ahimelech (1 Sa. 21:2), and Achish, v. 13 and ch. 27:10. Great difficulties are great temptations to palliate a lie with the color of a pious fraud and a necessary self-defense; therefore, David prays that God would prevent him from falling into this sin any more, lest he should settle in the way of it. A course of lying, of deceit and dissimulation, is that which every good man dreads and which we are all concerned to beg of God by his grace to keep us from.
That he might always be under the guidance and protection of God’s government: Grant me thy law graciously; grant me that to keep me from the way of lying. David had the law written with his own hand, for the king was obliged to transcribe a copy of it for his own use (Deu. 17:18); but he prays that he might have it written in his heart; for then, and then only, we have it indeed, and to good purpose. “Grant it me more and more.” Those that know and love the law of God cannot but desire to know it more and love it better. “Grant it me graciously,” he begs it as a special token of God’s favor. Note, we ought to reckon God’s law a grant, a gift, an unspeakable gift, to value it, and pray for it, and to give thanks for it accordingly. The divine code of institutes and precepts is indeed a charter of privileges, and God is truly gracious to those whom he makes gracious by giving them his law.
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Miscellaneous Quotes
“Remove from me the way of lying.” Here he acknowledgeth that although he were already exercised in the law of God and in his knowledge, and that although he were a prophet to teach others, nevertheless he was subject to a number of wicked thoughts and imaginations which might always wickedly lead him from the right way, except God had held him with his mighty and strong hand. And this is a point which we ought here rightly to note; for we see how men greatly abuse themselves. When any of us shall have had a good beginning, we straightway think that we are at the highest; we never bethink us to pray any more to God, when once he hath showed us favor enough to serve our turns; but if we have done any small deed, we by and by lift up ourselves and wonder at our great virtues, thinking straightway that the Devil can win no more of us. This foolish arrogancy causeth God to let us go astray, so that we fall mightily, yea, that we break both arms and legs, and are in great hazard of breaking our necks. I speak not now of our natural body, but of our soul. Let us look upon David himself; for he it is that hath made proof hereof. It came to pass that he villainously and wickedly erred when he took Bathsheba the wife of his subject, Uriah, to play the whoremonger with her, that he was the cause of so execrable a murder, yea, and that of many; for he did as much as in him lay, to cause the whole army of the Lord and all the people of Israel to be utterly overthrown. See, then, the great negligence and security into which David fell; and see also wherefore he saith, “Alas, my good God, I beseech thee so to guide me, that I may forsake the way of lying.”—John Calvin.
“The way of lying,” etc. Lying ways are all ways, except the ways of God’s commandments: reason, sense, example, custom, event, deceivable lusts, these tell a man he is safe, or that he shall repent of them, and take no hurt in the end, and they promise ease and blessedness, but perform it not. Such as desire to obey God must be kept from evil ways: we are not so sanctified but that temptation will injure our graces. As a fire in kindling, not thoroughly alight, may be quenched by a little water, so may our holiness be damped by temptation. We find within us a proneness to false ways, as candles new blown out are soon blown in again. Therefore, as burnt children dread the fire, so do we fear the way of lying. God doth not suffer temptations to come into the presence of some; and in others God maketh the heart averse from sin when the temptation is present. We must come out of the ways of sin, ere we can walk in the ways of God.—Paul Bayne.
“Grant me thy law graciously.” He opposes the law of God to the way of lying. First, because it is the only rule of all truth, both in religion and manners: that which is not agreeable to it is but a lie which shall deceive men. Secondly, it destroys and shall at length utterly destroy all contrary errors. As the rod of Aaron devoured the rods of the enchanters, so the word, which is the rod of the mouth of God, shall, in the end, eat up and consume all untruths whatsoever. Thirdly, according to the sentence of this word, so shall it be unto every man; it deceives none. Men shall find by experience it is true: he who walks in a way condemned by the word, shall come to a miserable end. And, on the contrary, it cannot but be well with them who live according to this rule.—William Cowper.
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Cross-References
Psalm 119:104 (KJV )
104 Through thy precepts I get understanding:
Therefore I hate every false way.
Psalm 141:3 (KJV )
3 Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth;
Keep the door of my lips.
1 John 2:4 (KJV )
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Hebrews 8:10 (KJV )
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
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Closing Thoughts
For I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword; but your life shall be as a prize to you, because you have put your trust in Me,” says the Lord.’ ” Jeremiah 39:18 NKJV
ד DALETH
25
My soul clings to the dust;
Revive me according to Your word.
26
I have declared my ways, and You answered me;
Teach me Your statutes.
27
Make me understand the way of Your precepts;
So shall I meditate on Your wonderful works.
28
My soul melts from heaviness;
Strengthen me according to Your word.
29
Remove from me the way of lying,
And grant me Your law graciously.
30
I have chosen the way of truth;
Your judgments I have laid before me.
31
I cling to Your testimonies;
O Lord, do not put me to shame!
32
I will run the course of Your commandments,
For You shall enlarge my heart.
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