Psalm 119:68 NKJV
68
You are good, and do good;
Teach me Your statutes.
Seeking God’s Goodness in His Statutes
My Notes
God’s Goodness Revealed in His Word David’s heartfelt cry—”You are good and do good; teach me Your statutes”—shows his longing not just to follow God, but to know Him better. It echoes the same plea from verse 12, which reads “Blessed are You, O Lord! Teach me Your statutes”, where praise and desire for divine instruction go hand in hand.
Unfathomable Goodness of God. We often underestimate the goodness of the Lord. Isaiah 55:9 reminds us that God’s ways and thoughts far exceed our own:
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.” God’s daily acts of goodness are often hidden or beyond human comprehension, yet they permeate every part of creation and our lives.
True Praise Is Recognition of God’s Nature Charles Spurgeon notes:
“Facts about God are the best praise of God. All the glory we can give to God is to reflect his own glory upon himself.”
Growing Deeper Through Seeking David moved from affliction to action—not just keeping the Word, but deeply desiring to understand it. This pursuit mirrors Jesus’ call in Matthew 6:33 to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Could part of seeking His Righteousness result in our realizing how good the Lord truly is?
Final Thought: Spiritual growth often begins with simple praise and blossoms as we seek God’s truth. In doing so, we discover just how good the Lord truly is.
Psalm 119:68 celebrates God’s inherent goodness and His active role in doing good, even in times of affliction. David acknowledges that God’s goodness encompasses all aspects of His nature and actions, affirming that afflictions can lead to greater obedience and spiritual growth. He expresses a deep desire to learn God’s statutes, recognizing the importance of divine teaching in living a good life. This reflects the belief that understanding God’s laws is vital for moral conduct, encouraging praise and trust in God’s ultimate benevolence, even when challenges arise.
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 68, which is in the 9th section, which is called “Teth ט”. According to the hebrews4christians.com website, this letter is listed as “TET where the NKJV lists it as “TETH”, the letter Teth ט is the 9th letter of the Aleph-Bet, having the numeric value of nine. The pictograph for Teth ט looks like a snake coiled inside a basket.
The website https://www.abarim-publications.com/Hebrew_Alphabet_Meaning.html defines the meaning of the letter TETH as:
“The origin of the teth is a bit of a mystery. Klein derives from טות (twh), spin, and renders teth to knot, knot together, to twist into each other, to interweave. The letter teth indeed looks like a little vortex or spiral.”
……..Bill
Commentaries:
Charles Spurgeon
“Thou art good, and doest good.” Even in affliction, God is good and does good. This is the confession of experience. God is essential goodness in himself, and in every attribute of his nature, he is good in the fullest sense of the term; indeed, he has a monopoly of goodness, for there is none good but one, that is God. His acts are according to his nature: from a pure source flow pure streams. God is not latent and ill active goodness; he displays himself by his doings, he is actively beneficent, he does good. How much good he does no tongue can tell! How good he is, no heart can conceive! It is well to worship the Lord as the poet here does by describing him. Facts about God are the best praise of God. All the glory we can give to God is to reflect his own glory upon himself. We can say no more good of God than God is and does. We believe in his goodness, and so honor him by our faith; we admire that goodness, and so glorify him by our love; we declare that goodness, and so magnify him by our testimony.
“Teach me thy statutes.” The same prayer as before, backed with the same argument. He prays, “Lord be good, and do good to me that I may both be good and do good through thy teaching.” The man of God was a learner, and delighted to learn: he ascribed this to the goodness of the Lord, and hoped that for the same reason he would be allowed to remain in the school and learn on till he could perfectly practice every lesson. His chosen class book was the royal statutes; he wanted no other. He knew the sad result of breaking those statutes, and by a painful experience, he had been led back to the way of righteousness; and therefore he begged as the greatest possible instance of the divine goodness that he might be taught a perfect knowledge of the law and a complete conformity to it. He who mourns that he has not kept the word longs to be taught it, and he who rejoices that by grace he has been taught to keep it is not less anxious for the like instruction to be continued to him.
In verse 12 which is the fourth verse of Beth, we have much the same sense as in this fourth verse of Teth.
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Enduring Word
You are good, and do good; teach me Your statutes. This important and precious line follows the recognition of affliction and the good it has done in life. The psalmist did not become bitter or resentful toward God for the affliction that brought him to greater obedience. (Guzik)
i. Despite the affliction, which we should regard as genuine, he proclaimed, “You are good, and do good.” In fact, he even wanted more instruction from God, saying, “Teach me Your statutes.” This is said with the implicit understanding that this teaching might require more affliction; yet it was the psalmist’s desire. This shows how confident he was in the goodness of God. (Guzik)
ii. “Affliction is not the most frequently mentioned matter…. The most prominent word in these verses is ‘good.’ This is the teth stanza. Teth is the first letter of the Hebrew word ‘good’ (tov), so it was a natural thought for the composer of the psalm to use ‘good’ at the beginning of these verses.” (Boice)
iii. In the most basic sense, this is praise for who God is (You are good), and praise for what God does (and do good). These are always two wonderful reasons for praise. (Guzik)
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John Gill
Thou [art] good, and doest good,…. Essentially, originally, and only good, and the fountain of all goodness to his creatures; who does good to all men in a providential way, and especially to his own people; to whom he is good in a way of special grace and mercy, in and through his Son Jesus Christ; and even he is good to them, and does good to them, when he afflicts them; he makes their afflictions work for their good, either temporal, spiritual, or eternal;
teach me thy statutes; as a fresh instance of goodness; this had been often desired, being what lay much on his mind, and was of moment and importance; see Psalm 119:12.
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Matthew Henry
David praises God’s goodness and gives him the glory of it: Thou art good and doest good. All who have any knowledge of God and dealings with him wilt own that he does good, and therefore will conclude that he is good. The streams of God’s goodness are so numerous, and run so full, so strong, to all the creatures, that we must conclude the fountain that is in himself to be inexhaustible. We cannot conceive how much good our God does every day, much less can we conceive how good he is. Let us acknowledge it with admiration and with holy love and thankfulness.
He prays for God’s grace and begs to be under the guidance and influence of it: Teach me thy statutes. “Lord, thou doest good to all, art the bountiful benefactor of all the creatures; this is the good I beg thou wilt do to me,-Instruct me in my duty, incline me to it, and enable me to do it. Thou art good, and doest good; Lord, teach me thy statutes, that I may be good and do good, may have a good heart and live a good life.” It is an encouragement to poor sinners to hope that God will teach them his way because he is good and upright, Ps. 25:8.
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The Pulpit Commentaries
Thou art good, and doest good. Even chastening is a proof of thy goodness. By it thou “doest good” to thy servants (see Hebrews 12:10, Hebrews 12:11). Teach me thy statutes. Impress thy Law upon me, even though it be by chastening.
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Miscellaneous Comments
“Thou art good and doest good.” We should bless the Lord at all times, and keep up good thoughts of God, on every occasion, especially in the time of affliction. Hence, we are commanded to glorify God in the fires (Isa 24:15); and this the three children did in the hottest furnace… I grant, indeed, we cannot give thanks for affliction as affliction, but either as it is the means of some good to us, or as the gracious hand of God is some way remarkable therein toward us. In this respect, there is no condition on this side of hell but we have reason to praise God in it, though it be the greatest of calamities. Hence it was that David, when he speaks of his affliction, adds presently, “Thou art good, and doest good;” and he declares (Psa 119:65), “Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word.” Hence Paul and Silas praised God when they were scourged and imprisoned.
—John Willison, 1680-1750.
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Cross-References
Psalm 106:1 (KJV)
1 Praise ye the Lord.
O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good:
For his mercy endureth for ever.
Matthew 19:17 (KJV)
17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
Psalm 25:8 (KJV)
8 Good and upright is the Lord:
Therefore will he teach sinners in the way.
Exodus 34:6–7 (KJV)
6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
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Closing Thoughts
1 Chronicles 29:10-13 NKJV
10 Therefore David blessed the Lord before all the assembly; and David said:
“Blessed are You, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever.
11
Yours, O Lord, is the greatness,
The power and the glory,
The victory and the majesty;
For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours;
Yours is the kingdom, O Lord,
And You are exalted as head over all.
12
Both riches and honor come from You,
And You reign over all.
In Your hand is power and might;
In Your hand it is to make great
And to give strength to all.
13
“Now therefore, our God,
We thank You
And praise Your glorious name.
New King James Version
ט TETH: God’s word brings benefit from a time of affliction.
65
You have dealt well with Your servant,
O Lord, according to Your word.
66
Teach me good judgment and knowledge,
For I believe Your commandments.
67
Before I was afflicted I went astray,
But now I keep Your word.
68
You are good, and do good;
Teach me Your statutes.
69
The proud have forged a lie against me,
But I will keep Your precepts with my whole heart.
70
Their heart is as fat as grease,
But I delight in Your law.
71
It is good for me that I have been afflicted,
That I may learn Your statutes.
72
The law of Your mouth is better to me
Than thousands of coins of gold and silver.
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