Psalm 119:70 NKJV
70
Their heart is as fat as grease,
But I delight in Your law.
Contrasting Hearts: Pride vs. Delight
My Notes
The NIV version for this verse reads “Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, but I delight in your law.”
In this verse, David contrasts two types of people: those who find pleasure in worldly desires—seeking sensual gratification and ignoring the wisdom of the Lord—and those who delight in knowing and following Him. Pride, stubbornness, and indulgence may feel satisfying for a time, but they quickly lead to a loss of reverence for the Lord.
On the other hand, those who remain humble and teachable, guided by the Word and drawn to the Lord, become increasingly attuned to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Their spiritual sensitivity deepens with every step of obedience. When we choose to live under the guidance of God’s divine law, we walk in freedom—no longer bound by the law of sin and death.
These proud individuals, overflowing with worldly wealth and comforts, found their hearts dulled by excess. Possessing more than they could ever desire, they grew arrogant and hardened. Their hearts became thick and unresponsive—like creatures weighed down by overindulgence, numb to spiritual truth, and devoid of feeling.
In their spiritual blindness, they had no understanding of God’s law, no awareness of their sacred duties, and no pang of conscience over sin. Their pride insulated them from conviction. Their hearts became calloused, and they lost the capacity to feel God’s promptings. Ultimately, they were given over to a reprobate mind, just as Isaiah speaks of (Isaiah 6:9): eyes that see but do not perceive, and ears that hear but do not understand.
Yet David finds deep joy in the law—an inward delight the apostle echo’d in Romans 7:22 ( For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man). This joy for us is fulfilled through Christ, who holds the law as both King and Lawgiver. It’s etched upon David’s heart, guiding Him to render willing and joyful obedience. He treasured the law, immersed himself in reading it, meditating upon it, and faithfully living it out.
Psalm 119:70 encourages believers to seek spiritual nourishment from God’s word. David contrasts his delight in God’s law with the insensibility of the proud, whose hearts are described as “fat as grease.” This metaphor indicates their spiritual dullness due to excessive indulgence in worldly pleasures, leading to a lack of sensitivity to God’s guidance. The commentaries below emphasize that such indulgence makes one proud and blind to spiritual truths. In contrast, David finds joy and fulfillment in divine law, suggesting that true delight and spiritual health come from a relationship with God rather than carnal satisfaction.
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 70, 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:
Matthew Henry
He did not envy their prosperity, nor was he by it allured from his duty. Their heart is as fat as grease. The proud are at ease (Ps. 123:4); they are full of the world, and the wealth and pleasures of it, and this makes them,
(1.) Senseless, secure, and stupid; they are past feeling: thus the phrase is used, Isa. 6:10. Make the heart of this people fat. They are not sensible of the touch of the word of God or his rod.
(2.) Sensual and voluptuous: “Their eyes stand out with fatness (Ps. 73:7); they roll themselves in the pleasures of sense, and take up with them as their chief good; and much good may it do them. I would not change the conditions with them. I delight in thy law; I build my security upon the promises of God’s word and have pleasure enough in communion with God, infinitely preferable to all their delights.” The children of God, who are acquainted with spiritual pleasures, need not envy the children of this world their carnal pleasures.
______________________________________________________
Charles Spurgeon
“Their heart is as fat as grease.” They delight in fatness, but I delight in thee. Their hearts, through sensual indulgence, have grown insensible, coarse, and groveling; but thou hast saved me from such a fate through thy chastening hand. Proud men grow fat through carnal luxuries, and this makes them prouder still. They riot in their prosperity, and fill their hearts therewith till they become insensible, effeminate, and self-indulgent. A greasy heart is something horrible; it is a fatness which makes a man fatuous, a fatty degeneration of the heart which leads to feebleness and death. The fat in such men is killing the life in them. Dryden wrote,
O souls! In whom no heavenly fire is found,
Fat minds and ever grovelling on the ground.
In this condition, men have no heart except for luxury; their very being seems to swim and stew in the fat of cookery and banqueting. Living on the fat of the land, their nature is subdued to that which they have fed upon; the muscle of their nature has gone to softness and grease.
“But I delight in thy law.” How much better is it to joy in the law of the Lord than to joy in sensual indulgences! This makes the heart healthy and keeps the mind lowly. No one who loves holiness has the slightest cause to envy the prosperity of the worldling. Delight in the law elevates and ennobles, while carnal pleasure clogs the intellect and degrades the affections. There is and always ought to be a vivid contrast between the believer and the sensualist, and that contrast is as much seen in the affections of the heart as in the actions of the life: their heart is as fat as grease, and our heart is delighted with the law of the Lord. Our delights are a better test of our character than anything else: as a man’s heart is, so is the man. David oiled the wheels of life with his delight in God’s law, and not with the fat of sensuality. He had his relishes and dainties, his festivals and delights, and all these he found in doing the will of the Lord his God. When law becomes delight, obedience is bliss. Holiness in the heart causes the soul to eat the fat of the land. To have the law for our delight will breed in our hearts the very opposite of the effects of pride; deadness, sensuality, and obstinacy will be cured, and we shall become teachable, sensitive, and spiritual. How careful should we be to live under the influence of the divine law that we fall not under the law of sin and death?
______________________________________________________
Enduring Word
Their heart is as fat as grease, but I delight in Your law: Their fat heart was not good for their physical or spiritual health. It meant that their hearts were dull, insensitive, and drowning in luxury and excess. In contrast, the psalmist found delight in the word of God. (Guzik)
i. “The tremendous blow of almighty justice has benumbed his heart…. ‘seared with a hot iron’ (1 Timothy 4:2), and therefore without tenderness; ‘past feeling’ (Ephesians 4:19); unsoftened by the power of the word.” (Bridges)
ii. “As if he should say, My heart is a lean heart, a hungry heart, my soul loveth and rejoiceth in thy word. I have nothing else to fill it but thy word, and the comforts I have from it; but their hearts are fat hearts; fat with the world, fat with lust; they hate the word. As a full stomach loatheth meat and cannot digest it; so wicked men hate the word, it will not go down with them, it will not gratify their lusts.” (William Fenner, cited in Spurgeon)
______________________________________________________
John Gill
Their heart is as fat as grease,…. Or tallow, a lump of it, fat or grease congealed. That is, the heart of the above proud persons, who abounded in riches, were glutted with the things of this world; had more than heart could wish, and so became proud and haughty: or their hearts were gross, sottish, senseless, and stupid, as persons fat at heart are; or as creatures over fat, which have little or no feeling: so these had no knowledge of the law of God, no sense of their duty, no remorse of conscience for sin; their hearts were hardened, and they past feeling, and given up to a reprobate mind; see Isaiah 6:9; The Targum is, “the imagination of their heart is become gross as fat:” the Septuagint is, “curdled like milk”; that is, hardened, as Suidas interprets it;
[but] I delight in thy law; after the inward man; as the apostle did, Romans 7:22; as fulfilled in Christ; as in his hands, as King and Lawgiver; as written upon his own heart; and so yielding a ready and cheerful obedience to it; he delighted in reading the law, in meditating on it, and in observing it.
______________________________________________________
Miscellaneous Comments
“Their heart is as fat as grease.” The word מָפשׁ occurs nowhere else in Scripture, but with the Chaldees מְפַש signifies to fatten, to make fat; also to make stupid and doltish, because such the fat ofttimes are… For this reason the proud, who are mentioned in the preceding verse, are described by their fixed resolve in evil, because they are almost insensible; as is to be seen in pigs, who pricked through the skin with a bodkin, and that slowly, as long as the bodkin only touches the fat, do not feel the prick until it reaches to the flesh. Thus the proud, whose great prosperity is elsewhere likened to fatness, have a heart totally insusceptible, which is insensible to the severe reproofs of the Divine word, and also to its holy delights and pleasures, by reason of the affluence of carnal things; aye, more, is altogether unfitted for good impulses; just as elsewhere is to be seen with fat animals, how slow they are and unfit for work, when, on the contrary, those are agile and quick which are not hindered by this same fatness.—Martin Geier.
“Their heart is as fat as grease; but I delight in thy law“ as if he should say, My heart is a lean heart, a hungry heart, my soul loveth and rejoiceth in thy word. I have nothing else to fill it but thy word, and the comforts I have from it; but their hearts are fat hearts: fat with the world, fat with lust: they hate the word. As a full stomach loatheth meat and cannot digest it; so wicked men hate the word, it will not go down with them, it will not gratify their lusts.—William Fenner.
______________________________________________________
Cross-References
Acts 28:27 (KJV)
27 For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Isaiah 6:10 (KJV)
10 Make the heart of this people fat,
And make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
______________________________________________________
Closing Thoughts
35 Make me to go in the path of thy commandments;
For therein do I delight. Psalm 119:35 (KJV)
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord;
And in his law doth he meditate day and night. Psalm 1:2 (KJV)
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.
- Exploring the Beauty of Psalms: Insights and Commentaries
- Monthly Breakdown of Our Blog Content
- Psalms Commentary: Faith and Inspiration
Leave a Reply