Psalm 119:71 NKJV
71
It is good for me that I have been afflicted,
That I may learn Your statutes.
Affliction as a Path to Wisdom
My Notes
Experientia docet — Experience teaches.
Psalm 119:71 reminds us that hardship can be a gift: “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.” Through affliction, the soul is invited to grow.
Helen Keller once said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Jean de La Bruyère added, “Out of difficulties grow miracles.” These echoes of wisdom highlight that suffering isn’t just a weight—it’s also a teacher.
Affliction is an age-old companion to humanity. Many have wrestled with it, endured it, and emerged victorious. Others, overwhelmed by its burden, lost their way. David understood the sacred purpose behind his pain. It wasn’t just hardship—it was instruction from the Lord.
David’s learning didn’t come through peaceful walks in flowered fields. His lessons were soaked in anguish and tears, endured on his knees. Yet with every deep struggle, he found clarity. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “There is no royal road to learning the royal statutes; God’s commands are best read by eyes wet with tears.” It is often in brokenness that God’s truth becomes clearest.
In David’s story—the triumphs and failures—the Lord’s hand was always present. When David humbled himself, surrendered to God’s wisdom, and followed His leading, healing came. Restoration followed submission.
Still, affliction by itself doesn’t transform us. It’s what we do with it that matters. Only when we turn toward the Lord, immerse ourselves in His Word, and seek His guidance, do we begin to understand what He wants to teach us.
Let Proverbs 3: 5–6 be our compass:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” — Proverbs 3:5–6 NKJV
To truly trust God, we must pursue Him—through prayer, through Scripture, and through surrender. It isn’t for us to dissect every hardship, asking “why,” but to say with confidence, “He is Lord.” His path, even when shadowed by affliction, leads us home.
Psalm 119:71 expresses the idea that affliction can be beneficial for personal growth and spiritual learning. The psalmist, David, reflects on how adversity, while painful, led him to understand and abide by God’s statutes more fully. The commentaries below emphasize that affliction acts as a school for the faithful, teaching valuable lessons that prosperity may not reveal. Charles Spurgeon and others highlight that the humble learn from suffering, recognizing it as a pathway to wisdom. Ultimately, the text conveys that enduring trials can lead to a deeper relationship with God and a greater appreciation for His teachings, marking suffering as a significant aspect of spiritual life.
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 71, 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
“It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” Even though the affliction came from bad men, it was overruled for good ends: though it was bad as it came from them, it was good for David. It benefited him in many ways, and he knew it. Whatever he may have thought while under the trial, he perceived himself to be the better for it when it was over. It was not good to the proud to be prosperous, for their hearts grew sensual and insensible; but affliction was good for the Psalmist. Our worst is better for us than the sinner’s best. It is bad for sinners to rejoice, and good for saints to sorrow. A thousand benefits have come to us through our pains and griefs, and among the rest is this—that we have thus been schooled in the law.
“That I might learn thy statutes.” These we have come to know and to keep by feeling the smart of the rod. We prayed the Lord to teach us (Psa 119:66), and now we see how he has already been doing it. Truly, he has dealt well with us, for he has dealt wisely with us. We have been kept from the ignorance of the greasy-hearted by our trials, and this, if there were nothing else, is just cause for constant gratitude. To be larded by prosperity is not good for the proud, but for the truth to be learned by adversity is good for the humble. Very little is to be learned without affliction. If we would be scholars, we must be sufferers. As the Latins say, “Experientia docet,” experience teaches. There is no royal road to learning the royal statutes; God’s commands are best read by eyes wet with tears.
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Enduring Word
It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes: The psalmist repeats the idea from earlier in this section (Psalm 119:67). This repetition is an effective way to communicate emphasis. Affliction, brought under the wisdom and guidance of God’s word, did genuine good in his life. (Guzik)
i. “I, for my part, owe more, I think, to the anvil and to the hammer, to the fire and to the file, than to anything else. I bless the Lord for the correctives of his providence by which, if he has blessed me on the one hand with sweets, he has blessed me on the other hand with bitters.” (Spurgeon)
ii. “‘I never’ – said Luther – ‘knew the meaning of God’s word, until I came into affliction. I have always found it one of my best schoolmasters.’” (Bridges)
iii. Yet we must guard against the misunderstanding that seasons of affliction automatically make one better or godlier. Sadly, there are many who are worse from their affliction – because they fail to turn to God’s word for wisdom and life-guidance in such times. The worst affliction of all is a wasted affliction, wasted because we did not turn to God and gained nothing from it. (Guzik)
iv. This also shows how valuable the learning of God’s word was to the psalmist. It was entirely worth it for him to endure affliction, if only he could learn the statutes of God in the process. This made a time of painful affliction worthwhile. (Guzik)
v. “By affliction God separates the sin which he hates from the soul which he loves.” (John Mason, cited in Spurgeon)
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Albert Barnes
It is good for me that I have been afflicted – See Psalms 119:67. Whatever may have been the form of the affliction, it was good for me. The design was benevolent; the result has been my own benefit. This will be the experience sooner or later, resulting from all the afflictions of the righteous.
That I might learn thy statutes – That I might be brought more fully to understand what they require; and that I might be led to conform to them. It is implied here
(a) that this is the tendency of affliction; and
(b) that this is an advantage – a good.
Anything that will lead a man to obey God is a blessing and a favor. Whatever leads a sinner to secure the salvation of his soul is a gain to him. No matter what it may cost; no matter what he may be required to give up; no matter to what persecutions and troubles it may expose him; no matter what he may suffer, or how long he may suffer; no matter though poverty, contempt, toil – even the rack or the stake – may be the consequence of his religion – yet it is a gain to him; and he will be thankful for it in the end. For nothing that can be endured in this life can be compared with the sufferings of the world of despair; nothing on earth can be “compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us in heaven.” See Romans 8:18.
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John Gill
[It is] good for me that I have been afflicted,…. The good and profit of which he had observed before; See Gill on “Ps 119:67.” The following end being also answered thereby,
that I might learn thy statutes; to understand them, and to keep them. Afflictions are sometimes as a school to the people of God, in which they learn much both of their duty and of their privileges; and when they are teaching and instructive, they are for good; see Psalm 94:12.
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Matthew Henry
1. That it has been the lot of the best saints to be afflicted. The proud and the wicked lived in pomp and pleasure, while David, though he kept close to God and his duty, was still in affliction. Waters of a full cup are wrung out to God’s people, Ps. 73:10. (Note by Bill: The Amplified Bible reads – Therefore his people return to this place, And waters of abundance [offered by the irreverent] are [blindly drunk] drunk by them.)
2. That it has been the advantage of God’s people to be afflicted. David could speak experimentally: It was good for me; many a good lesson he had learnt by his afflictions, and many a good duty he had been brought to which otherwise would have been unlearnt and undone. Therefore God visited him with affliction, that he might learn God’s statutes; and the intention was answered: the afflictions had contributed to the improvement of his knowledge and grace. He that chastened him taught him. The rod and reproof give wisdom.
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Miscellaneous Comments
“It is good for me,” etc. I am mended by my sickness, enriched by my poverty, and strengthened by my weakness, and with S. Bernard desire, “Irasecaris mihi; Domine,” O Lord, be angry with me. For if you chide me not, you consider me not; if I taste no bitterness, I have no physic; if thou correct me not, I am not thy son. Thus was it with the great-grandchild of David, Manasseh, when he was in affliction, “He besought the Lord his God:” even that king’s iron was more precious to him than his gold, his jail a more happy lodging than his palace, Babylon a better school than Jerusalem. What fools are we, then, to frown upon our afflictions! These, however crabbed soever, are our best friends. They are not indeed for our pleasure, they are for our profit; their issue makes them worthy of a welcome. What do we care how bitter that potion be that brings health.—Abraham Wright.
“It is good for me,” etc. There are some things good but not pleasant, as sorrow and affliction. Sin is pleasant, but unprofitable; and sorrow is profitable, but unpleasant. As waters are purest when they are in motion, so saints are generally holiest when in affliction. Some Christians resemble those children who will learn their books no longer than while the rod is on their backs. It is well known that by the greatest affliction, the Lord has sealed the sweetest instruction. Many are not bettered by the judgments they see, when they are by the judgments they have felt. The purest gold is the most pliable. That is the best blade which bends well without retaining its crooked figure.—William Secker, 1660.
“It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” In Miss E. J. Whately’s very interesting Life of her Father, the celebrated Archbishop of Dublin, a fact is recorded, as told by Dr. Whately, with reference to the introduction of the larch tree into England. When the plants were first brought, the gardener, hearing that they came from the south of Europe, and taking it for granted that they would require warmth,—forgetting that they might grow near the snow line,—put them into a hothouse. Day by day they withered, until the gardener in disgust threw them on a dung heap outside; there they began to revive and bud, and at last grew into trees. They needed the cold.
The great Husbandman often saves his plants by throwing them out into the cold. The nipping frosts of trial and affliction are ofttimes needed, if God’s larches are to grow. It is under such discipline that new thoughts and feelings appear. The heart becomes more dead to the world and self. From the night of sorrow rises the morning of joy. Winter is the harbinger of spring. From the crucifixion of the old man comes the resurrection of the new, as in nature, life is the child of death. “The night is the mother of the day, And winter of the spring; And ever upon old decay, The greenest mosses spring.”
—James Wareing Bardsicy, in Illustrated Texts and Texts Illustrated, 1876.
“That I might learn.” As prosperity blindeth the eyes of men, even so doth adversity open them. Like as the salve that remedies the disease of the eyes doth first bite and grieve the eyes, and maketh them to water, but yet afterward the eyesight is clearer than it was; even so trouble doth vex men wonderfully at the first, but afterwards it lighteneth the eyes of the mind, that it is afterward more reasonable, wise and circumspect. For trouble bringeth experience, and experience bringeth wisdom.—Otho Wermullerus, 1551.
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Cross-References
Psalm 94:12 (KJV 1900)
12 Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord,
And teachest him out of thy law;
1 Corinthians 11:32 (KJV 1900)
32 But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
Romans 8:28 (KJV 1900)
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
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Closing Thoughts
10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Hebrews 12:10–11 (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.
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