Psalm 119:103 NKJV
103
How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
The Sweetness of Scripture
My Notes
Scripture: “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” — Psalm 119:103 (NKJV)
My Thoughts
David didn’t merely hear God’s Word—he tasted it. He fed upon it with joy, savoring its truth as one would savor honey. This wasn’t a dry discipline or a burdensome duty. It was a feast for the soul, a sweetness that satisfied more deeply than any earthly pleasure.
God’s Word is not a single flavor—it’s a full banquet. Promises and precepts, doctrines and warnings, encouragements and convictions flow from the same divine source. David made no distinction between them because he knew that every word from God carries weight and worth. Each part of Scripture, rightly received, nourishes the heart and renews the mind.
There’s a spiritual taste—a holy appetite—that grows as we meditate on truth and speak it aloud. When we think on God’s Word, it becomes sweet to our thoughts. When we confess it with our mouths, it becomes sweeter still. This is the joy of Scripture: it deepens with experience and multiplies in testimony.
Jesus said in John 4:42, “Then they said to the woman, ‘Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.” There is a knowing that comes not by secondhand report, but by firsthand encounter. When we receive the Word as it is—each truth in proportion, each doctrine in harmony, each precept obeyed, each promise believed—we taste and see that the Lord is good.
Cross Reference
“Your words were found, and I ate them,
And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart;
For I am called by Your name,
O Lord God of hosts.” — Jeremiah 15:16 (NKJV)
Questions
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When has God’s Word felt especially sweet to you?
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Are there parts of Scripture you tend to avoid or overlook? What might it look like to receive them with fresh openness?
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How can you keep the Word on your mind and on your tongue this week?
Prayer
Lord, Your Word is sweet—sweeter than honey to my mouth. Teach me to savor every part of it, not just the promises but the precepts, not just the comfort but the correction. Let Your truth dwell richly in me, shaping my thoughts and flowing from my lips. May I taste and see Your goodness daily. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Summary of the Commentaries:
David expresses profound delight in God’s words, describing them as sweeter than honey. This sweetness stems from a deep, personal relationship with the scriptures, which he not only hears but internalizes. The commentaries below highlight the nourishment and joy derived from engaging with God’s words, emphasizing that they cover promises, precepts, and doctrines. David’s appreciation goes beyond ordinary pleasures, revealing a spiritual taste for divine truths. The narrative encourages believers to cultivate a love for all aspects of God’s revelations, indicating that true sweetness lies in meditating on and proclaiming these words.
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 103, which is in the 13th section, which is called “Mem מ”. The website https://www.abarim-publications.com/Hebrew_Alphabet_Meaning.html defines the meaning of the letter Mem מ as: ם (mayim) means waters in the sense of a larger body (sea, ocean). It is suggested that the letter Mem מ looks like a wave. The letter Mem מ is written ם when it occurs at the end of a word, and מ when it occurs at the beginning or halfway through a word.
Proverb for Today
My son, keep your father’s command, And do not forsake the law of your mother. Bind them continually upon your heart; Tie them around your neck. When you roam, they will lead you; When you sleep, they will keep you; And when you awake, they will speak with you. For the commandment is a lamp, And the law a light; Reproofs of instruction are the way of life, Proverbs 6:20-23 NKJV
……..Bill
Commentaries:
Charles Spurgeon
“How sweet are thy words into my taste.” He had not only heard the words of God, but fed upon them: they affected his palate as well as his ear. God’s words are many and varied, and the whole of them make up what we call “the word.” David loved them each one, individually, and the whole of them as a whole; he tasted an indescribable sweetness in them. He expresses the fact of their sweetness, but as he cannot express the degree of their sweetness, he cries, “How sweet!” Being God’s words, they were divinely sweet to God’s servant; he who put the sweetness into them had prepared the taste of his servant to discern and enjoy it. David makes no distinction between promises and precepts, doctrines and threatenings; they are all included in God’s words, and all are precious in his esteem. Oh, for a deep love to all that the Lord has revealed, whatever form it may take.
“Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” When he did not only eat but also speak the word, by instructing others, he felt an increased delight in it. The sweetest of all temporal things fall short of the infinite deliciousness of the eternal word: honey itself is outstripped in sweetness by the word of the Lord. When the Psalmist fed on it he found it sweet; but when he bore witness of it, it became sweeter still. How wise it will be on our part to keep the word on our palate by meditation and on our tongue by confession. It must be sweet to our taste when we think of it, or it will not be sweet to our mouth when we talk of it.
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Enduring Word
How sweet are Your words to my taste: The psalmist felt the word of God was as pleasant to him as sweet things, even sweeter than honey! Time spent in God’s word was not an unpleasant duty; it was a sweet experience to be thankful for. (Guzik)
i. “The study and obedience of thy words yields me more satisfaction and delight than any worldly men find in their sensual pleasures.” (Poole)
ii. The psalmist had very little of God’s word – perhaps just the five books of Moses and a few books more. We have so much more riches and sweetness in the word of God than he did; yet most of us seem to value it less. (Guzik)
iii. The Bible is filled with passage after passage that anyone with spiritual sensitivity would find sweet. Passages like Psalm 23:1-3, Psalm 8:1, John 3:16, Romans 8:28, or Revelation 22:20 are just a sample. “If you can’t find anything beautiful or sweet in these verses, your taste buds are terribly dulled and your eyes horribly glazed by the tawdry glitz of our culture.” (Boice)
iv. “For what argument could ever persuade us that honey is bitter, at the moment we are tasting its sweetness?” (Bridges)
v. “If the word of God be not very sweet to me, have I an appetite? Solomon says, ‘The full soul loatheth a honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet’ [Proverbs 27:7]. Ah, when a soul is full of itself, and of the world, and of the pleasures of sin, I do not wonder that it sees no sweetness in Christ, for it has no appetite!” (Spurgeon)
vi. “It is a blessed sign of grace in the heart when God’s words are sweet to us as a whole, – when we love the truth, not cast into a system or a shape, but as we find it in God’s word. I believe that no man who has yet lived has ever proposed a system of theology which comprises all the truth of God’s word. If such a system had been possible, the discovery of it would have been made for us by God himself: certainly it would if it had been desirable and useful for our profit and holiness. But it has not pleased God to give us a body of divinity; let us receive it as he has given it, each truth in its own proportion, – each doctrine in harmony with its fellow, – each precept carefully carried out into practice, and each promise to be believed, and by-and-by received. Let the truth, and the whole truth, be sweet to our taste.” (Spurgeon)
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Albert Barnes
How sweet are thy words unto my taste … – Margin, as in Hebrew, “palate.” The reference is to the taste, perhaps because the sense of taste was supposed to reside in the palate. The Hebrew word “may” include also the whole of the inside of the mouth. The word rendered “sweet” does not occur elsewhere. It properly means “to be smooth,” and hence, is applied to kind or agreeable words.
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John Gill
How sweet are thy words unto my taste!.… Who had a spiritual one; and could discern perverse things, and could taste how good and gracious the Lord is: and so his words were sweet unto him; the doctrines of grace, the truths of the Gospel, were delightful and pleasant to him; like unadulterated milk, desirable by him: like good wine, that goes down sweetly; like good food, that is exceeding palatable; or like honey, and even sweeter than that, as follows. And that words “may be tasted [and] eaten” is not only agreeable to Scripture language, Jeremiah 15:16; but to classical writers.
[yea, sweeter] than honey to my mouth; not only had they the nourishing nature and the refreshing virtue of honey, but the sweetness of it; yea, exceeded it in sweetness; see Psalm 19:10.
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Matthew Henry
The wonderful pleasure and delight which David took in the word of God; it was sweet to his taste, sweeter than honey. There is such a thing as a spiritual taste, an inward savor and relish of divine things, such an evidence of them to ourselves, by experience, as we cannot give to others. We have heard him ourselves, Jn. 4:42. To this scripture, the word of God is sweet, very sweet, sweeter than any of the gratifications of sense, even those that are most delicious. David speaks as if he wanted words to express the satisfaction he took in the discoveries of the divine will and grace; no pleasure was comparable to it.
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Miscellaneous Comments
“How sweet are thy words unto my taste!” Why does he not rather say, How pleasant are thy words to my ears? than that they are sweet to his taste and his mouth? I answer: It is most meet that when God speaks by the mouth of his ministers we should be hearers, and the words of God should be the most joyous of all to our ears. But it is also the practice of the godly to converse about the words of God, and their words are so sweet to their own taste that they are more pleased and delighted than by any honey from the comb. And this is most necessary when either there is a scarcity of teachers, as with David in the wilderness or dwelling among the Philistines, or when those who hold the office of teaching adulterate and vitiate the pure word of God.
—Wolfgang Musculus.
“Sweeter.” As there are always among violets some that are very much sweeter than others, so among texts there are some that are more precious to us than others.
—Henry Ward Beecher, 1879.
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Additional Cross-References
Psalm 19:10 (KJV)
10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold:
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Proverbs 8:11 (KJV)
11 For wisdom is better than rubies;
And all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
Proverbs 24:14 (KJV)
14 So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul:
When thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward,
And thy expectation shall not be cut off.
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מ MEM Loving the sweetness of God’s word.
97
Oh, how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
98
You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies;
For they are ever with me.
99
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
For Your testimonies are my meditation.
100
I understand more than the ancients,
Because I keep Your precepts.
101
I have restrained my feet from every evil way,
That I may keep Your word.
102
I have not departed from Your judgments,
For You Yourself have taught me.
103
How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104
Through Your precepts I get understanding;
Therefore I hate every false way.
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