on it is called מדרשׁ אלפא ביתא, and the Pesikta פסיקתא דתמניא אפי. In our German version it has the appropriate inscription, “The Christian's golden A B C of the praise, love, power, and use of the word of God;” for here we have set forth in inexhaustible fulness what the word of God is to a man, and how a man is to behave himself in relation to it. The Masora observes that the Psalm contains only the one Psa 119:122, in which some reference or other to the word of revelation is not found as in all the 175 others[1] - a many-linked chain of synonyms which runs through the whole Psalm. In connection with this ingenious arrangement, so artfully devised and carried out, it may also not be merely accidental that the address Jahve occurs twenty-two times, as Bengel has observed: bis et vicesies pro numero octonariorum.
All kinds of erroneous views have, however, been put forth concerning this Psalm. Köster, von Gerlach, Hengstenberg, and Hupfeld renounce all attempts to show that there is any accordance whatever with a set plan, and find here a series of maxims without any internal progression and connection. Ewald begins at once with the error, that we have before us the long prayer of an old experienced teacher. But from Psa 119:9. it is clear that the poet himself is a “young man,” a fact that is also corroborated by Psa 119:99, Psa 119:100. The poet is a young man, who finds himself in a situation which is clearly described: he is derided, oppressed, persecuted, and that by those who despise the divine word (for apostasy encompasses him round about), and more particularly by a government hostile to the true religion, Psa 119:23, Psa 119:46, Psa 119:161. He is lying in bonds (Psa 119:61, cf. Psa 119:83), expecting death (Psa 119:109), and recognises in his affliction, it is true, God's salutary humbling, and in the midst of it God's word is his comfort and his wisdom, but he also yearns for help, and earnestly prays for it. - The whole Psalm is a prayer for stedfastness in the midst of an ungodly, degenerate race, and in the midst of great trouble, which is heightened by the
- ↑ “In every verse,” this is the observation of the Masora on Psa 119:122, “v. 122 only excepted, we find one of the ten (pointing to the ten fundamental words or decalogue of the Sinaitic Law) expressions: word, saying, testimonies, way, judgment, precept, commandment (צוּוּי), law, statute, truth” (according to another reading, righteousness).
