Psalm 119 · Passage · Goodness
You Are Good, and You Do What Is Good
The Tet stanza of Psalm 119, verses 65 to 72, praises the LORD as good, and Psalm 34 calls its hearers to taste and see His goodness.
In the same eight lines in which he called God good, the psalmist wrote that it was good for him to be afflicted.
You are good, and You do what is good; teach me Your statutes.
- The passage
- Psalm 119:65 to 72, Psalm 34:8
- Book
- Psalms
- Hold in memory
- Psalm 34:8
Summary
In Psalm 119 the psalmist says that God is good while proud men tell lies about him. He says it after hard times have turned him back from going astray, and he asks God to teach him more. Psalm 34 asks people to find out that God is good by trying Him, the way food is known by tasting it. Both psalms teach that God is good in hard times as well as in glad ones.
- Verse 68 uses two Hebrew words for God's goodness, tov for what He is and metiv, a verb form meaning doing good, for what He keeps on doing.
- Five of the stanza's eight lines begin with a word for good, and the last two of them speak of trouble and of God's law.
- In verse 68 the psalmist asks to learn God's statutes, and in verse 71 he says his trouble taught them to him.
- Peter quotes Psalm 34 twice in his first letter, once on tasting that the Lord is good and once on turning from evil to do good.
The Tet Stanza of Psalm 119
Its first two lines give thanks for what God has done and ask Him for good judgment.
The Tet stanza is a confession of God's goodness made by a man who had been afflicted and slandered. It belongs to the value of goodness because it names the LORD as good before it asks anything of the reader. A reader who suffers will ask whether God is good, and these eight lines give one believer's answer from inside his trouble.
The question is what the psalmist meant by calling God good and how he could call his own affliction good as well. The stanza's Hebrew answers it line by line, and Psalm 34 and Peter's use of it add the taste of God's goodness known by experience. Charles Spurgeon, John Gill, Ambrose of Milan and Theophylact of Ohrid read the same texts.
The psalm is an acrostic of twenty-two stanzas with eight lines to each Hebrew letter, and its form is taught with the other acrostic psalms on The Acrostic Psalms.
You are good to Your servant, O LORD, according to Your word.God's goodness to His servant is measured by the promise of His word.
The line begins tov asita, good you have done, so the stanza's opening word is the word for good.
Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in Your commandments.The request to be taught rests on the psalmist's trust in the commandments.
The words good judgment are tuv taam in Hebrew, glossed goodness of discernment. Taam means properly a taste and figuratively perception, and taste in Psalm 34 is a verb spelled with the same three letters.
The Stanza in Eight Lines
The stanza moves from what God has done, through affliction and slander, to the worth of His law.
The confession of verse 68 stands between the stanza's two lines on affliction, verses 67 and 71.
An outline in eight rungs, one for each line of the stanza, with the transliterated word that begins it, the line in the Berean text and a note on each.
Good in Being and in Doing
The two Hebrew words of verse 68 name God's goodness, and the stanza's last line names what His teaching is worth.
The confession of verse 68 has two Hebrew words for goodness. Tov is the adjective good, which stands 538 times in 497 verses of the Hebrew Bible by the count of the Tyndale House tagged text. Metiv is a participle of yatav, a verb the lexicon defines as to be well or, in its causative stem, to make well, and the interlinear glosses it and are doing good.
The adjective names the goodness of God's nature, the participle names goodness as His continuing action, and the line passes from both to a request. The prayer "teach me Your statutes" stands in six verses of the psalm, and near its end the psalmist praises God for teaching them to him.
The law from Your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of gold and silver.The stanza ends on what the psalmist gained from God's teaching, which he values above any wealth.
Verses 71 and 72 both open with tov li, glossed good for me, so the last two lines set the affliction that taught the psalmist beside the law it taught him.
Goodness Held Through Affliction
Two lines of the stanza speak of affliction and two of the arrogant, and the psalmist calls God good through all four.
Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I keep Your word.The psalmist dates his obedience from his affliction, which turned him back from going astray.
Verses 67 and 71 share anah, the word for being afflicted, whose sense in the lexicon is to depress.
Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep Your precepts with all my heart. Their hearts are hard and callous, but I delight in Your law.The lines after the confession show the psalmist keeping God's precepts while proud men lied about him.
It was good for me to be afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes.The psalmist names a purpose for his affliction, the learning of God's statutes.
The request of verse 68 and the learning of verse 71 use one Hebrew verb, lamad, glossed teach me in the first line and I may learn in the second.
Charles Spurgeon, in The Treasury of David (1882), read the confession beside these lines. He wrote, "Even in affliction God is good, and does good. This is the confession of experience." He added that "His acts are according to his nature: from a pure source flow pure streams."
Taste and See That the LORD Is Good
Psalm 34 joins the taste of God's goodness to a life that does good, and Peter carries both into his first letter.
Psalm 34 is also an acrostic, and its tet line is verse 8, which opens with taamu, taste. The psalm's title sets it in David's life, and that setting is taught on David's Life in the Psalms.
Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!The invitation asks for the LORD's goodness to be found by experience, and it calls the man who takes refuge in Him blessed.
In this line the word good is the Hebrew verb tov, be good.
Fear the LORD, you His saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing. Young lions go lacking and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.The verses tie the knowledge of God's goodness to reverence, which the psalm goes on to teach to children in verse 11.
Who is the man who delights in life, who desires to see good days? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.The psalm turns from the LORD's goodness to the hearer's conduct and asks him to turn from evil and do good.
The first letter of Peter draws on the psalm in two places.
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.Peter treats the taste of the Lord's goodness as already given to his readers and makes it the reason for their growth.
Where the psalm has the Hebrew verb tov, Peter's Greek has chrestos, an adjective meaning good and kind.
For, “Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are inclined to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”Peter quotes Psalm 34:12 to 16 as the reason his readers should answer evil and insult with blessing.
The goodness the readers tasted in Peter's second chapter becomes in his third a life that repays evil with blessing, which is the subject of Romans 12:17 to 21.
Psalm 34:12 to 14, 1 Peter 2:2 to 3, 1 Peter 3:10 to 12
How Teachers Have Read the Three Texts
Four quotations from the fourth century to the nineteenth read the stanza, Psalm 34:8 and Peter's use of it as goodness known by experience.
died 397 · Ambrose of Milan
Letter 79
Verse 68 read as a taste of the highest good
The quotation1 quotation
“If the soul, with its capacity for pleasure and delight, has tasted this true and highest good and has adhered to both with the means at its disposal, putting away sorrow and fear, then it is wonderfully inflamed. Having embraced the Word of God, it knows no bounds, it knows no satiety, and says, ‘You are sweet, O Lord, and in your joy teach me your laws.’”
Ambrose of Milan · Letter 79 · on Psalm 119:68Patristic
died 1107 · Theophylact of Ohrid
Commentary on 1 Peter
Tasting as knowledge gained in practice
The quotation1 quotation
“‘For you have tasted,’ that is, through the practice of the sacred evangelical commandments you have tangibly come to know how good this teaching is. And experience in the matter of knowledge is stronger than any word, just as what is experienced in practice is …”
Theophylact of Ohrid · Commentary on 1 Peter · on 1 Peter 2:3Patristic
1834 to 1892 · Charles Spurgeon
The Treasury of David, Vol. 6
The stanza as the witness of experience
The quotation1 quotation
“In this ninth section the verses all begin with the letter Teth. They are the witness of experience, testifying to the goodness of God, the graciousness of his dealings, and the preciousness of his word. Especially the Psalmist proclaims the excellent uses of adversity, and the goodness of God in afflicting him. The sixty-fifth verse is the text of the entire octave. ‘Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word.’ This is the summary of his life, and assuredly it is the sum of ours.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 6 · on Psalm 119:65
1834 to 1892 · Charles Spurgeon
The Treasury of David, Vol. 2
A trial of God's goodness made by tasting
The quotation1 quotation
“O taste and see. Make a trial, an inward, experimental trial of the goodness of God. You cannot see except by tasting for yourself; but if you taste you shall see, for this, like Jonathan's honey, enlightens the eyes. That the Lord is good. You can only know this really and personally by experience.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Treasury of David, Vol. 2 · on Psalm 34:8
Charles Spurgeon, Charles Spurgeon
It Was Good for Me to Be Afflicted
Two commentators of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries read verse 71 in two ways.
The line speaks in the first person, and readers have asked whether it reports one man's trial or states a rule for every sufferer.
One man's trial overruled for goodCharles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, on Psalm 119:71
Spurgeon reads the line of the psalmist's own trial. He writes that "Even though the affliction came from bad men, it was overruled for good ends", and that the psalmist "perceived himself to be the better for it when it was over".
The objection to this reading comes from the letter to the Hebrews.
Our fathers disciplined us for a short time as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it.The letter speaks to every child of God, which reads the lesson of verse 71 as a rule for all believers.
Affliction as a school for the people of GodJohn Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, on Psalm 119:71
John Gill, in his Exposition of the Old Testament (1748 to 1763), widens the line to the whole church. He writes that "Afflictions are sometimes as a school to the people of God, in which they learn much both of their duty and of their privileges". He adds that "when they are teaching and instructive, they are for good".
The objection to this reading is that verse 67 ties the psalmist's lesson to his own straying, so the line by itself reports what his affliction did for him.
Both commentators place the good in what the affliction taught. The study The Goodness of God and the Problem of Evil asks how a good God permits evil at all.
Teach Me Your Statutes
The psalmist found God good in His nature and in His dealings with him, and he asked for that goodness to reach him as teaching. Psalm 34 opens the same discovery to every hearer who takes refuge in the LORD.
The earth is filled with Your loving devotion, O LORD; teach me Your statutes.The line just before the Tet stanza makes the same prayer, and it grounds the request in the loving devotion that fills the earth.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The tagged Hebrew text of the Old Testament and Greek text of the New, with Strong's numbers, morphology and glosses (STEP Bible, Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0)
- C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, volume 6 (1882), on Psalm 119:65, 119:68 and 119:71.
- C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, volume 2 (1870), on Psalm 34:8.
- John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748 to 1763), on Psalm 119:71.
- Ambrose of Milan, Letter 79.
- Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on 1 Peter, on 1 Peter 2:3.
- David's Life in the Psalms, a study of the thirteen historical titles of the Psalms.
Keep Studying
In this value2
Symbols1