Psalm 19

Psalms 19:1-2

The heavens declare the glory of God: The heavens declare the glory of God without a single word, and Spurgeon and Maclaren both read the whole psalm as one argument in two books, the world speaking in verses 1 through 6 and the word speaking in verses 7 through 11, one author behind both testimonies. Day unto day uttereth speech names a testimony that never stops, one day handing its witness to the next like a relay running since creation. The silence is the point: no tongue is heard and yet the message reaches everywhere, which the next verses press further.

Psalms 19:3-4

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard states the paradox plainly, a wordless witness that is somehow heard in every tongue on earth, and their line is gone out through all the earth carries the thought outward to the world's furthest edge. Their line, a surveyor's cord marking out territory, pictures the heavens as a claim staked over the whole earth rather than a message spoken to one people alone. The verse turns at its end to the sun, in them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, the general testimony narrowing to one witness the rest of the stanza will follow.

Psalms 19:5-6

The sun is pictured as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, eager and adorned, and then as a strong man to run a race, joy and strength named together rather than the sun's heat and light alone. His going forth is from the end of the heaven traces one unbroken circuit across the whole sky, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof closes the first book on total reach, nothing under the sun escaping what the sun touches. Delitzsch reads the double picture, bridegroom then runner, as delight in motion, the sun glad to run its course rather than compelled to it.

Psalms 19:7-8

The law of the Lord is perfect: The psalm turns without warning from the sky to the law, and the older writers read the change as the psalm's own argument, the world that declares God's glory unable to make him known as the law does, so the second book answers the first. Six lines follow in matched pairs, each naming the law by a different word, law, testimony, statutes, commandment, and pairing it with an effect on the soul, converting, making wise, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes; verses 7 and 8 carry the first four of the six. Spurgeon calls the string of names and effects a fuller description of Scripture than any other single passage in the Bible, each name aimed at a different need in the reader.

Psalms 19:9

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever closes the six-fold description with its two final pairs, the fear of the Lord and the judgments of the Lord, true and righteous altogether. Where the first four lines described the law's effect on the reader, this verse turns to its own lasting purity, clean and enduring where everything else fades. Gill takes clean fear as reverence free of the servile dread the law can also produce, love and awe held together rather than fear alone.

Psalms 19:10-11

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold rates the law above the one thing the ancient world prized most, and sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb adds the sweetest food to the most valuable metal and still ranks the law higher than both. Moreover by them is thy servant warned turns from taste to use, the law a watchman as much as a delight, and in keeping of them there is great reward names an outcome the psalm does not spell out further. Henry notes that the reward is set in keeping the law rather than merely knowing it, obedience carrying the promise the previous verses only praised.

Psalms 19:12-14

Who can understand his errors? turns the psalm inward, the same law that rejoices the heart now exposing what the psalmist cannot even see in himself, and cleanse thou me from secret faults asks for what self-examination cannot supply. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins distinguishes hidden faults from sins committed knowingly, and the plea that they not have dominion over me treats sin as a ruler to be resisted rather than a stain to be merely washed. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight closes the psalm in prayer, a line preachers have long taken for their own before speaking, naming God as my strength, and my redeemer in its last words.