Psalms 119:134

But what means this that he says, "O deliver me from the calumnies of men: so shall I keep Your commandments"? [Psalm 119:134]...Did not the holy people of God much the more gloriously keep the commandments among these very calumnies, when they were at their hottest in the midst of tribulations, when they yielded not to their persecutors to commit impieties? But, in truth, the meaning of these words is this: Do Thou, by pouring upon me Your Spirit, guard me from being overcome by the terrors of human calumny, and from being drawn over to their evil deeds away from Your commandments. For if You have thus dealt with me, that is, if You have in this manner delivered me by the gift of patience from their calumnies, so that I fear not the false charges they prefer against me; among those very calumnies I will keep Your commandments.

Deliver me from the oppression of man,.... Of any man, of proud and haughty men, as in Psa 119:122; the psalmist always desired rather to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of wicked men, whose tender mercies are cruel.

An ardent desire (compare Ps 56:1, 2) for spiritual enlightening, establishment in a right course, deliverance from the wicked, and evidence of God's favor is expressed I opened my mouth, and panted--as a traveller in a hot desert pants for the cooling breeze (Ps 63:1;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

"Deliver me from the oppression of man." David had tasted all the bitterness of this great evil. It had made him an exile from his country, and banished him from the sanctuary of the Lord: therefore he pleads to be saved from it. It is said that oppression makes a wise man mad, and no doubt it has made many a righteous man sinful. Oppression is in itself wicked, and it drives men to wickedness. We little know how much of our virtue is due to our liberty; if we had been in bonds under haughty tyrants we might have yielded to them, and instead of being confessors we might now have been apostates. He who taught us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation, "will sanction this prayer, which is of much the same tenor, since to be oppressed is to be tempted. "So will I keep thy statutes." When the stress of oppression was taken off he would go his own way, and that way would be the way of the Lord. Although we ought not to yield to the threatenings of men, yet many do so; the wife is sometimes compelled by the oppression of her husband to act against her conscience: children and servants, and even whole nations have been brought into the same difficulty. Their sins will be largely laid at the oppressor's door, and it usually pleases God ere long to overthrow these powers and dominions which compel men to do evil. The worst of it is that some persons, when the pressure is taken off from them, follow after unrighteousness of their own accord. These give evidence of being sinners in grain. As for the righteous, it happens to them as it did to the apostles of old, "Being let go, they went to their own company." When saints are freed from the tyrant they joyfully pay homage to their king.

"Deliver me from the oppression of man." David had tasted all the bitterness of this great evil. It had made him an exile from his country, and banished him from the sanctuary of the Lord: therefore he pleads to be saved from it. It is said that oppression makes a wise man mad, and no doubt it has made many a righteous man sinful. Oppression is in itself wicked, and it drives men to wickedness.