Psalms 119:19
in Psalms 119I am a stranger on the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
I am a sojourner in the earth: Hide not thy commandments from me.
KJV
I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.
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This verse in Psalms 119
Commentary
11 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
I am a stranger in the earth - A wayfaring man; a pilgrim; a so-journer; a man whose permanent home is not in this world. The word is applicable to one who belongs to another country, and who is now merely passing through a foreign land, or sojourning there for a time. Compare the notes at Heb 11:13. The home of the child of God is heaven. Here he is in a strange - a foreign - land. He is to abide here but for a little time, and then to pass on to his eternal habitation. Hide not thy commandments from me - Make me to know them; keep them continually before me. In this strange land, away from my home, let me have the comfort of feeling that thy commands are ever with me to guide me; thy promises to comfort me. The feeling is that of one in a strange land who would desire, if possible, to keep up constant communications with his home - his family, his friends, his kindred there. On earth, the place of our sojourning - of our pilgrimage - the friend of God desires to have constant contact with heaven, his final home; not to be left to the desolate feeling that he is cut off from all contact with that world where he is forever to dwell.
This site's exposition
Deal bountifully with Your servant
on Psalms 119:17-24
He asks for open eyes to see wondrous things in the law, and calls himself a stranger on the earth. Then the trouble is named: rulers sit and slander him while he keeps meditating. The testimonies are his counselors when human counsel turns hostile.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
"Open Thou mine eyes, and I will consider wondrous things of Thy law" (ver. 18). What he addeth, "I am a lodger upon earth" (ver. 19): or, as some copies read, "I am a sojourner upon earth, O hide not Thy commandments from me," hath the same meaning. ...Here an important question ariseth respecting the soul. For the words, I am a sojourner, or lodger, or stranger upon earth, cannot seem to have been said in reference to the body, since the body derives its origin from the earth. ...But it pleaseth me more to discuss the question in accordance with this construction, that we say we are tenants or strangers upon earth, because we have found our country above, whence we have received a pledge, and where when we have arrived we shall never depart. ...Those whose conversation is in heaven, as far as they abide here conversant, are in truth strangers. Let them pray therefore that the commandments of God may not be hidden from them, whereby they may be freed from this temporary sojourn, by loving God, with whom they will be for evermore; and by loving their neighbour, that he may be there where they also themselves will be.
Our wish, you see, is to attain to eternal life. We wish to reach the place where nobody dies, but if possible we do not want to get there via death. We would like to be whisked away there while we are still alive and see our bodies changed, while we are alive, into that spiritual form into which they are to be changed when we rise again. Who wouldn't like that? Isn't it what everybody wants? But while that is what you want, you are told, Quit. Remember what you have sung in the psalm: "A lodger am I on earth." If you are a lodger, you are staying in someone else's house; if you are staying in someone else's house, you quit when the landlord bids you. And the landlord is bound to tell you to quit sooner or later, and he has not guaranteed you a long stay. After all, he did not sign a contract with you. Seeing that you are lodging with him for nothing, you quit when he tells you to. And this, too, has to be put up with, and for this, too, patience is very necessary.
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
); now here he pleads the earnestness of his desire for knowledge and grace, for it is the fervent prayer that avails much. His desire was importunate: My soul breaketh for the longing it hath to thy judgments, or (as some read it) " It is taken up, and wholly employed, in longing for thy judgments; the whole stream of its desires runs in this channel.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens+odd-straight-quotes
A stranger - I am not here as in my home, but as a pilgrim travelling homeward in a strange land. Commandments - Which are my chief support and guide in my pilgrimage.
I am a stranger in the earth,....
4 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century4 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
proposed
Life is desirable in order to serve God; that we may do so aright, we should seek to have our eyes opened to behold His truth, and earnestly desire fully to understand it.
"I am a stranger in the earth." This is meant for a plea. By divine command men are bound to be kind to strangers, and what God commands in others he will exemplify in himself. The Psalmist was a stranger for God's sake, else had he been as much at home as worldlings are: he was not a stranger to God, but a stranger to the world, a banished man so long as he was out of heaven. Therefore he pleads, "Hide not thy commandments from me." If these are gone, what have I else?
"I am a stranger in the earth." This is meant for a plea. By divine command men are bound to be kind to strangers, and what God commands in others he will exemplify in himself. The Psalmist was a stranger for God's sake, else had he been as much at home as worldlings are: he was not a stranger to God, but a stranger to the world, a banished man so long as he was out of heaven. Therefore he pleads, "Hide not thy commandments from me." If these are gone, what have I else? Since nothing around me is mine, what can I do if I lose thy word? Since none around me know or care to know the way to thyself, what shall I do if I fail to see thy commands, by which alone I can guide my steps to the land where thou dwellest? David implies that God's commands were his solace in his exile: they reminded him of home, and they showed him the way thither, and therefore he begged that they might never be hidden from him, by his being unable either to—understand them or to obey them. If spiritual light be withdrawn the command is hidden, and this a gracious heart greatly deprecates. What would be the use of opened eyes if the best object of sight were hidden from their view? While we wander here we can endure all the ills of this foreign land with patience if the word of God is applied to our hearts by the Spirit of God; but if the heavenly things which make for our peace were hid from our eyes we should be in an evil case,—in fact, we should be at sea without a compass, in a desert without a guide, in an enemy's country without a friend. This prayer is a supplement to "open thou mine eyes," and, as the one prays to see, the other deprecates the negative of seeing, namely, the command being hidden, and so out of sight. We do well to look at both sides of the blessing we are seeking, and to plead for it from every point of view.
I am a stranger in the earth - In the land. Being obliged to wander about from place to place, I am like a stranger even in my own country. If it refer to the captives in Babylon, it may mean that they felt themselves there as in a state of exile; for, although they had been seventy years in it, they still felt it as a strange land, because they considered Palestine their home.
The words behind it
7 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| גֵּ֣ר | ger | [am] a sojourner | H1616 → | 92 times |
| אָנֹכִ֣י | ʾanokhi | I | H595 → | 359 times |
| בָאָ֑רֶץ | vaaretz | on the earth | H776 → | 2504 times |
| אַל־ | ʾal- | may not | H408 → | 724 times |
| תַּסְתֵּ֥ר | taster | you hide | H5641 → | 80 times |
| מִ֝מֶּ֗נִּי | mimeni | from me | H4480 → | 1188 times |
| מִצְוֹתֶֽיךָ׃ | mitzvoteikha | commandments your | H4687 → | 181 times |
גֵּ֣ר[am] a sojourner
gerH1616 →92 times
אָנֹכִ֣יI
ʾanokhiH595 →359 times
בָאָ֑רֶץon the earth
vaaretzH776 →2504 times
אַל־may not
ʾal-H408 →724 times
תַּסְתֵּ֥רyou hide
tasterH5641 →80 times
מִ֝מֶּ֗נִּיfrom me
mimeniH4480 →1188 times
מִצְוֹתֶֽיךָ׃commandments your
mitzvoteikhaH4687 →181 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
1 Peter 2:11Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul.
it leads to
- Hebrews 11:13
All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the…
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- 1 John 2:15–17
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
- Galatians 5:24
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
- 1 Peter 4:2
Consequently, he does not live out his remaining time on earth for human passions, but for the will of God.
- Romans 8:13
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
- Hebrews 11:13
Through
Psalms 119:10With all my heart I have sought You; do not let me stray from Your commandments.
it leads to
- Psalms 119:34
Give me understanding that I may obey Your law, and follow it with all my heart.
- 2 Chronicles 15:15
And all Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn it with all their heart. They had sought Him earnestly, and He was found by them. So the LORD gave them rest on…
- Psalms 119:34
Through
Psalms 39:12Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. For I am a foreigner dwelling with You, a stranger like all my fathers.
it leads to
- Leviticus 25:23
The land must not be sold permanently, because it is Mine, and you are but foreigners and residents with Me.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Leviticus 25:23
Where this verse is studied
About Psalms
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 119; Augustine of Hippo, SERMON 359A.8; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 6; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.