Psalms 119:57

OBSERVE the close connection between privilege and duty. "You are my portion, O Lord." This is an unspeakable happiness. "I have said that I would keep Your Words"—this is the fitting return for such a blessing. Every mercy given us by the Lord brings with it a claim which we ought, in gratitude, to recognize. Notice very carefully the order in which the privilege and the duty are arranged. The blessing of Grace is first and the fruit of gratitude next. The Grace given is the root and the resolve is the fruit growing out of it. It is not, "I have said that I would keep Your Words, that You may be my portion, O Lord." No, first the portion is enjoyed by faith and then the resolution is formed. "You are my portion, O Lord, I have You already in present possession. Therefore will I, as You shall help me, keep Your Words." Duty in order to privilege is the Law—God be thanked that we are not under it, for we should never obtain a single blessing thereby! But privilege in order to obedience is the Gospel—God grant that we may know the fullness of its power to sanctify our souls! The Lord must first be your portion before you will be able to keep His Words. How can a man keep what he has not received? Without God to be our portion, where will the strength come from to accomplish so difficult a duty as the keeping of God's Words? See to it, all of you, that you do not reverse the order! Do not, as the old proverb says, put the cart before the horse. Let all things come in their due course and keep due rank, for mischief comes of the wrong placing of things. First receive from Divine Grace until you can say, "You are my portion, O Lord," and then give forth, by daily service, what God has worked within, and say, "I will keep Your Words." Each possession not only involves service, but appropriate service, even as each plant bears it own flower.

In this section the Psalmist seems to take firm hold upon God himself; appropriating him (Psa 119:57), crying out for him (Psa 119:58), returning to him (Psa 119:59), solacing himself in him (Psa 119:61-62), associating with his people (Psa 119:63), and sighing for personal experience of his goodness (Psa 119:64). Note how the first verse of this octave is linked to the last of the former one, of which indeed it is an expanded repetition. "This I had because I kept thy precepts. Thou art my portion, O Lord: I have said that I would keep thy words."

Thou art my portion, O Lord - From the fifty-seventh to the sixtieth verse may be seen the progress of the work of grace on the human heart, from the first dawn of heavenly light till the soul is filled with the fullness of God. But as I consider this Psalm as notes selected from diaries of past experience, formed at different times; and that the author has been obliged, for the support of his acrostic plan, to interchange circumstances, putting that sometimes behind which in the order of grace comes before; because, to put it in its right place, the letters would not accord with the alphabetical arrangement; I shall therefore follow what I conceive to be its order in the connection of grace, and not in the order in which the words are here laid down. 119:57Sixthly. To keep himself firm in his present resolutions, he binds himself unto the Lord. “I have said that I would keep thy words.” Thy vows are upon me, and I must not add to my guilt by breaking them. Seventhly. He did not seek in vain; God reveals himself in the fullness of blessedness to him, so that he is enabled to exclaim, Thou art my portion, O Lord! My whole soul trusts in thee, my spirit rests supremely satisfied with thee. I have no other inheritance, nor do I desire any. Here then is the way to seek, the way to find, and the way to be happy. Other effects of this conversion may be seen below.

Thou art my portion, O Lord - This begins a new division of the psalm, indicated by the Hebrew letter Cheth (ח ch), which may be represented in English by “ch.” On the meaning of the language here, see the notes at Psa 16:5. God was to him what other people seek in wealth, honor, pleasure, fame. To him, God was all and in all. He asked nothing else. I have said - I have formed the purpose, and have expressed it. It is the deliberate and settled design of my life. That I would keep thy words - That I would obey thee at all times; that I would keep all thy commandments.