Psalms 119:66

"Teach me good judgment and knowledge." Again he begs for teaching, as in verse 64, and again he uses God's mercy as an argument. Since God had dealt well with him, he is encouraged to pray for judgment to appreciate the Lord's goodness. Good judgment is the form of goodness which the godly man most needs and most desires, and it is one which the Lord is most ready to bestow.

WHEN the Psalmist wrote these words, he was contemplating the goodness of God. In the verse preceding our text, the 64th, he sang, "The earth, O Jehovah, is full of Your mercy!" as if he could not walk abroad without seeing evidences of it, or look upward, or backward, or around him, without everywhere perceiving the Omnipresent goodness of the Most High. Whatever season of the year it is in which we take our walks abroad into the field of Nature, we ought to be in such a condition of mind and heart as to see proofs of the fullness of God's love everywhere around us, but especially, I think, it should be so in these summer months when the fields are ripening toward the harvest and we see how God is fulfilling His ancient Covenant, "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." How thankful we ought to be that the Lord thus remembers the earth and makes it bring forth the corn and everything else that is necessary to supply the needs of men! So let us bless God that the earth is still full of His mercy. Is our own life in the same condition, or are we strangers to the goodness of God? Is there mercy all around us, yet none for us? Well, let others answer these questions as they may, there are many here present who can reply most emphatically, "No, the earth is full of God's mercy and we can, each one of us, say to Him, 'You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord.' Though You have had so many others of Your creatures to care for, You have not forgotten poor me. Though I am but the merest atom, dwelling in a world which is, itself, nothing more than a speck when compared with the innumerable worlds that throng Your universe, yet You have not failed to let Your mercy come to me, even to me." I have sometimes lighted upon a little flower right in the depths of the forest glades.

WHEN the Psalmist wrote these words, he was contemplating the goodness of God. In the verse preceding our text, the 64th, he sang, "The earth, O Jehovah, is full of Your mercy!" as if he could not walk abroad without seeing evidences of it, or look upward, or backward, or around him, without everywhere perceiving the Omnipresent goodness of the Most High.

"Teach me good judgment and knowledge." Again he begs for teaching, as in verse 64, and again he uses God's mercy as an argument. Since God had dealt well with him, he is encouraged to pray for judgment to appreciate the Lord's goodness. Good judgment is the form of goodness which the godly man most needs and most desires, and it is one which the Lord is most ready to bestow. David felt that he had frequently failed in judgment in the matter of the Lord's dealings with him: from want of knowledge he had misjudged the chastening hand of the heavenly Father, and therefore he now asks to be better instructed, since he perceives the injustice which he had done to the Lord by his hasty conclusions. He means to say—Lord, thou didst deal well with me when I thought thee hard and stern, be pleased to give me more wit, that I may not a second time think so ill of my Lord. A sight of our errors and a sense of our ignorance should make us teachable. We are not able to judge, for our knowledge is so sadly inaccurate and imperfect; if the Lord teaches us knowledge we shall attain to good judgment, but not otherwise. The Holy Ghost alone can fill us with light, and set the understanding upon a proper balance: let us ardently long for his teachings, since it is most desirable that we should be no longer mere children in knowledge and understanding. "For I have believed thy commandments." His heart was right, and therefore he hoped his head would be made right. He had faith, and therefore he hoped to receive wisdom. His mind had been settled in the conviction that the precepts of the word were from the Lord, and were therefore just, wise, kind, and profitable; he believed in holiness, and as that belief is no mean work of grace upon the soul, he looked for yet further operations of divine grace.

Teach me good judgment and knowledge - טוב טעם ודעי למדני tob taam vedaath lammnedeni. Teach me (to have) a good taste and discernment. Let me see and know the importance of Divine things, and give me a relish for them.

Teach me good judgment - The word here rendered “judgment” means, properly, “taste,” that power by which we determine the quality of things as sweet, bitter, sour, etc. Then it is applied to the mind or understanding, as that by which we determine the moral quality of things, or decide what is right or wrong; wise or foolish; good or evil. Here it means that he desired to have in full exercise the faculty of appreciating what is right, and of distinguishing it from what is wrong. And knowledge - Knowledge of the truth; knowledge of thy will; knowledge of duty. For I have believed thy commandments - I have confided in thy commandments. He believed that such a keeping of the law of God would be connected with a correct view of things. The keeping of the commands of God is one of the best means of growing in true knowledge, and of cultivating the understanding; of promoting a just taste or perception of what is true, and of developing the powers of the soul in the best proportions. Compare Joh 7:17.