Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies:
For they are ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers:
For thy testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the ancients,
Because I keep thy precepts (Psa 119.98-100).
He is not boasting arrogantly who, celebrating his gifts, rightly credits them to their source. Humility is not denying the blessings you obviously have, but acknowledging God’s grace in them. Paul argues this way with the Corinthians, undeniably endowed. This was a congregation of wealthy Christians in both earthly and heavenly assets. Paul begins his first epistle to them with a declaration of this, accentuating the spiritual as most important.
I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come behind in no gift (1 Cor 1.4-7a).
Notice the apostle’s strong insistence that their good things were not theirs inherently or naturally, but only possessed as from God, in the character of gifts not rewards, grace gifts, freely granted to the Corinthians despite their miserable sins and guilt, and attained for them only through the personal merit and atoning work of Jesus Christ, the worthy Lord sacrificed for them, and alone richly deserving eternal life and every blessing.
Those God enriches most are exposed to strong temptations toward pride if they forget these truths. Paul expresses this very pastoral concern for the Corinthians, reproving their encroaching arrogance, and reasoning that they were beginning to forget, in the words of the doxology, to “praise God from whom all blessings flow.”
For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? (1 Cor 4.7).
Believers, all unsearchably rich in Christ (Eph 3.8; 2.7), must maintain the spirit of Jacob who said to the Lord, “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou has showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands” (Gen 32.10). He confesses that he started with nothing and deserved nothing, and that all his wealth and spiritual knowledge was from God through grace.
Such introductory remarks help us to expound Psalm 119.98-100, for the modern reader is apt to form an adverse judgment of the human author, as if he deserves censure for pride in emphasizing the greatness of his wisdom. However, upon a careful reading of his exact words in their entire biblical context, it becomes clear that this is a false charge. David is looking away from himself to the Fount of highest wisdom, and praising God alone wise (Rom 16.27; 1 Tim 1.17; Jude 25).
This humble worshiper is not glorying in his wisdom, but in the Author of that wisdom. This truly wise man exults in the grace of God and its means, even his written Word. The psalmist knew that if God were to leave us to ourselves, we would all deserve the name “Nabal,” for folly is with us (1 Sam 25.25; cf. Prov 29.15). The gospel of Jesus Christ exposes the poverty of man’s “wisdom,” and brings it to nothing. Even the “foolishness” of God is wiser than men (1 Cor 1.19-25)!
We are taking three verses for our text because they are best considered in relation to each other.
MY SUPERIOR WISDOM (119.98a, 99a, 100a)
In a most reverent and sober confession made directly to God in prayer, the psalmist says, “I am wiser than my enemies. . . . I have more understanding than all my teachers. . . . I understand more than the ancients.” The threefold form intensifies this declaration. To put it bluntly, he is saying, “I am very, very, very wise and understanding, with exceptionally great and spiritual discernment.” Of course this was true, as he wrote prophetically under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit who inspired the very words.
Notice also the evident progression in his comparisons: my enemies, all my teachers, the ancients—each representing ever greater wisdom. His enemies were immoral fools, but it was still a great mercy that David was not spiritually like them. A much wiser group was his teachers, and he is not content to state that he is wiser than some of them, but includes them all. All my teachers, even taken together, have less wisdom than I find myself possessing. As if this were not sufficient to convey the greatness of his spiritual light, he proceeds to compare even “the ancients” unfavorably.
By the ancients we are not to understand persons who lived and died a long time ago, but persons still living, venerable for their age and opportunities of gaining wisdom (Plumer, in loc.).
We must appreciate that in those days and in that culture, the elderly were greatly respected as generally wise above all others (Job 15.9-10; 32.6-7).
By these three groups, David seems to be identifying merely human wisdom, even in its highest degree. He is not denying that his teachers and the wise elders may, too, like him, have divine wisdom, but stressing rather the inferiority of merely human wisdom to that which is divine. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are all fools in comparison to this.
THY GREAT GIFTS TO ME (119.98b, 99b, 100b)
David’s doctrine here of acquiring superior wisdom can be stated simply in three points.
1) God is the source and cause.
2) Scripture is the means.
3) Personal appropriation is the condition.
A knowledge of these truths opens before us the door to superior wisdom and beckons us to follow David’s worthy example.
GOD THE SOURCE AND CAUSE OF SUPERIOR WISDOM
“Thou hast made me wiser.” He praises God as the Author of superior wisdom, and also as the effectual cause of it.
Here is an implicit confession of natural, personally folly, and of utter dependence upon sovereign grace. It is as if he were praying, “Lord, before you found me, I was totally ignorant, in complete spiritual and moral darkness, but you took me just as I was, undeserving and arrogant, and you opened my eyes to behold the truth. You gave me a deep hunger and thirst for righteousness.
You worked in me so powerfully that I was changed from one stubborn and unbelieving into a teachable, reverent soul, and ever since that first gracious turning, you have been leading me by the hand ever higher into the secret counsels of your infinite and glorious wisdom.”
This doctrine, truly believed, powerfully chops down the mighty tree of carnal pride and makes a platform for God’s praise out of its planks.
SCRIPTURE THE MEANS OF SUPERIOR WISDOM
How did God make the psalmist so divinely wise? Our Creator and Redeemer is certainly “free to work without, above, and against [means] at his pleasure,” but “in his ordinary providence [he] maketh use of means” (1689 LBCF V.3), that is, “an agent or method for achieving a result” (POED). Further, “the grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is . . . ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word” (1689 LBCF XIV.1).
Spiritual wisdom, then, comes “through thy commandments,” “thy testimonies,” and “thy precepts,” all sundry labels for Scripture, the constant theme of Psalm 119. Those without Scripture are doomed to continue lacking the divine wisdom of which the psalmist wrote, for, along with saving faith, this wisdom “cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom 10.17). Oh, how exuberant should be our praise that God has entrusted us with his Word, while others remain in darkness! And how urgent our prayers and compassionate efforts to spread his Word to the four corners of the world!
PERSONAL APPROPRIATION THE CONDITION OF SUPERIOR WISDOM
By itself, access to Scripture does not make one wise. There absolutely must be a personal appropriation to one’s own heart and life. We must seize the gold, behold the light, consume the food, and arise to follow the map with its marked-out path to from shame to glory. Some sadly go bankrupt within Fort Knox, shut their eyes and stumble at noon, starve in a supermarket, and get even more lost in self-confident journeying.
David thankfully recounts to God’s praise that “thy commandments are ever with me, . . . thy testimonies are my meditation, . . . [and] I keep thy precepts.” He links his progress in divine wisdom with his personal appropriation of God’s truth—not only intellectually, but in practical application. “I understand more than the ancients, BECAUSE I keep thy precepts.” No personal merit whatsoever is in view. The teaching is rather that we must have Scripture, meditate on Scripture, and obey Scripture, if we would expect to grow in the wisdom from heaven. Without any of these we remain God’s foolish enemies.
This calls us to behold our God and examine ourselves in relation to him. God is the fount of highest wisdom. Scripture is the life-giving flow. Come to the stream and drink, and you will have superior wisdom! Then you, too, can boast in God’s grace to the unworthy. Amen.
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