Psalms 119:29,30 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

Remove from me the way of lying Hebrew, דרךְ שׁקר, dereech sheker, the way of falsehood or deceit, of guile or dissimulation. Let me neither practise it myself, nor countenance, nor be deceived by it in others. The LXX. render it, οδον αδικιας, the way of unrighteousness. “It is plain,” says Dr. Horne, “that the way of truth, in the latter of these two verses, is opposed to the way of lying, or of falsehood, in the former. The one comprehends every thing in doctrine and practice that is right, and therefore true; the other denotes every thing which is wrong, and therefore false. Of these two ways man hath his choice. God points out to him the former by his word, and offers to conduct him in it by his Spirit. Satan shows him the latter, and endeavours to seduce him into it by his temptations. The psalmist declares himself to have chosen God's way, and to have laid the Scriptures before him, as the chart by which to direct his course. He therefore prays that the other way may be far removed from him; and that God would vouchsafe him such thorough acquaintance with the way of truth as might prevent him from ever wandering into the path of error. How much depends upon the road we choose! How difficult is it, in a divided and distracted world, to choose aright! Yet this choice, so important, so difficult, frequently remains to be made by us, when we have neither judgment to choose, nor strength to travel!”

Psalms 119:29-30

29 Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously.

30 I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me.