Psalms 119:4 - Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary

If we accept the word precepts in the first and most obvious sense of it, the diligent attention to the commandments of God will be, living to Christ. For when the Jews demanded of our Lord what they must do, that they might work the works of God? the Lord Jesus gave this answer, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent, John 6:28-29. Faith in God's Christ is the foundation for right obedience to his precepts, Hebrews 11:6. But I rather conceive, that as the word precepts is derived from a root signifying a superintending or visiting, it refers to that act of a gracious soul, that is always on the look-out for the visits of Jesus in the influences of his Spirit. Here it may well be supposed that we are commanded to be diligent! here it may well be said by gracious souls, when visited and refreshed in the renewed tokens of Jesus's love: Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness, Psalms 119:40. But this could never be Said of the moral or ceremonial law of Moses!