I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.
I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel - so as to know, and will to choose, the "goodly heritage" (Psalms 16:6; taking 'the Lord for the portion of mine inheritance' (Psalms 16:5).
My reins also instruct me in the night seasons. The "reins" mean whatever is hidden within man-the inmost thoughts and feelings (Psalms 7:9). The Hebrew verb for "instruct" х yicruwniy (H3256)] means, literally, to chastise. God, by His Spirit, made the distressing thoughts within the Psalmist's breast tend to his subjecting his will to God's "counsel," and so to his disciplinary amendment. Affliction, through God's Word and God's Spirit sanctifying it, became the Psalmist's instructor.
In the night seasons - literally, 'in the nights.' The plural expresses the continued repetition of the instruction night by night. The Antitype, Christ, as the servant of God for man's sake, received the Father's instruction by chastening in afflictions "morning by morning" (Isaiah 50:4-6) so as to be our sympathizing high priest. Compare, also, John 21:49 ; the Son was guided entirely by the Father's "counsel" in the work of redemption. His whole life was one continued bowing of His human will to the Father's (John 4:34; John 6:38). Night was the season of Christ's closest communion with the Father (Mark 1:35; Mark 6:47), and also of His most poignant affliction in Gethsemane (Luke 22:53). It is the season when the believer, too, can, amidst the general stillness, commune with his own soul, and receive the inward instruction designed by God to be drawn from afflictions (Psalms 4:4; Psalms 2:10).