1 Blessed the perfect in [their] way, Who walk in the law of Jehovah! 2 Blessed they who keep His testimonies, That seek Him with the whole heart, 3 [Who] also have done no iniquity, [But] have walked in His ways! 4 Thou hast commanded Thy precepts, That we should observe them diligently. 5 O that my ways were established To observe Thy statutes! 6 Then shall I not be ashamed, When I give heed to all Thy commandments. 7 I will thank Thee with uprightness of heart, When I learn Thy righteous judgments. 8 Thy statutes will I observe; Forsake me not utterly. The first three verses are closely connected. They set forth in general terms the elements of the blessedness of the doers of the Law. To walk in it--_i.e._, to order the active life in conformity with its requirements--ensures perfectness. To keep God's testimonies is at once the consequence and the proof of seeking Him with whole-hearted devotion and determination. To walk in His ways is the preservative from evil-doing. And such men cannot but be blessed with a deep sacred blessedness, which puts to shame coarse and turbulent delights, and feeds its pure fires from God Himself. Whether these verses are taken as exclamation or declaration, they lead up naturally to ver. 4, which reverently gazes upon the loving act of God in the revelation of His will in the Law, and bethinks itself of the obligations bound on us by that act. It is of God's mercy that He has commanded, and His words are meant to sway our wills, since He has broken the awful silence, not merely to instruct us, but to command; and nothing short of practical obedience will discharge our duties to His revelation. So the psalmist betakes himself to prayer, that he may be helped to realise the purpose of God in giving the Law. His contemplation of the blessedness of obedience and of the Divine act of declaring His will moves him to longing, and his consciousness of weakness and wavering makes the longing into prayer that his wavering may be consolidated into fixity of purpose and continuity of obedience. When a man's ways are established to observe, they will be established by observing, God's statutes. For nothing can put to the blush one whose eye is directed to these. "Whatever record leap to light, He never shall be shamed."