129 Wonderful are Thy testimonies, Therefore my soul keeps them. 130 The opening of Thy words gives light, It gives understanding to the simple. 131 My mouth did I open wide, and panted, For I longed for Thy commandments. 132 Turn to me and be gracious to me, According to the right of those who love Thy name. 133 Establish my steps by Thy promise, And let not iniquity lord it over me. 134 Redeem me from the oppression of men, That I may observe Thy precepts. 135 Cause Thy face to shine upon Thy servant, And teach me Thy statutes. 136 My eyes run down [in] streamlets of water, Because men observe not Thy law. Devout souls do not take offence at the depths and difficulties of God's word, but are thereby drawn to intenser contemplation of them. We weary of the Trivial and Obvious. That which tasks and outstrips our powers attracts. But the obscurity must not be arbitrary, but inherent, a clear obscure, like the depths of a pure sea. These wonderful testimonies give light, notwithstanding, or rather because of, their wonderfulness, and it is the simple heart, not the sharpened intellect, that penetrates furthest into them and finds light most surely (ver. 130). Therefore the psalmist longs for God's commandments, like a wild creature panting open-mouthed for water. He puts to shame our indifference. If his longing was not excessive, how defective is ours! Ver. 132, like ver. 122, has no distinct allusion to the Law, though the word rendered in it "right" is that used in the psalm for the Law considered as "judgments." The prayer is a bold one, pleading what is justly due to the lovers of God's name. Kay appropriately quotes "God is not _unrighteous_ to forget your work and labour of _love_, which ye have showed towards His _name_" (Heb. vi. 10). One would have expected "Law" instead of "name" in the last word of the verse, and possibly the conception of Law may be, as it were, latent in "name," for the latter does carry in it imperative commandments and plain revelations of duty. God's Name holds the Law in germ. The Law is but the expansion of the meaning of the Name. "Promise" in ver. 133 (lit. saying) must be taken in a widened sense, as including all God's revealed will. The only escape from the tyranny of sin is to have our steps established by God's word, and His help is needed for such establishment. Rebellion against sin's dominion is already victory over it, if the rebel summons God's heavenly reinforcements to his help. It is a high attainment to desire deliverance from men, chiefly in order to observe, unhindered, God's commandments (ver. 134). And it is as high a desire to seek the light of God's face mainly as the means of seeing His will more clearly. The psalmist did not merely wish for outward prosperity or inward cheer and comfort, but that these might contribute to fulfilling