+I. The thing to be done.+ The Word of God is to talk with us. A man's character is obviously much influenced by his habitual talk. Sentiments received in conversation powerfully affect the mind. . . . The idea of dealing with the Holy Scripture as a conversible companion is implied in the very name, "The Word of God," and in the statement that "God, who in sundry times, and in divers manners, _spoke_ to the Fathers, by the prophets, has _spoken_ to us by His son" (Heb. i. 1). 1. _The Word of God will talk to us instructively._ No part is addressed to mere speculation or curiosity. It has always in view the object of furnishing the mind with that which shall be useful in the highest sense, and for the longest duration. 2. _It will talk without flattery._ Our best friends seldom dare to tell us all that is thought of us. But the Word of God tells us what we actually are, and where our faults and danger lie. 3. _It will talk with us affectionately._ "Faithful are the wounds of a friend," yet they may be "wounds" after all, to minds too susceptible. But there is a depth of love even in the sternest rebukes of the Word of God. +II. The particular time when the Word of God may talk with us.+ "When thou wakest." 1. _To forewarn us._ Every day is a little life, and who can say what the coming hour may bring forth. 2. _To fore-arm us._ There is not an hour in which some temptation may not present itself, or some principle be severely tried. A spiritual armour is therefore necessary, while a part of that armour, which is indispensable, is "the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God" (Eph. vi. 17). 3. _To pre-occupy us._ "How is it," said a friend to a learned physician, "that amidst such employment and continual exercise of mind you preserve such unruffled tranquillity?" "It is," said he, "because I give the first hour of every morning to the Holy Scriptures and to prayer." Much benefit may well be expected from a pre-occupation of the mind and heart, so entirely consonant to the whole tenor of man's relations to his Maker and perpetual benefactor.--_Bullar._ Observe three benefits of keeping instruction, and in each the fit time and the act. A man walking, needs a guide; sleeping, needs a watchman; awaking, needs a friend to talk with him.--_Francis Taylor._ Verse 23. The reproofs of the law may alarm and terrify, but they are not to be less valued on that account. The threatenings of hell guard the way to heaven, and strongly urge us to keep the King's highway, the only way of safety.--_Lawson._ The parallelism with Psalm cxix. 105, deserves special notice. The alliteration, "the law is light," like the Vulgate, "lex, lux," reproduces a corresponding _paronomasia_ in the Hebrew.--_Plumptre._