I Have Gone Astray Like a Lost Sheep
161 Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words. 162 I rejoice at your word, as one who finds great plunder. 163 I hate and abhor falsehood. I love your law. 164 Seven times a day, I praise you, because of your righteous ordinances. 165 Those who love your law have great peace. Nothing causes them to stumble. 166 I have hoped for your salvation, Yahweh. I have done your commandments. 167 My soul has observed your testimonies. I love them exceedingly. 168 I have obeyed your precepts and your testimonies, for all my ways are before you. TAV 169 Let my cry come before you, Yahweh. Give me understanding according to your word. 170 Let my supplication come before you. Deliver me according to your word. 171 Let my lips utter praise, for you teach me your statutes. 172 Let my tongue sing of your word, for all your commandments are righteousness. 173 Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts. 174 I have longed for your salvation, Yahweh. Your law is my delight. 175 Let my soul live, that I may praise you. Let your ordinances help me. 176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I don’t forget your commandments.
A hundred and seventy-five verses about loving the law end with a man admitting he is lost and asking to be looked for.
Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words.
The fear is not of the princes.
I rejoice at your word, as one who finds great plunder.
The last of the psalm's comparisons to wealth, and it is the most vivid. Plunder is not earned or bought; it is come across, unexpectedly, in quantity, by someone who was not looking for it.
Seven times a day, I praise you Psalms 119:164.
Whether the number is literal or the usual figure for completeness, it describes a life organized around intervals.
Those who love your law have great peace. Nothing causes them to stumble.
The word is shalom and the claim is large. It is worth holding beside everything the psalm has already said about affliction, slander, persecution and eyes failing — the peace promised is evidently compatible with all of it.
171 Let my lips utter praise, for you teach me your statutes. 172 Let my tongue sing of your word, for all your commandments are righteousness.
The final stanza is entirely requests, eight of them, and most begin the same way. He is asking for the ability to do what he has been doing for a hundred and seventy verses.
Let my soul live, that I may praise you. Let your ordinances help me.
I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I don’t forget your commandments.
The last verse of the longest chapter in Scripture, and it is the one that makes the whole psalm honest.
After a hundred and seventy-five verses of loving the law, meditating on it day and night, keeping it before kings, memorizing it, weeping over those who break it and preferring it to gold — the man who wrote all that says he is lost. Not that he has forgotten the commandments; the same verse insists he has not. He knows exactly where the path is and he is not on it.
And what he asks for is not directions. A lost sheep cannot use them. He asks to be sought, which is the one thing that recovers an animal in that condition, and it is the last word the psalm has on the subject of the law: knowing it perfectly did not keep him from wandering, and what he needs at the end is a shepherd who will come out and look.
settled What this mark means