Psalm 119:21
(This is an entry from a devotional commentary I am working on from Psalm 119 entitled God and His Word. The introduction can be found here, successive entries have covered the 22 sections of the Psalm, and following entries verse by verse.)
"You rebuke the arrogant, the cursed,
Who wander from Your commandments."
Wandering is far from innocuous, it is dangerous. It ignores the realities of this life and the next. It assumes that the default is good and man’s heart is naturally good. Yet, so many seem so inoculated to the danger. In what way do You rebuke them? To wander is to be arrogant and cursed. Proverbs 1:32-33, Psalm 73:18 open our eyes to the reality. ‘Prone to wander, Lord I feel it’ (from the hymn ‘Come Thou Fount’). The Psalmist ends Psalm 119 with this concern: ‘"I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, For I do not forget Your commandments." (Psalms 119:176). You mercifully answer this prayer through the life giving reproof (Proverbs 15:31) of affliction (see vv. 67, 71).
‘Here is, 1. The wretched character of wicked people. The temper of their minds is bad. They are proud; they magnify themselves above others. And yet that is not all: they magnify themselves against God, and set up their wills in competition with and opposition to the will of God, as if their hearts, and tongues, and all, were their own… 2. The wretched case of such. They are certainly cursed, for God resists the proud [1 Peter 5:5-6]; and those that throw off the commands of the law lay themselves under its curse (Gal 3:10), and he that now beholds them afar off will shortly say to them, Go, you cursed. The proud sinners bless themselves; God curses them.’[1]
‘God rebukes pride even when the multitudes pay homage to it, for he sees in it rebellion against his own majesty, and the seeds of yet further rebellions.’[2]
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