Psalm 119:17 | “Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word.”

The gimel stanza opens with a humble and urgent prayer. The psalmist asks the Lord to “deal bountifully” with him. In the Psalter, this language often carries the sense of gracious preservation and deliverance. He is not demanding a reward. He is pleading for mercy. By calling himself God’s servant, he speaks from a posture of dependence. He belongs to the Lord and relies entirely upon his care. Matthew Henry wisely observes, “If God deals in strict justice with us, we die, we perish, we all perish; if these forfeited lives be preserved and prolonged, it is because God deals bountifully with us, according to his mercy, not according to our deserts. The continuance of the most useful life is owing to God’s bounty, and on that we must have a continual dependence.” The psalmist understands that life itself is a gift of mercy. Yet he does not ask merely to survive. He asks to live “and keep your word.” His request for preservation has a purpose. Deliverance leads to obedience. For him, to live truly is to know and keep God’s commands. Life apart from obedience is not life at all.