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Psalm 119:121-128

I have done what is just and right;
do not leave me to my oppressors.
Give your servant a pledge of good;
let not the insolent oppress me.
My eyes long for your salvation
and for the fulfilment of your righteous promise.
Deal with your servant according to your steadfast love,
and teach me your statutes.
I am your servant; give me understanding,
that I may know your testimonies!
It is time for the Lord to act,
for your law has been broken.
Therefore I love your commandments
above gold, above fine gold.
Therefore I consider all your precepts to be right;
I hate every false way.

There is something surprising about the first two lines of this section. It is the fact that they contain no reference to the Word of God. In that respect they are almost unique in the psalm, verse 84 being the only other exception. This omission is of course deliberate on the part of the psalmist because his purpose is to focus attention on deeds, and not on words. He begins by saying, 'I have done... ', and then refers to what his adversaries intend to do. Next he tells the Lord what he wants him to do and again repeats what his adversaries are likely to do (v. 122). God's word is mentioned in the third line, but what the psalmist wants is for the Lord to do what he has said. Divine action is also highlighted in verses 124, where 'deal' is a translation of the verb 'do'. The same emphasis is expressed strikingly in verse 126. The final two lines record what the psalmist will do. The emphasis in this octet is clearly on deeds, not words.

Putting verses 121 and 126 together yields the following thesis: when the effect of God's word declared and obeyed by his people is minimal, it is time for God to do something more. This is what we shall use as a theme for the study of this section.

The Lord’s Act

As it is the divine name that is used here (see Exod. 3:13-16), this identifies the kind of activity the psalmist has in view. He is thinking of God’s intervention as 'the Lord' in the exodus from Egypt. The work that is in view is salvation. It comprises both judgement of foes and mercy to his people. The psalmist is not thinking of either creation or providence, although it is only the one who created and who governs everything who could in fact be a saviour.

A kind of 'exodus' is therefore what the psalmist has in mind — but one that is to take place in Israel! Just as had happened in Egypt (Exod. 3:9), the 'insolent' in Israel 'oppress' the Lord’s servants (see vv. 122, 124, 125). They in effect say, 'Who is the Lord, that [we] should obey his voice?' (Exod. 5:2).

The Time

In verse 126 the psalmist is talking about the Lord and also to the Lord. In the first half of the line he speaks about the Lord, using the third person singular ('It is time for the Lord to act'); in the second half he addresses the Lord himself using the second person singular ('your', not 'his'). One seventeenth-century writer describes this as 'a polite suggestion', but it is hardly that, even with allowances being made for archaic language. The psalmist is being very bold and urgent, as he is in verse 84, which is also a request to God to act, and not only to speak!

In the course of his poem the psalmist has occasionally referred to others who fear the Lord (e.g. v. 63) and to himself as one who will instruct them (see v. 79). Here he is to be regarded as speaking to them and telling them the time. He is instructing them as to the severity of the situation, giving the reason for it, namely that God's covenant law has been annulled. The ESV translation needs to be stronger at this point. Although it is verbally accurate, its terms are too innocuous. What the psalmist is identifying is not that a specific command has been transgressed, or even several commands, but that the covenant itself has been broken (see Isa. 24:5; Jer. 11:10). He is telling those who know the Lord that they are living in a time of apostasy, and he wants all who fear the Lord to know it. Peter, John and Paul, the apostles of the Lord, do the same thing (see 2 Peter 3:1-7; 1 John 2:18-27; 1 Tim. 4:1-5; 2 Tim. 3:1-9). ‘Seasons’ of decline in the church and abounding evil in the world occur in that interval between the Lord’s two comings which the New Testament identifies as 'the last days'. In such circumstances it is vital for Christians to know the time!

But he is also talking to the Lord because he did not write the consonants for 'his law' but 'your law'. It is as though an army of awakened intercessors has now been mobilized and they are telling the Lord the time and calling on him to act. The expression used here does not mean that it is time for them to act for the Lord. That has been done by them, and by the psalmist, but the tide has not turned. The hour is late and the Lord needs to act. He is to be given no rest (Isa. 62:6-7; Luke 11:5-13). The psalmist longs for this deliverance (v. 123) and wants others to do so as well.

It was in this way that the 'true church' of the psalmist's day addressed the Lord in time of difficulty. They called on him as their forefathers did in Egypt (see also, for example, Ps. 78 – 80; Jer. 14:7-9, 19-22; Dan. 9). They did so with amazing boldness, calling on him to 'awake' and 'arise' ('wake' and 'get up'); to open his eyes and see; to open his ears and hear; to remember; to unfold his arms (cf. Ps. 74). The Lord does not mind being spoken to like this provided that it is his believing servants who are doing so in desperate times. The church at Jerusalem did much the same using Psalm 2 (see Acts 4:23-31). The Lord Jesus Christ instructed his disciples to address their heavenly Father like this by means of the second and third petitions of the Lord’s Prayer:

Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven -- (Matt. 6:10).

The Exodus is the paradigm for the Christian salvation (Exod. 3:19-20; 6:6-8; Luke 1:51-55, 71-75; 9:31; Rev. 15:3). It is also the promise of intervention by the Lord to deliver his people from their foes in times of reformation and revival, which themselves are foretastes of heaven itself.

The Lord’s Timing

A great clash is pending in the psalmist’s time. It is between those who, like him, have been doing what is just and right (v. 121) and the insolent, who have been doing evil (v. 115), rejecting the covenant (v. 126). The psalmist senses the approach of a point where the scales will be tipped in favour of injustice and unrighteousness. In verse 122 he uses an analogy from the law courts to describe this. It is as though he is being sued at law for unpaid debt and has no one to stand surety for him with regard to it, no one who would guarantee to pay in the event of his failure (see Prov. 11:15) and thus keep him out of prison, or from something worse.

Implicit in the kind of request that the psalmist is making for divine action, by way of a guarantee of legal immunity and protection (v. 122), fulfilment of a promise (v. 123), manifestation of covenant love (v. 124) and judgement of foes (v. 126), is a recognition that it is the Lord who decides whether and when to intervene. What may seem to his people to be 'the time' for him to act may not be so to him, for reasons best known to him, the one for whom a 'late' hour is never too late.

But the psalmist does not conclude this section with the magnificent request that we have been examining. Instead he ends it as he began, with a declaration of what he will do while he is waiting for an answer. He began by saying what he had done and he concludes by saying what he will do. He does not stop working because he starts praying. While he knows that divine intervention alone will meet the situation, he does not give up persevering in obedience. In fact what he says in the last two lines describes the very essence of true obedience. He speaks of 'love' that includes a practical, as distinct from a theoretical, understanding, one that has a moral effect, without which there is no fulfilling of the law (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37; Rom. 13:8-10). Gold was regarded as the most valuable commodity at this time, but even gold could vary in quality. 'Fine gold' was the most rare kind, and consequently the most precious. But God’s revelation of himself in his word surpasses it by far. Nothing therefore should replace God’s word in the estimate of his people, and they should long for its fulfilment.