Psalm 119:73-80 י (Yod)
A journey through Psalm 119
Your hands have made and fashioned me;
give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.
Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word.
I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous,
and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.
Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant.
Let your mercy come to me, that I may live;
for your law is my delight.
Let the insolent be put to shame, because they have wronged me with falsehood;
as for me, I will meditate on your precepts.
Let those who fear you turn to me, that they may know your testimonies.
May my heart be blameless in your statutes,
that I may not be put to shame!
(ESV)
Made by God
Genesis 2 describes how God formed man from the dust of the earth. Isaiah expanded the metaphor by saying that God is the potter, and we are the clay—wholly designed by the Master. The psalmist echoed the image of being made and fashioned by God, adding that only He determines how we, as created beings, live best. The One who created us has the wisdom, authority, and desire to teach us how to live rightly.
Genesis portrays the way God breathed life into Adam with unique intimacy. Psalm 139 explores the significance of how personally God knows us, saying, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them“ (Psalm 139:16 ESV). Only humans were formed in His image—the imago Dei—and that distinction should strike us all with awe, wonder, and humility.
Spurgeon wrote,
Thy hands have made me and fashioned me. It is profitable to remember our creation, it is pleasant to see that the divine hand has had much to do with us, for it never moves apart from the divine thought. It excites reverence, gratitude, and affection towards God when we view him as our Maker, putting forth the careful skill and power of his hands in our forming and fashioning. He took a personal interest in us, making us with his own hands; he was doubly thoughtful, for he is represented both as making and moulding us. In both giving existence and arranging existence he manifested love and wisdom; and therefore we find reasons for praise, confidence, and expectation in our being and well being (3929).
When the psalmist wrote, “Give me understanding that I may learn your commandments“ (v. 73), he modeled how we should respond to knowing that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made“ (Psalm 139:14): with a longing to understand the Master’s ways through his commandments. The steadfast love of God comforts; the mercy of God brings life. We testify to those truths as we delight in the law, the revealed word of our Maker, just as the psalmist did.
Job provides a view of what can happen when trials make people forget the magnitude of God. When Job reached the limit of human understanding (not helped by his friends), he demanded to know why God allowed his suffering. God’s rebuke began with, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding“ (Job 38:4), and ended with, “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it“ (Job 40:2). Thoroughly humbled, Job recognized that he didn’t need to know why—only to know God in the middle of the darkness. Job responded, saying, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful, which I did not know“ (Job 42:3). Job’s posture ended with humility before God; the psalmist began there.
Molded by His Steadfast Love
However, choosing hope and meditation on the word while recognizing the superiority of God’s character does not mean a life without hardship or challenges. When the psalmist wrote, “in faithfulness you have afflicted me“ (v. 75), he confessed that hardships are not outside God’s faithful love. He asked to be comforted in difficulties, but not necessarily removed from them. Spurgeon noted that “Saints are sure about the rightness of their troubles, even when they cannot see the intent of them“ (3931). The psalmist recognized that sometimes formation comes through affliction, and asked to be comforted in it, rather than being immediately delivered from it. God’s mercy is enough for life, with all of its twists and turns. The psalmist desired understanding, mercy, and a blameless heart more than any material comfort.
In the midst of proud and insolent people who spread falsehood, the psalmist chose the testimony of the Lord. He knew that, eventually, those who wronged him would be judged according to the holy law of God. Rather than dwell on the falsehoods heaped upon him, he turned to knowing his Creator better. In that way, he could keep his heart tuned to the Lord, a posture that leads to righteousness and peace, even when life is hard.
We, too, can choose to receive the righteous and formative discipline of the Lord while refusing to allow the false accusations of the arrogant and the insolent to distract us. Spurgeon encouraged his readers to be of good cheer in the midst of trial, saying, “If the heart be sound in obedience to God, all is well, or will be well. If right at heart, we are right in the main” (3935). When we seek understanding, when we hope in God’s word, when the law is our delight, our hearts will be whole and we can rest in the steadfast love of the Lord. At the same time, our faithful endurance may serve to encourage those who are watching our lived-out testimony in real time.
Post from 2020:
Teachers know that every student learns a little differently. Some like to take copious lecture notes, while others prefer a hands-on discovery approach. Some work best alone in a quiet room; others thrive in a vibrant group activity. No approach is wrong, which is why the best teachers employ a variety of learning opportunities.
The God who created each of us while we were yet unborn knows best how we learn (Psalm 139). He allows our experiences to first teach us and then affords us the chance to use that learning to testify of Him.
How we respond to life matters. What we say and what we do becomes our testimony. The psalmist here wants to be an example of how God is magnified in our lives, but he knows that he can only be that example if he consistently trusts the Word of the Lord. He intends to spend his time meditating on the Lord’s precepts as he is comforted by God’s promise of steadfast love and mercy.
We who claim Jesus as savior would do well to imitate the psalmist. If we consistently meditate on the Word, we will learn what the Father wants us to know. Our testimony of His goodness will be made known by our responses to the world around us. Do we seek justly and love mercy (Micah 6:8)? Do we care for the orphans and widows in their distress (James 1:27)? Do we abound in love for each other (1 Thessalonians 3:12)?
If we continually walk in a manner worthy of our calling, we can know that our testimony is one that can be useful for teaching and leading others (Ephesians 4:1; Colossians 1:10). This time in our history seems to be an excellent time to make sure our testimony of God’s word is accurate, consistent, and compassionate (Hebrews 4:12; 1 Thessalonians 2:13).
Let us all be known by our love and grace.
A NOTE:
Psalm 119 is too rich and too vast to leave to my own thoughts. Six years ago I was content to share my personal responses as I navigated the events of the summer of 2020, but since then, I have learned to frame my responses in light of scholarship and thoughtful research.
Psalm 119 is also too rich and too vast to delve deeply into centuries of scholarship for anything less than a multi-volume publication, the scope of which is beyond a simple devotion on Substack. For this project, then, I have decided to limit my external references to a few trusted sources that will be listed in the “References and Resources” at the end of each article. Primarily, I will rely on the wisdom of Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s treatment of Psalm 119 in The Treasury of David: The Complete Seven Volumes, the NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, and Blue Letter Bible online for its translations. Bible Gateway has extensive resources and I will include those as I use them.
References and Resources
Blue Letter Bible. Sowing Circle, 1996–2025, www.blueletterbible.org. Accessed 13 Apr. 2026.
Coogan, Michael D., et al., editors. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 2018.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles, 2001. Bible Gateway, www.biblegateway.com.
The Holy Bible, Holman Christian Standard Bible. Holman Bible Publishers, 2015.
*Spurgeon, Charles H. The Treasury of David: The Complete Seven Volumes. Hendrickson Publishers, 2004. Kindle ed. (Note: A hard copy in three volumes is available here.)
Walton, John H., and Craig S. Keener, editors. NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. Zondervan, 2019. (Note: the NRSV is out of print, but the NIV is available here, and the NKJV here.)
*I cannot recommend this text highly enough. Each page’s wisdom demands reflection and return to the Scriptures.
Beautiful and instructive.