Psalm 119:124

I ain gonna tell you what octave we are going through in Psalm 119, as that should be obvious.

Psalms 119:124  Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes.

Let us begin by again defining the word mercy as this will shed light on the psalmist’s prayer.

Mercy - Forbearance and compassion shown by one person to another who is in his power and who has no claim to receive kindness; kind and compassionate treatment in a case where severity is merited or expected.

As in other places in Psalm 119, the psalmist when speaking to the Lord refers to himself as thy servant.  He served God so faithfully that he could say in verse 121 that he had “done judgment and justice.”  But a true servant of God, no matter how faithfully he serves, still recognizes his need of God’s mercy since the best service he can offer the Lord is flawed by his sinfulness and weakness.  Even though we serve the Lord the best that we can, we still have no claim to God’s kindness.  We deserve His severity instead.  And if the Lord dealt with us according to His severity, He would mark every flaw and condemn us for them.  It takes only one act of disobedience to constitute us as transgressors and deserving of God’s judgment.

James 2:10  For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

But, thanks be to God,

Psalms 103:10  He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

11    For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

Psalms 130:3  If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

4  But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

And remember that according to this octave the psalmist was undergoing oppression and that his eyes were failing for God’s salvation. In this low condition, he begged his God to deal with him according unto His mercy, something he certainly was not receiving at the hands of his oppressors.  Note above that mercy is defined as “kind and compassionate treatment.”  Compassion is “pity that inclines one to spare or to succour.”  The psalmist needed the Lord to pity him and to be moved by his distress so as to help and deliver him. 

So this brings me to an important conclusion.  Whether you are serving God as faithfully as you can, or whether you have sinned, or whether you are being oppressed by enemies, or whether you have reached a point of exhaustion in whatever you are doing or going through, the one thing you need most of all is the mercy of God.  A prayer for mercy is a prayer for something that will cover all the bases.  This prayer:  deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy is one of the most comprehensive prayers you can pray. 

Now the psalmist added this other request to his prayer that the Lord would deal with Him according unto His mercy:  teach me thy statutes.  We met with this request in verse 64 when the psalmist acknowledged that the earth “is full” of God’s mercy.  It is interesting how the thought of God’s mercy awakened within the psalmist a desire to learn his duty as laid down in the Scriptures.  Commenting on this verse Matthew Henry wrote:  “In difficult times we should desire more to be told what we must do than what we may expect….”  I cannot say it better.  Too often we want to know the outcome of our difficulty rather than our duty in our difficulty!  If you are learning your duty to God from His word, the Lord is dealing with you according unto His mercy, no matter how bad things are.  And you have much cause to be thankful, because this shows you to be one of God’s elect, one of “the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory” (Romans 9:23).  You have some good times ahead of you!