Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 119:99

"I have more understanding than all my teachers; For thy testimonies are my meditation." — Psalms 119:99 (ASV)

I have more understanding than all my teachers - This perhaps refers to those who had given him instruction in early life. By constant meditation on the law of God, he had, over the years, advanced to a point beyond what they had reached.

He had improved upon their suggestions and instructions until he had surpassed them in knowledge. His design in saying this was to set forth the excellence and the fullness of the law of God, and to show how its study was suited to enlarge the understanding. In early life, the wisdom of teachers often seems far beyond anything we can hope to reach; yet a few years of study and meditation may place us far beyond them.

What those teachers seemed to be to us when we were young, however, may continually serve as a means of comparison when we wish to speak of the greatness of human attainments. So the psalmist says that he had now reached a point that seemed wonderful to him in early life, and beyond what he had then hoped ever to attain.

He had now reached that point; he had gone beyond it.

For thy testimonies are my meditation - (2 Timothy 3:15). All this knowledge he had obtained by meditation on the law of God, by the study of divine truth. The effect of that constant study was seen in the knowledge he now possessed, which seemed to surprise even himself when compared with the brightest anticipations of his early years.