Charles Spurgeon Commentary Psalms 119:22

"Take away from me reproach and contempt; For I have kept thy testimonies." — Psalms 119:22 (ASV)

Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept your testimonies.

O Lord, do not permit men to believe lies and slanders against me, or if they do, let my conscience sustain my courage by the consciousness that I have kept your testimonies.

Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept your testimonies.

He had lived honestly and uprightly, and yet people slandered him.

Was there ever a person on earth, who was good and true, who was not slandered?

God himself was slandered in paradise by the old serpent, and the Lord Jesus was constantly being slandered by wicked people. So, can any of us hope to escape the venomous tongue of the slanderer?

Yet it is very painful, and we may well pray to be delivered from it, especially if we can add, with the psalmist, for I have kept your testimonies.

Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept thy testimonies.

A man who does that is pretty sure to be reproached and despised by others; for they think that one who follows God faithfully "is very old-fashioned, he has not much spirit, he has not drunk in the philosophy of the age, he is a fossilized Christian," and so on. Well, we can bear all such reproach: still are we truly glad when we escape it.