John Calvin Commentary Psalms 119:83

"For I am become like a wine-skin in the smoke; Yet do I not forget thy statutes." — Psalms 119:83 (ASV)

For I have been as a bottle in the smoke. The particle כי, ki, translated for, might also, appropriately, be resolved into the adverb of time, when; so that we might read the verse in one connected sentence, thus: When I was like a dried bottle, I, nevertheless, did not forget thy law. The obvious design of the Psalmist is to teach us that, although he had been tested by severe trials and wounded to the quick, he still had not been drawn away from the fear of God.

In comparing himself to a bottle or bladder, he intimates that he was, as it were, parched by the continual heat of adversities. From this we learn that the sorrow must have been intense that reduced him to such a state of wretchedness and emaciation that, like a shriveled bottle, he was almost dried up.

It appears, however, that he intends to point out not only the severity of his affliction but also its lingering nature; he was tormented, as it were, at a slow fire, just as the smoke that proceeds from heat dries bladders by slow degrees. The prophet experienced a long series of griefs that, due to their protracted and lingering nature, might have consumed him a hundred times, had he not been sustained by the word of God. In short, it is a genuine evidence of true godliness when, although plunged into the deepest afflictions, we still do not cease to submit ourselves to God.