John Calvin Commentary Psalms 119:98

"Thy commandments make me wiser than mine enemies; For they are ever with me." — Psalms 119:98 (ASV)

You have made me wiser than my adversaries. He here declares that he was more learned than his adversaries, his instructors, and the aged, because he was a scholar of God’s law. It is in a different sense that he describes himself as endowed with understanding above his adversaries, from that in which he describes himself as wiser than his teachers.

He surpassed his enemies because their cunning and artifices were of no use to them when they employed these to the fullest extent to effect his destruction. The malice of the wicked is always spurring them on to do harm; and as they are often artful and deceitful, we are afraid for fear that our simplicity would be exploited by their deceits, unless we use the same crafts and deceitful methods which they practice.

Accordingly, the prophet glories that he found in God’s law enough to enable him to escape all their snares. When he claims the credit of being superior in knowledge to his instructors, he does not mean to deny that they also had learned from the word of God what was useful to know.

But he gives God thanks for enabling him to surpass, in proficiency, those from whom he had learned the first elements of knowledge. Nor is it anything new for the scholar to excel his master, as God distributes to each person the measure of understanding. The faithful, it is true, are instructed by the efforts and labor of men, but in such a way that God is still to be regarded as the one enlightening them.

And this is why the scholar surpasses the master; for God means to show, so to speak, with his finger, that he uses the service of men in such a way that he himself still continues as the chief teacher. Let us therefore learn to commit ourselves to his instruction, that we may glory with David, that by his guidance we have gone further than human instruction could lead us.

He adds the same thing respecting the aged, to further confirm his statement. Age is very helpful in refining, by long experience and practice, men who, by nature, are dull and unrefined. Now the prophet asserts that he had acquired, through the Divine Law, more discretion than aged men possess.

In short, he means to affirm that whoever submits himself teachably to God, keeps his thoughts subject to his word, and diligently exercises himself in meditating on the Law, will derive from it sufficient wisdom. This wisdom will enable him to ensure his own safety against the stratagems of his enemies, to exercise the necessary watchfulness to escape their deceits, and finally, to equal the most eminent masters throughout his life.

David, however, does not mention his wisdom in order to boast of it before the world; but, by his own example, he warns us that nothing is better for us than to learn directly from God, since only those are perfectly wise who are taught in his school.

At the same time, the faithful are here urged to be sober-minded, so that they do not seek wisdom anywhere else than from God’s word, and that ambition or curiosity may not lead them to vain boasting.

In short, all are here advised to conduct themselves with modesty and humility, so that no one may claim for himself such knowledge as places him above the Divine Law; but that all people, however intelligent, may willingly submit themselves to the lessons of heavenly wisdom revealed in the Divine Word.

When he says that he kept God’s statutes, he teaches us the kind of meditation we have spoken of, showing us that he did not coldly philosophize about God’s precepts, but devoted himself to them with sincere affection.