John Calvin Commentary Psalms 143:10

"Teach me to do thy will; For thou art my God: Thy Spirit is good; Lead me in the land of uprightness." — Psalms 143:10 (ASV)

Teach me that I may do your will. He now rises to something higher, praying not merely for deliverance from outward troubles, but, what is of still greater importance, for the guidance of God’s Spirit, that he might not turn to the right hand or to the left, but be kept in the path of righteousness.

This is a request that should never be forgotten when temptations assail us with great severity, as it is particularly difficult to submit to God without resorting to unwarranted methods of relief. As anxiety, fear, disease, weariness, or pain often tempt people to particular actions, David’s example should lead us to pray for divine restraint, and that we may not be hurried by impulses of feeling into unjustifiable courses.

We are to note carefully his way of expressing himself, for what he asks is not simply to be taught what the will of God is, but to be taught and brought to the observance and doing of it. The former kind of teaching is of less use, as when God shows us our duty, we by no means necessarily follow it, and it is necessary that he should draw out our affections to himself.

God therefore must be master and teacher to us not only in the dead letter but by the inward motions of his Spirit. Indeed, there are three ways in which he acts as our teacher: instructing us by his word, enlightening our minds by the Spirit, and engraving instruction upon our hearts, so as to bring us to observe it with true and heartfelt consent.

The mere hearing of the word would serve no purpose, nor is it enough that we understand it; there must also be the willing obedience of the heart. Nor does he merely say, 'Teach me that I may be capable of doing,' as the deluded Papists imagine that the grace of God does no more than make us flexible to what is good, but he seeks something to be actually and now done.

He insists upon the same thing in the next clause, when he says, Let your good Spirit lead me, etc., for he desires the guidance of the Spirit not merely as he enlightens our minds, but as he effectually influences the consent of our hearts and, as it were, leads us by the hand.

The passage in its context warns us of the necessity of being diligently on our guard against yielding to inordinate passions in any conflicts we may have with wicked people. And since we have no sufficient wisdom or power of our own by which to check and restrain these passions, we should always seek the guidance of God’s Spirit to keep them in moderation.

More generally, the passage teaches us what we are to think of free will, for David here denies that the will has the power of judging rightly until our hearts are formed to a holy obedience by the Spirit of God. The term 'leading,' to which I have already referred, also proves that David did not hold that middle species of grace that Papists talk so much about, and which leaves a person in a state of suspension or indecision, but asserts something much more effectual, consistent with what Paul says (Philippians 2:13) that:

it is God who works in us both to will and to do
of his good pleasure.

By the words right hand, I understand, figuratively, uprightness; David’s meaning is that we are drawn into error whenever we turn from what is agreeable to the will of God. The term Spirit is tacitly contrasted with the corruption that is natural to us; what he says amounts to this: that all human thoughts are polluted and perverted until they are brought under right rule by the grace of the Spirit.

It follows that nothing that is dictated by the judgment of the flesh is good or sound. I grant that wicked men are led away by an evil spirit sent from God, for he executes his judgments by the agency of devils (1 Samuel 16:14); but when David in this place speaks of God’s good Spirit, I do not imagine that he makes any such strained allusion, but rather that he takes upon himself the charge of corruption here, and assigns the praise of whatever is good, upright, or true, to the Spirit of God.

When he says, Because you are my God, he shows that his confidence in obtaining his request was founded entirely upon the free favor and promises of God. It is not a matter lying within our own power to make him our God, but it rests with his free, prevenient grace.