I am your servant; deal with me in unfailing love, and teach me your decrees.
Parallel translations
- WEB Deal with your servant according to your loving kindness. Teach me your statutes.
- KJV Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy, and teach me thy statutes.
- BSB Deal with Your servant according to Your loving devotion, and teach me Your statutes.
- NKJV Deal with Your servant according to Your mercy, And teach me Your statutes.
- NASB Deal with Your servant according to Your graciousness, And teach me Your statutes.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
He asks God to deal with him according to His covenant love and to teach him His statutes. He seeks both mercy and instruction from God.
Overview
The psalmist pleads for treatment grounded in God's loving kindness rather than strict desert, joined with a request to be taught the statutes. Mercy and discipleship are sought together. This appeal to covenant love anticipates the gospel, where God deals with sinners according to grace in Christ and teaches them by His Spirit (Eph. 2:4-5; John 14:26).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- Ps 119:12Blessed are you, Yahweh. Teach me your statutes.
- Dan 9:18My God, turn your ear, and hear; open your eyes, and see our desolations, and the city which is called by your name: for we do not present our petitions before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies’ sake.
- Ps 103:10He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us for our iniquities.
- Ps 119:76–77Please let your loving kindness be for my comfort, according to your word to your servant.
- Ps 130:7Israel, hope in Yahweh, for with Yahweh there is loving kindness. With him is abundant redemption.
- Ps 69:13But as for me, my prayer is to you, Yahweh, in an acceptable time. God, in the abundance of your loving kindness, answer me in the truth of your salvation.
- Ps 119:132Turn to me, and have mercy on me, as you always do to those who love your name.
- Ps 51:1For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
- Ps 119:26I declared my ways, and you answered me. Teach me your statutes.
- Ps 69:16Answer me, Yahweh, for your loving kindness is good. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me.
- 2 Tim 1:16–18May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain,
- Luke 18:13But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
- Neh 9:20You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and didn’t withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.
- Ps 79:8Don’t hold the iniquities of our forefathers against us. Let your tender mercies speedily meet us, for we are in desperate need.
- Ps 119:41Let your loving kindness also come to me, Yahweh, your salvation, according to your word.
- Ps 143:10–12Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness.
- Ps 130:3–4If you, Yah, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 119:124 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.