Lord, you are mine! I promise to obey your words!
Parallel translations
- WEB Yahweh is my portion. I promised to obey your words.
- KJV Thou art my portion, O LORD: I have said that I would keep thy words.
- BSB The LORD is my portion; I have promised to keep Your words.
- NKJV You are my portion, O Lord; I have said that I would keep Your words.
- NASB ¶The Lord is my portion; I have promised to keep Your words.
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
The psalmist declares the LORD to be his portion and promises to keep His words. It matters because finding our all in God leads to wholehearted obedience.
Overview
Opening the Cheth stanza, the psalmist confesses that God Himself is his inheritance and pledges obedience to His words. With God as his portion, no earthly possession can rival Him. This echoes the Levites' inheritance in the LORD and points to Christ, in whom believers possess every spiritual blessing.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Lam 3:24“Yahweh is my portion,” says my soul. “Therefore I will hope in him.”
- Ps 16:5Yahweh assigned my portion and my cup. You made my lot secure.
- Ps 142:5I cried to you, Yahweh. I said, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”
- Jer 10:16The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is his name.
- Ps 73:26My flesh and my heart fails, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
- Ps 119:115Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God.
- Josh 24:24–27The people said to Joshua, “We will serve Yahweh our God, and we will listen to his voice.”
- Josh 24:21The people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve Yahweh.”
- Josh 24:15If it seems evil to you to serve Yahweh, choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”
- Josh 24:18Yahweh drove out from before us all the peoples, even the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve Yahweh; for he is our God.”
- Ps 119:106I have sworn, and have confirmed it, that I will obey your righteous ordinances.
- Ps 66:14which my lips promised, and my mouth spoke, when I was in distress.
- Deut 26:17–18You have declared today that Yahweh is your God, and that you would walk in his ways, and keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his ordinances, and listen to his voice.
- Neh 10:29–39they joined with their brothers, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God’s law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of Yahweh our Lord, and his ordinances and his statutes;
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 119:57 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.