Oh that my ways were steadfast to obey your statutes!
Parallel translations
- KJV O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!
- BSB Oh, that my ways were committed to keeping Your statutes!
- NKJV Oh, that my ways were directed To keep Your statutes!
- NASB Oh that my ways may be established To keep Your statutes!
- NLT Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees!
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 longs that his ways would be firmly directed to keep God's statutes. It matters because godly obedience is something we must earnestly desire and depend on God to produce.
Overview
This heartfelt cry reveals the gap between the psalmist's desire to obey and his actual steadfastness, prompting a prayer rather than a boast. He recognizes that consistency in keeping God's statutes is a gift to be sought from God. Such honest longing for holiness is answered in the new covenant, where God writes His law on the heart and steadies the believer's walk.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 51:10Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
- 2 Th 3:5May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love, and into the perseverance of Christ.
- Heb 13:21make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
- Jer 31:33“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people:
- Ps 119:36Turn my heart toward your statutes, not toward selfish gain.
- Rom 7:22–24For I delight in God’s law after the inward man,
- Ps 119:32I run in the path of your commandments, for you have set my heart free. HEY
- Ps 119:173Let your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen your precepts.
- Ps 119:159Consider how I love your precepts. Revive me, Yahweh, according to your loving kindness.
- Ps 119:44–45So I will obey your law continually, forever and ever.
- Ps 119:131I opened my mouth wide and panted, for I longed for your commandments.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 119:5 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.