The proud have forged a lie against me, But I will keep Your precepts with my whole heart.
Parallel translations
- WEB The proud have smeared a lie upon me. With my whole heart, I will keep your precepts.
- KJV The proud have forged a lie against me: but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.
- BSB Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies, I keep Your precepts with all my heart.
- NASB The arrogant have forged a lie against me; With all my heart I will comply with Your precepts.
- NLT Arrogant people smear me with lies, but in truth I obey your commandments with all my heart.
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
Though the arrogant smear him with lies, the psalmist keeps God's precepts wholeheartedly. It matters because slander cannot deter the faithful from obeying God's word.
Overview
The proud forge falsehoods against the psalmist, yet he responds by keeping God's precepts with his whole heart. He refuses to let lies divert his devotion. This wholehearted faithfulness under false accusation mirrors Christ, against whom false witnesses spoke yet who remained perfectly obedient.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Matt 5:11–12“Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
- Job 13:4But you are forgers of lies. You are all physicians of no value.
- Ps 119:157Many are my persecutors and my adversaries. I haven’t swerved from your testimonies.
- Ps 109:2–3for they have opened the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit against me. They have spoken to me with a lying tongue.
- Matt 26:59–68Now the chief priests, the elders, and the whole council sought false testimony against Jesus, that they might put him to death;
- Acts 24:13Nor can they prove to you the things of which they now accuse me.
- Acts 24:5For we have found this man to be a plague, an instigator of insurrections among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
- Ps 119:34Give me understanding, and I will keep your law. Yes, I will obey it with my whole heart.
- Ps 119:58I sought your favor with my whole heart. Be merciful to me according to your word.
- Jas 1:8He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
- Ps 119:51The arrogant mock me excessively, but I don’t swerve from your law.
- Matt 6:24“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.
- Ps 35:11Unrighteous witnesses rise up. They ask me about things that I don’t know about.
- Jer 43:2–3then Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men spoke, saying to Jeremiah, “You speak falsely. Yahweh our God has not sent you to say, ‘You shall not go into Egypt to live there;’
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 119:69 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.