Let your tender mercies come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight.
Parallel translations
- KJV Let thy tender mercies come unto me, that I may live: for thy law is my delight.
- BSB May Your compassion come to me, that I may live, for Your law is my delight.
- NKJV Let Your tender mercies come to me, that I may live; For Your law is my delight.
- NASB May Your compassion come to me so that I may live, For Your Law is my delight.
- NLT Surround me with your tender mercies so I may live, for your instructions are my delight.
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 for God's tender mercies so that he may truly live, because God's law is his delight. Life and joy flow together from God's mercy and word.
Overview
The psalmist seeks God's compassion as the very source of his life, showing that he depends on mercy to survive his trials. Remarkably, he can call God's law his delight even in affliction, for the word sustains his soul. This points to Christ, who delighted to do God's will and gives life to all who come to Him (John 6:63; Ps. 40:8).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 119:41Let your loving kindness also come to me, Yahweh, your salvation, according to your word.
- Lam 3:22–23It is because of Yahweh’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassion doesn’t fail.
- Ps 1:2but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night.
- Ps 119:174I have longed for your salvation, Yahweh. Your law is my delight.
- Ps 119:24Indeed your statutes are my delight, and my counselors. DALED
- Ps 119:47I will delight myself in your commandments, because I love them.
- 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.
- Heb 8:10–12“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,” says the Lord; “I will put my laws into their mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
- Ps 51:1–3For 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.
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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 119:77 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
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