If Your Law had not been my delight, Then I would have perished in my misery.
Parallel translations
- WEB Unless your law had been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
- KJV Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction.
- BSB If Your law had not been my delight, then I would have perished in my affliction.
- NKJV Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then have perished in my affliction.
- NLT If your instructions hadn’t sustained me with joy, I would have died in my misery.
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
If God's law had not been his delight, he would have perished in his affliction. The word was his lifeline in suffering.
Overview
The psalmist confesses that his joy in God's law was literally life-saving during his deepest trouble. Without delight in the word he would have been swallowed by despair, so the law sustained him when nothing else could. This shows the believer that God's word is the soul's sustenance in trial, the same word that lives and abides in Christ (Matt. 4:4; Ps. 19:8).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Rom 15:4For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that through perseverance and through encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
- Prov 6:22–23When you walk, it will lead you. When you sleep, it will watch over you. When you awake, it will talk with you.
- Ps 119:143Trouble and anguish have taken hold of me. Your commandments are my delight.
- Ps 94:18–19When I said, “My foot is slipping!” Your loving kindness, Yahweh, held me up.
- Ps 119:77Let your tender mercies come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight.
- Ps 119:24Indeed your statutes are my delight, and my counselors. DALED
- Ps 27:13I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of Yahweh in the land of the living.
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 119:92 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.