I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart.”
Parallel translations
- WEB I delight to do your will, my God. Yes, your law is within my heart.”
- KJV I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.
- BSB I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart.”
- NKJV I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”
- NASB “I delight to do Your will, my God; Your Law is within 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
David delights to do God's will, with His law written on his heart. Obedience springs from inward delight, not outward compulsion.
Overview
The internalized law anticipates the new covenant promise that God writes His law on the heart (Jeremiah 31:33). Christ supremely delighted to do the Father's will, even to the cross. Genuine godliness loves God's commands from within.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Rom 7:22For I delight in God’s law after the inward man,
- John 4:34Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.
- Jer 15:16Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by your name, Yahweh, God of Armies.
- Ps 119:24Indeed your statutes are my delight, and my counselors. DALED
- Ps 119:16I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word. GIMEL
- Ps 119:47I will delight myself in your commandments, because I love them.
- Ps 37:30–31The mouth of the righteous talks of wisdom. His tongue speaks justice.
- 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 119:92Unless your law had been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.
- Ps 112:1Praise Yah! Blessed is the man who fears Yahweh, who delights greatly in his commandments.
- Prov 3:1My son, don’t forget my teaching; but let your heart keep my commandments:
- 2 Cor 3:3being revealed that you are a letter of Christ, served by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone, but in tablets that are hearts of flesh.
- Job 23:12I haven’t gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.
- Rom 8:29For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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 40:8 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.