Long ago I learned from Your testimonies that You have established them forever.
This psalm pursues two chief ends: to exhort God's children toward a holy life, and to establish the Law as the rule and form of true worship. The psalmist weaves in promises to animate believers to live justly, and complaints against the wicked who despise the Law, lest the faithful be corrupted by their example. Though he moves from one matter to another, the composition is not a heap of scattered thoughts, but holds together by a living connection.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 119:1-176
This confirms what he had said in the close of the foregoing verses, All thy commandments are truth; he means the covenant, the word which God has commanded to a thousand generations. This is firm, as true as truth itself. For, 1. God has founded it so; he has framed it for a perpetuity.
Great are thy tender mercies, O Lord,.... Not his providential mercies only, which are many and undeserved, and constantly repeated; but his special mercies in Christ, which flow from the tenderness of his heart; and his merciful lovingkindness to his people, and which are great or many (f), as to quantity; there being a multitude of them, not to be reckoned up: and for quality...