Division 3 (Gimel)
The servant of the Lord an outcast stranger in an evil world.
(vv. 17-18) The young man who cleanses his way is prepared and meet for the service of the Lord (2 Tim. 2:2121If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work. (2 Timothy 2:21)). He confesses that with God are the issues of life: he looks to the bountiful mercy of the Lord to spare him, to keep him walking in obedience, and to open his eyes to behold wondrous things out of the law. This is more than discovering in the law a rule of life. The natural man can do this much; only the servant with the opened eyes will behold “wondrous things.”
(vv. 19-24) The remaining verses present the effect of an obedient walk as a servant of the Lord in a world of sin.
First, the one who serves, and is subject to God, in the midst of a rebellious world, will of necessity find himself “a stranger in the earth.” But earth’s strangers are God’s friends; hence the desire of the soul to walk in closest intimacy with God— “Hide not Thy commandments from me” (cf. Gen. 18:1717And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; (Genesis 18:17)). Such an one values the intimacies of God. They fill his soul, not with occasional desire, but continual longing (vs. 20).
Second, the servant of God finds he is, not only a stranger in the earth, but opposed by the wicked, who in their pride and princely prosperity heap reproaches and contempt upon the one who walks in lowly obedience of God. The godly man forms a just estimate of such. He sees they are rebuked of God and under a curse. There is no need to answer those whom God rebukes, and hence the psalmist is silent in the presence of their hard speeches, finding his delight and counsel in the testimonies of God.