I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.
The resolve is deliberate, to hold the feet back from every evil way for the express purpose of keeping God's word, so that shunning evil and keeping the word belong together and make each other possible. Keeping the word requires turning from every evil course, and turning from every evil course enables keeping the word. This choice belongs to devotion to God's law and precepts, where keeping the precepts gives understanding and that understanding leads to hating every false way. In this way God's word guides conduct and sets the rule for life, clearly distinguishing right from wrong and truth from error and rejecting what is wrong.
Christ exemplified this keeping of the word by letting Scripture arm Him against temptation and guide His conduct, refusing to answer despiteful treatment with resentment. The truly penitent make this their prayer, desiring God to keep their feet from evil so they can obey His law with the whole heart and remain faithful to His statutes to the end. In the last days God's commandment-keeping people take this refraining as their declaration of faith, sung with happy voices when contempt is placed on God's law. Their love for that law grows with the emergency and increases with the contempt placed on it, together with loving the law, meditating in it all the day, being made wiser than enemies, having more understanding than teachers and ancients by keeping the precepts, not departing from God's judgments because He teaches, finding His words sweet, and hating every false way.
The verse upholds the sacredness of God's law and warns that the wickedness of the world has reached the point where the Lord will certainly interfere and will not acquit the wicked. The psalm belongs among readings about God's law and the obedience of those who remain faithful to it.
The resolve is deliberate, to hold the feet back from every evil way for the express purpose of keeping God's word, so that shunning evil and keeping the word belong together and make each other possible. Keeping the word requires turning from every evil course, and turning from every evil course enables keeping the word. This choice belongs to devotion to God's law and precepts, where keeping the precepts gives understanding and that understanding leads to hating every false way. In this way God's word guides conduct and sets the rule for life, clearly distinguishing right from wrong and truth from error and rejecting what is wrong.
Christ exemplified this keeping of the word by letting Scripture arm Him against temptation and guide His conduct, refusing to answer despiteful treatment with resentment. The truly penitent make this their prayer, desiring God to keep their feet from evil so they can obey His law with the whole heart and remain faithful to His statutes to the end. In the last days God's commandment-keeping people take this refraining as their declaration of faith, sung with happy voices when contempt is placed on God's law. Their love for that law grows with the emergency and increases with the contempt placed on it, together with loving the law, meditating in it all the day, being made wiser than enemies, having more understanding than teachers and ancients by keeping the precepts, not departing from God's judgments because He teaches, finding His words sweet, and hating every false way.
The verse upholds the sacredness of God's law and warns that the wickedness of the world has reached the point where the Lord will certainly interfere and will not acquit the wicked. The psalm belongs among readings about God's law and the obedience of those who remain faithful to it.