Verse 103. - How sweet are thy words unto my taste! (comp. vers. 14, 16, 40, 47, etc.). The metaphor is new, but the sentiment one which pervades the psalm. Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. So David, in the nineteenth psalm, speaking of the judgments of God, says that they are "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb."

119:97-104 What we love, we love to think of. All true wisdom is from God. A good man carries his Bible with him, if not in his hands, yet in his head and in his heart. By meditation on God's testimonies we understand more than our teachers, when we understand our own hearts. The written word is a more sure guide to heaven, than all the fathers, the teachers, and ancients of the church. We cannot, with any comfort or boldness, attend God in holy duties, while under guilt, or in any by-way. It was Divine grace in his heart, that enabled the psalmist to receive these instructions. The soul has its tastes as well as the body. Our relish for the word of God will be greatest, when that for the world and the flesh is least. The way of sin is a wrong way; and the more understanding we get by the precepts of God, the more rooted will be our hatred of sin; and the more ready we are in the Scriptures, the better furnished we are with answers to temptation.How sweet are thy words unto my taste!.... Who had a spiritual one; and could discern perverse things, and could taste how good and gracious the Lord is: and so his words were sweet unto him; the doctrines of grace, the truths of the Gospel, were delightful and pleasant to him; like unadulterated milk, desirable by him: like good wine, that goes down sweetly; like good food, that is exceeding palatable; or like honey, and even sweeter than that, as follows. And that words "may be tasted and eaten", is not only agreeable to Scripture language, Jeremiah 15:16; but to classical writers (g);

yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth; not only had they the nourishing nature and the refreshing virtue of honey, but the sweetness of it; yea, exceeded it in sweetness; see Psalm 19:10.

(g) "Mea dicta devorato", Plauti Asinaria, Acts 3. Sc. 3. v. 59. "Edi sermonem tuum", ib. Aulularia, Acts 3. Sc. 6. v. 1. "Gustare ego ejus sermonem volo", ib. Mostellaria, Acts 5. Sc. 1. v. 15.