Psalms 119:61 - Meaning and Application

Here we see, first, the malice of David’s enemies. They were wicked people who hated him because he was godly. They came against him in bands, or in groups that worked together. They did all the harm they could, robbing him after they had tried to ruin his good name (Psalm 119:51). They attacked his property and stripped him of what he owned, whether through wartime plunder or through fines and confiscations that were made to look legal. Saul, it seems, took his goods; Absalom took his palace; and the Amalekites plundered Ziklag. Worldly wealth can be taken from us. David, though he was a man of war, could not protect what belonged to him, for thieves do break in and steal.

Second, we see David’s own testimony that he still held fast to God’s law when everything else was taken from him. He was like Job, who also kept his faith when the bands of the Chaldeans and Sabeans robbed him. David could still say, “But I have not forgotten your law.” Neither worry nor grief should push God’s word out of our minds, or keep us from enjoying it and talking with God through it. We should never think less of God’s ways because trouble comes to us in those ways. And we should never fear that we will lose by following God in the end, even if we seem to lose for it now.