Psalm 119:176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant; for I do not forget your commandments. I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Perowne says, "According to the accents, the rendering would rather be, 'I have gone astray; seek thy servant as a lost sheep.' In what sense can one who has so repeatedly declared his love of God's Word, who has asserted that he has kept God's precepts, make this confession? The figure cannot be employed here in the same sense, for instance, in which it is employed in our Lord's parable. He who is the lost sheep here is one who does not forget God's commandments. The figure, therefore, seems in this place to denote the helpless condition of the psalmist, without protectors, exposed to enemies, in the midst of whom he wanders, not knowing where to find rest and shelter. But in the 'I have gone astray,' there is doubtless the sense of sin as well as of weakness." The exclamation of the psalmist is at once made clear when we realize the distinction which the good man makes between "frailties" and "sins." I. SINS, AS ABERRATIONS OF SELF-WILL, DO NOT DISTRESS THE SINCERE MAN. "He cannot sin, because he is born of God." The sincere man of the Old Testament is represented by the new man, the man born of God, the man in whom is the Divine life, of the New Testament. Let that man genuinely express his life, and he will not commit sin. Sin is the act and purpose or' a man's will; but his will is regenerate, and set on conformity to the will of God. The good man is "clean every whit;" he does not sin with his will. II. FRAILTIES, AS ABERRATIONS DUE TO INFIRMITY, DO DISTRESS THE SINCERE MAN. He knows how he needs to "wash his feet." He cannot help getting them soiled. The man with the renewed will has to make that will work through a biased, enfeebled, physically weak body; and by that body he finds himself led into mistakes, infirmities, negligences, and even into things that look like wilfulness's. This is the sense in which a sincere man may mourn over himself as "prone to go astray." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments. |
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