---

I. WHAT THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ARE. A path is nothing else but an open and beaten way or tract to walk in. There are two sorts of paths wherein men may be said to walk. Some are called erroneous and false ways; the Scriptures sometimes call these crooked paths, because they do not lead us directly to heaven, but wind off. Sometimes our own paths, because they are not ways of God's institution, but of our own invention. Sometimes paths not cast up (Jeremiah 18:15), in opposition to ancient and established and perused ways prescribed by God, and insisted in by the old faithful servants of God. These paths are those of infidelity and impenitency and impiety. In this place they are called paths of righteousness, which again are two-fold, either —

1. Doctrinal, in which respect the precepts of God are called the paths of righteousness, a rule to a man in his journey, and that, if which he will still follow, will assuredly bring him to his journey's end; so the precepts of God are the rules of our lives, according to which, if we do square them, everlasting life would be the end of that journey.

2. Or practical, and this path of the righteous is that which the Scripture calls the path of the just, or the way of good men (Isaiah 26:7), and the paths of uprightness (Proverbs 2:13). And they are called paths in the plural number, not for diversity, but for number, and some of them respect —

(1)  God;

(2)  Man. (O. Sedgwick, B. D.)

---

---

KJV: He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

WEB: He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.