Psalm 119: 169 Give we understanding according to thy word.
Why should the man of God here pray for understanding? Had he not often prayed for it before? Was he a novice in knowledge, being a prophet? Does not our Saviour Christ reprehend repetitions and babbling in prayer? True it is our Saviour Christ does reprehend that babbling which is without faith and knowledge and a feeling of our wants; but he speaks not against those serious repetitions which proceed from a plentiful knowledge, abundant faith, and lively feeling of our necessities.
Again, although it cannot be denied but he was a man of God, and had received great grace, yet God gives knowledge to his dearest saints in this life but in part, and the most which we see and know is but little. Besides, when we have knowledge, and knowledge must be brought into practice, we shall find such difficulties, such waywardness, such forgetfulness, such wants, that although we have had with the prophet a very good direction in the general things of the word, which are universal and few, yet we shall find many distractions in our practices, which must be particular and many; and we shall either fail in memory by forgetfulness, or in judgment by blindness, or in affection by dullness. So easily may we slip when we think we may hold our journey on. Richard Greenham
Quoted in Charles Spurgeon's The Treasury of David.
