Chapter 119 is the longest chapter in Tehillim, in which King David returns again and again to eight expressions of Torah: derech (way), eidot (testimonies), pikudim (precepts), chukim (statutes), mitzvot (commandments), mishpatim (judgments), davar (word), and imrah (utterance). In every letter of the alef-bet there is a central expression around which the verses revolve, and this is how the Malbim explains the order of the text. Before us are three verses from the letter He: a plea for the fulfillment of the promise of kingship, a plea to remove disgrace and fear, and a plea for longevity to fulfill the commandments.
הָקֵם לְעַבְדְּךָ אִמְרָתֶךָ אֲשֶׁר לְיִרְאָתֶךָ׃ (לח) - Fulfill Your promise to Your servant, which is for those who fear You.
Rashi and the Radak explain: Fulfill for Your servant that utterance which You promised me. And what is that promise? "If your children keep My covenant and My testimony that I shall teach them, their children also shall sit upon your throne forever" - that the monarchy should continue through my descendants and never cease. Regarding this David pleads: Master of the Universe, please fulfill this promise. Yet it contains a condition - "which is for those who fear You," only if I and my children after me continue to walk in fear of You. And if not, it is stated there, "with the rod of men and with the afflictions of the sons of Adam," meaning that afflictions will come in order to bring the person back to the right path.
And so it was with Shlomo. As long as he walked in the way of Hashem, he was blessed with immense abundance. But the moment the deviation began - when he took many wives, Pharaoh's daughter, and the like - we see how "Hashem raised up an adversary against Shlomo, Rezon the son of Eliada." The Holy One, blessed be He, raised adversaries and tormentors against him. Why? Because when a person begins to stray from the path, the Holy One, blessed be He, sends afflictions to guide him back to the right way. Therefore, David asks: Fulfill Your promise to Your servant, so that my sons may sit upon the throne, and that they be righteous people who walk in fear of You, truly deserving of that promise.
The Malbim highlights the central expression here - "imrot" (utterances / promises). David says: Even though I ask that my intention in my divine service should not be for personal gain or for the promised reward, nevertheless, I ask of You to continue granting me all these bounties. Seemingly, this is a paradox: I ask that my service not be for the sake of reward, yet on the other hand, I ask for the reward. Rather, the meaning of this, in the words of the Malbim, is that they should be fulfilled for me, not that I seek them out of greed for gain, but solely "which is for Your fear."
And the explanation is: when the people around see that a God-fearing and righteous person enjoys abundance and goodness, and that the Holy One, blessed be He, showers blessing upon him, this increases fear of Heaven within them. Look, you see that it is worthwhile to serve Hashem. Conversely, when the opposite occurs, it stirs questions of "the righteous who suffers and the wicked who prospers." Therefore David requests: Fulfill the promises, grant the kingship You promised me in its entirety, but not "toward gain" - let my aim not be for personal profit, but rather "which is for Your fear," so that through this, people will increase their reverence. They will say: Look at David who cleaves to the path of Hashem, and how much goodness is bestowed upon him. And this is the meaning of "Those who fear You will see me and rejoice" - they will see how a righteous person is blessed and how Hashem upholds His covenant and kindness toward those who fear Him, and this will strengthen people in Your service. Thus, my request is not for my own sake, but for Your honor.
Along similar lines, it is brought, I believe in the book Ruach Chaim: when a person asks the Holy One, blessed be He, to grant him reward, he should ask not because he wishes to serve for reward, but because it is written that the Holy One, blessed be He, rejoices when He grants a good reward to those who fear Him. A parable illustrates this: a father makes an "incentive deal" with his son, promising him a hundred shekels or a gift if he brings home an excellent report card. When the child achieves it, does the father regret having to take money out of his pocket? On the contrary, he rejoices: "How wonderful, here you go, please take it." The father is happy at the moment he gives. So it is with us: Master of the Universe, I desire the reward, but I do not serve for the sake of reward - I serve so that You will have joy when You give.
And likewise on the opposite side, regarding sin. When the Holy One, blessed be He, punishes a person for a sin, the person is held accountable also for causing sorrow to the Holy One, blessed be He, by compelling Him to punish. Like a father who is forced to punish his son and feels pain over it - he would far prefer the child to be good so he would not have to punish him. Thus, not only did you disobey Hashem's command, but you also forced Him to bring punishment upon you, causing Him distress, and you are held accountable for that grief as well. This corresponds to that: a person receives a good reward both for gladdening the Holy One, blessed be He, through performing the mitzvah, and for the fact that Hashem rejoices in giving him reward.
Beyond the matter of reward: when people see that a servant of Hashem receives an outpouring of goodness, they are strengthened in their service of Hashem. Behold, the Holy One, blessed be He, promised in the Torah, "If you walk in My statutes," and the promise is fulfilled. The very fulfillment verifies the words of Hashem before me and strengthens me - not because "it is worthwhile because they give a reward," but from the very validation of the truth.
On the other hand, there is a grave warning here. A person sees his friend leave in the middle of davening or toward its end, and says to himself: "I thought one had to stay, but I saw someone with a black yarmulke walking out - apparently it is not so terrible." And he, too, begins acting this way. Woe to that first person and woe to his soul, for he has corrupted that other person, and it will be held against him.
One must pay close attention to this, because it is very common. When a person is part of a group and acts with leniency or disrespect, people learn from him, even if he had no intention whatsoever to show disrespect. For example, someone who regularly arrives late to a shiur, fifteen minutes past the time - people tell themselves that there is evidently no obligation to arrive right at the start, and then this one comes late and that one comes late. The same applies to someone who leaves in the middle of davening or arrives midway through. All of this cools down the atmosphere in general. A person must be very careful not to be among those who cool down the bathwater. Here, from an ordinary person, people learned to become lax. And so it is in a yeshivah, all the more so: a bachur who allows himself to arrive late rather than at the start of seder creates a general laxity. In every single matter, a person must ensure that people do not learn negative habits from him.
And the Gemara states: "If we learn from a flaw, we do not learn from an improvement." If you perform an act of laxity, many will learn from you; if you perform an act of spiritual strengthening, they will not necessarily learn. They will say: "He is a tzaddik, what does that have to do with me? Am I supposed to be like him?" So too, the Chafetz Chaim feared that people would emulate specifically his less elevated deeds, whereas regarding his greater deeds they would say, "He is a tzaddik," and would not learn from him.
הַעֲבֵר חֶרְפָּתִי אֲשֶׁר יָגֹרְתִּי כִּי מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ טוֹבִים׃ (לט) - Remove my reproach that I fear, for Your judgments are good.
Rashi explains: "Remove my reproach" - forgive me for that sin. It is called "reproach" because enemies reproach him: David who had relations with a married woman, what is his punishment? "For Your judgments are good" - and I have already fulfilled Your judgments, for I accepted upon myself to pay fourfold for the ewe lamb, as David himself decreed his own judgment. In other words, I have already accepted upon myself Your good judgments stated in connection with that sin.
The Ibn Ezra explains that this is a continuation of the previous verse: "Fulfill for Your servant Your promise, which is for Your fear" - I am fearful and worried lest I become lax and impair the fear of You, lest I do something lacking in fear of Heaven; and concerning this he says, "Remove my reproach that I fear" - remove that reproach of which I am afraid, that I might not be exacting in the fear of You and not serve You properly.
The Radak explains based on what was said earlier, that David asks that Hashem fulfill the promise regarding the sons who would follow him: "Fulfill for Your servant Your word" - that my sons will continue my kingdom as You promised, on condition that they remain in the fear of You. Yet David is still concerned - perhaps they will indeed walk in the fear of You, but what will harm them is my sin and my deficiency. Concerning this, he asks that Hashem remove from them that sin, which is a reproach to his sons. And even though Natan the prophet had already told him, "Hashem also has passed over your sin; you shall not die" - that was said concerning himself, but perhaps the sin was still held against his children after him. Therefore, he asks that it be removed from them as well and that the sin not be remembered against them at all. And the reason is, "for Your judgments are good": You judge a person according to the punishment fitting for him, and You are good and forgiving, and it is therefore fitting that You remove my punishment from me, especially since I have already repented, so that my sons will not have to pay the price.
The Malbim focuses here on the term mishpatim (judgments), which relate to the mitzvos between man and his fellow. David fears punishment for his sins, and that the punishment will be that Hashem will not establish the kingdom for him - which would be a reproach for him. Regarding this he says: Hashem's judgments are good. That is, even when Hashem executes judgment upon a person, it is not for his harm, but for his benefit.
This is comparable to a father who takes his son to the dentist. The child screams and cries, and sometimes they even hold him down, and it seems to him that he is being mistreated. But we all know that no one is mistreating him; on the contrary, he will one day thank his father and mother for spending their money to fix his teeth, so that at age fifteen he will still have his teeth and not need dentures. So too, when it seems to us that Hashem executes judgment upon a person - know that "Your judgments are good"; they are intended for the person's ultimate good. And David asks: Remove my reproach by performing a sign for my good, so that "those who hate me may see it and be ashamed," and then it will be clear that You have forgiven me for that sin - remove my reproach through Your good judgments, for even the judgment You mete out has a good purpose.
The author of the Panim Yafos interprets "Remove my reproach that I fear" in a different way, prefaced by a story brought in Chovos HaLevavos: A pious man was once seen sleeping in the desert. They asked him, "Are you not afraid? A desert is a place of wild beasts and dangers!" He answered them: "I would be ashamed before my God if He were to see me fearing anything other than Him." That is to say, my shame is before Hashem - that He should see that I fear anyone besides Him. And that is the meaning of "Remove my reproach that I fear": the very fact that I fear anyone other than the Master of the World is itself a reproach to me.
In the sefer Sha'arei Chaim, it is cited in the name of the Maharam Loez: If a person feels fear in his heart, one must understand its source. The Gemara says, "Even though he does not see - his mazal sees." A person's mazal is the divine flow descending from Above; a person's soul is bound to the upper realms, as the verse says, "and my soul knows it very well." That is, even if the person himself is unaware, the soul senses what is to come. Therefore, a person sometimes has a bad feeling about a certain matter, stemming from the soul knowing what will emerge from it. Since he does not possess prophecy and is encased in a physical body, the soul merely signals to the body that something here is not right.
Sometimes someone recounts: I woke up in the morning with a very bad feeling - and two hours later, he was notified that a relative had passed away in a car accident, Heaven protect us. What happened? The soul already knew and transmitted this to the body, and the body felt an uneasy sensation, and only later did he realize why. It turns out that such feelings and sensations are transmissions hinting to us about something happening even when it is concealed from our conscious perception. This is what the Gemara means: he himself does not see the evil, but his mazal sees it, and that is what creates the fear.
And this is what is written, "My heart shudders within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me; fear and trembling come upon me, and horror covers me" - the initial fear generated even more dread and trembling. For if I am afraid, something hidden must be taking place, and that frightens me even more; and out of the immense fear in the heart, my body trembles and shudders, covered as if in trembling horror. Of course, this refers to ordinary, healthy people, not someone suffering from clinical anxiety who is medicated; rather, an ordinary person in whose heart fear suddenly falls, and the very dread itself terrifies him: who knows what is about to happen, for if not, why did this fear strike my heart?
The Netziv explains similarly what is written regarding Yaakov: "And Yaakov was greatly afraid, and he was distressed." Fear fell into his heart, and from the very fact that fear fell upon him, he became distressed: Why did I suddenly become afraid? Evidently, my mazal sees something very bad. Based on this, commentators also explain the verse in Sefer Shmuel regarding Goliath: "And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him, and were greatly afraid." Seemingly, the order should be reversed - first a person fears and then he flees, yet here it says that they first fled and then were afraid. Rather, as we explained: "they fled from him" - they saw what intense terror fell upon them, and from that itself "they were greatly afraid." If such fear falls upon me, it is a sign that my mazal knows something terrible is about to happen. This is what Chazal said regarding the natural course of battle, and the Gemara states, "The beginning of downfall is flight," for the fleeing itself is already the onset of defeat.
Through this, one can also explain the words of David: "Remove my reproach that I dread" - it is a reproach for me, as one who trusts in Hashem, to be afraid of anything. One who trusts in Hashem is elevated and should be delivered, so why should I fear? Concerning this the prophet rebukes: "Who are you that you should fear a mortal who dies... and have forgotten Hashem your Maker... and fear continually all day long?" - all of this fear stems from forgetting Hashem. Therefore David says: "Remove my reproach that I dread" - the very fact that I fear another is a reproach to me.
הִנֵּה תָּאַבְתִּי לְפִקֻּדֶיךָ בְּצִדְקָתְךָ חַיֵּנִי׃ (מ) - Behold, I have longed for Your precepts; preserve my life in Your righteousness.
Ibn Ezra explains "I have longed" (ta'avti) as an expression of pining from deep love, like "my soul pines" - all my yearning and longing is directed to You alone, and therefore "preserve my life." Radak adds: Even though I have sinned, as seen in "Remove my reproach," and I have stumbled - nevertheless I yearn for Your precepts; therefore, "in Your righteousness preserve my life," lengthen my days so that I may fulfill the mitzvot.
One might even say the reverse: precisely because I have sinned, lengthen my days. For how is rectification accomplished? Through an abundance of mitzvot that I perform from now on, by rectifying that which I damaged. This is what we plead on Rosh Hashanah, "Do not take us from this world before our time" - so that we are not left without enough time to rectify all that we have blemished. If a person dies prematurely, where will he have the opportunity to make amends? But when his life is lengthened, even the sins he stumbled into during his youth are gradually erased through an abundance of mitzvot and through the teshuvah of Yom Kippur after Yom Kippur.
Accordingly, David says: "Remove my reproach" - for stumbling in the matter of Batsheva; "Behold, I have longed for Your precepts" - for I yearn to fulfill Your commandments; "In Your righteousness preserve my life" - grant me length of days so that I may fulfill mitzvot and thereby increase my rectification. Indeed, we find that all of David's subsequent days were darkened with fasts over that matter, as he said, "Every night I drench my bed; I melt my couch with my tears." The length of his days provided him the path of teshuvah, to rectify what he had done and attain complete repentance.
The Metzudat David explains: "Behold, I have longed for Your precepts" - I yearn to fulfill Your precepts, and even if I have not fulfilled them all, "preserve my life in Your righteousness", for You join good intention to deed. When a person aspires to do good, even if the opportunity does not present itself, and even if in the end it never came to fruition, the Holy One, Blessed be He, takes the good thought and reckons it as an action, because he truly possessed that aspiration.
And sometimes a person yearns to fulfill a mitzvah but lacks the ability: he would like to give charity but has nothing to give; he would like to attend a Torah shiur, but he must be elsewhere, having work or something else that holds him back. The very will and aspiration to fulfill the mitzvah earn him a reward as if he had performed it. This is what David says: I yearn for those precepts, this is my longing and my desire, and if so, "preserve my life in Your righteousness" - in Your righteousness by which You deal with us, reckoning the aspiration as an action. For we all understand that in everyday life, this is not how things work: Did you aspire to do good? When you actually do it, we will talk about payment. No one pays you a wage for having wanted to fix their refrigerator - let him fix it first, and then we will talk. But with the Holy One, Blessed be He, it is an act of righteousness, for He grants reward even for what you wished to do but were prevented from doing.
Conversely, if a person intended to commit a transgression and missed the opportunity - he came to steal and suddenly saw a patrol car and was thwarted - in Heaven it is counted against him as though he had stolen, and so the Gemara states. And why does the Holy One, Blessed be He, generally not join a bad intention to action? Because the Jewish people are decent, good people, and even if one planned to do evil, it is presumed that a moment before the act he would have stopped. But a person who is habituated to that transgression - this cannot be said of him, for he has always done evil, and presumably he would have done so this time as well; in such a case, it is held against him and he is held accountable as if he had performed the deed.
From here we turn to the question of the Chafetz Chaim: We rise early and they rise early; we receive reward, and they do not receive reward. This seems difficult: why say they do not receive reward? After all, someone who works in high-tech receives a rather respectable salary.
Rav Shteinman once answered: "Well, would you call that reward?" If someone tells you, "Come work for an hour and receive a million dollars," and to your friend they say, "Work for an hour and receive three shekels," would you say, "He too received a wage"? Moreover, between three shekels and a million dollars there is at least some proportion - both are money. But when it comes to eternal, spiritual reward versus material payment, the latter does not deserve the name of reward at all. Even if he is given a million dollars here, compared to eternity it cannot be called reward.
Yet the Chafetz Chaim himself offered a different answer: "These receive reward" means that we receive reward for the toil. A person opens a Gemara, tries to crack the sugya, tries again and again to understand, and in the end comes away without clarity. Seemingly, you learned for two hours and still do not know what is written here - yet you receive reward for the toil, even without results. In contrast, someone who is given fabric to sew a suit and barely produces an undershirt - you do not pay him; on the contrary, he ruined the cloth! There, payment is for the result, but in Torah, the reward is for the toil, for the effort itself.
The Malbim defines the term pikudim (precepts) here. The pikudim are the mitzvot commanded as a remembrance of specific matters: the mitzvot of the Pesach offering, the firstborn of a donkey (peter chamor), tefillin - in remembrance of Hashem taking us out with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. The pikudim represent the divine guidance and miracles that the Holy One, Blessed be He, performed for us, in connection to which He gave us commandments.
And one must distinguish: mishpat (justice) is what Hashem does with a person according to his merits - you did good, you deserve good. Hashem judges a person according to his deeds, like a wage: you worked - you deserve it; you did not work - you do not deserve it; you worked half the time - you receive half. Tzedakah (righteousness), on the other hand, is giving what you do not inherently deserve, simply because in my abundant goodness I wish to give to you.
Therefore David says: "I have longed for Your precepts" - my aspiration and desire is to fulfill Hashem's commandments, and those very precepts themselves testify that You deal with us according to supreme righteousness, for the precepts are the mitzvot given to us in remembrance of the kindnesses He performed for us. For example, the Seventh Day of Pesach: what do we celebrate? The Splitting of the Red Sea. There was a day when Hashem parted the sea before us and we crossed it on dry land, and He gave us a mitzvah through which we recall the kindness and righteousness He did for us. Therefore, David asks: even though I am not worthy according to strict justice, as at times it is not deserved - "preserve my life in Your righteousness."
The Holy One, Blessed be He, has a treasury of gratuitous gifts (matnat chinam). And as our Sages said, "'Abundant in kindness' - He tilts toward kindness": sometimes a person stands in a state of exact balance, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, tilts the scale toward kindness and bestows upon him beyond what he deserves. And who merits this? There are no set criteria for it; rather, it is according to His abundant kindness, as it is said, "And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious" - and it is not specified to whom. There are no special promises to one person or another; rather, there is an aspect of singular grace that the Holy One, Blessed be He, performs in certain situations. And David says: it is from that treasury that I ask - "in Your righteousness", that very treasury of righteousness that is beyond strict justice.
And who else asked from that treasury of an unearned gift? Moshe Rabbeinu: "And I pleaded to Hashem" (Va'etchanan el Hashem), and Chazal taught that the word va'etchanan denotes solely an unearned gift. Moshe had so many merits, yet to come and say, "Master of the Universe, I deserve this" - carries a subtle form of arrogance. And who was punished on account of such an assertion? Nechemiah, who said, "Remember this for me, my God, for good." And what was his punishment? That his book was not called by his own name; for many years it was referred to as "Ezra" - and anyone who studies Rashi will see that he cites, "It is written in the Book of Ezra," when in truth it is in Nechemiah, because both books were called Ezra. And why? Chazal taught that there was a flaw and a shortcoming in his words. When a person comes and says, "I deserve it," in Heaven they say to him: Wait, why do you think you deserve it? Therefore, Moshe Rabbeinu came and said: Master of the Universe, I am not asking because I deserve it - please, grant me an unearned gift.