We continue in Chapter 119 with the letter Shin, focusing on three verses: "Princes have persecuted me without cause," "I rejoice over Your word," and "I hate falsehood." These three verses are built around three of the chapter's key terms - davar (word), imrah (utterance), and Torah - and each opens a window into a different aspect of divine service: awe, joy, and love in the service of Hashem.
שָׂרִים רְדָפוּנִי חִנָּם וּמִדְּבָרְךָ פָּחַד לִבִּי׃ (קיט, קסא) - Princes have persecuted me without cause, but my heart is in dread of Your word. (119:161)
Ibn Ezra explains that "princes" refers to rulers and those in positions of authority. Although a person naturally fears powerful figures who pursue him, King David says: I did not fear them. Rather, "my heart is in dread of Your word" - the word of Hashem is what truly causes me awe and fear, not any pursuit by flesh and blood.
The Radak offers several explanations. First, these princes are the ministers and leaders of Israel - those who stood with Shaul, or those who followed Avshalom - who persecuted David. David says: far more than I feared them, my heart trembled before Your word, lest I violate any of Your commandments. The fear of transgressing Hashem's will is greater to me than the fear of being pursued by rulers. Another explanation: they persecuted me and sought to drive me away from Your Torah, like those who say, "Go and worship other gods," yet I did not heed them to abandon Hashem's Torah, for "my heart is in dread of Your word" - I feared to transgress the Torah. A third explanation: this may refer specifically to Avshalom. The Holy One, blessed be He, had told David, "Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house." Therefore David says: if I fear Avshalom, it is not on his own account, but rather "my heart is in dread of Your word" - You said You would bring evil upon me from within my own home, and that is what made me fear that the calamity had now arrived. The primary fear is not of him, but of the word uttered by Hashem that my own son would be the one to pursue me.
The Malbim anchors the verse in the key term devarim (words/commandments). In his view, the word chinam (without cause / in vain) contains deeper meaning: not only are they persecuting me without cause, since I did nothing wrong to them, but their pursuit and toil are entirely in vain - there is no benefit in their pursuit, they will achieve no success, and they accomplish nothing at all. And why? Because "my heart is in dread of Your word." When a person experiences a profound, overwhelming fear, that greater fear diminishes and eclipses any smaller fear. If a bee comes to sting someone, and suddenly he sees a roaring lion before him, the bee no longer bothers him in the least. His life hangs in the balance, and the sting that troubled him a moment ago vanishes from his consciousness. So too, the greater awe nullifies the lesser fear. The pursuit of princes is like a bee sting compared to "my heart is in dread of Your word," which is like a roaring lion; thus, the immense awe of Hashem minimizes any petty fears of human pursuers.
In this regard, the Malbim cites the saying of the sage: "I would be ashamed before the fear of God to fear anything else." This is related in Chovos HaLevavos regarding a pious man who was sleeping alone in the desert. They asked him, "Are you not afraid of the wild beasts?" He replied, "I fear my God lest He see me fearing anything other than Him" - I am ashamed that the Holy One, blessed be He, should see me fearing anyone else, as if I lacked complete trust in Him. And this is what David is saying: I fear Hashem, and He will protect me from flesh and blood; they will not be able to harm me at all, and therefore all the pursuit of the princes is entirely in vain.
Rav Sorotzkin, in his work Oznayim LaTorah, explains King David's intention as follows: if ordinary people were pursuing me, there would be reason to worry that the malice in their hearts might lead them to harm me. This aligns with the opinion that a creature of free will has the power to harm someone even if it was not decreed upon him from Heaven. This issue is a subject of dispute, as we have noted previously: this is the view of the Radak, the holy Or HaChaim, and others. The view more commonly accepted by us, coming from Rav Yisrael Salanter and the Vilna Gaon, is that no one in the world can harm a person unless it was decreed upon him, even when dealing with someone who possesses free will. And as discussed in Rav Friedlander's Sifsei Chaim, these approaches can be reconciled so that no contradiction remains.
According to the perspective that a person with free will can indeed cause harm even if it was not decreed, David says: I would have reason to fear ordinary people who pursue me, for they could inflict harm. But when princes pursue me - the hearts of kings and rulers are in the hand of Hashem. As the holy Or HaChaim illustrates with his parable: the chain of the dog is in the hand of its master. I do not fear them, because the heart of a ruler is held directly by the Holy One, blessed be He, and he cannot do me any harm unless Hashem has decreed it. Based on this, the Or HaChaim explains the verse we recite in Eichah, "Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand" - precisely because slaves ruled over us, there was none to rescue us; had princes and kings ruled over us, their hearts would be directly in the hand of Hashem, leaving them no independent power to do harm. But when an ordinary individual rules over me, who can save me from his hand, given that he possesses free will to harm?
From this David continues: if princes are nevertheless pursuing me, it is a sign that Hashem instructed them to pursue me. If so, this demands that I mend my ways and examine my conduct. And this is the meaning of "but my heart is in dread of Your word": when I see a ruler persecuting me, it is a sign of a divine directive, and that realization itself brings me to awe of Heaven.
In Sefer Kol Eliyahu, there is a truly marvelous explanation connecting these two verses: "Princes persecuted me without cause, but of Your word my heart was afraid. I rejoice over Your word as one who finds great spoil." When David HaMelech was appointed king over Israel, Doeg and Achitophel came and began searching for flaws and blemishes in him out of jealousy. As Scripture says, "And they were jealous of Moshe in the camp" - who envies a person who rises to greatness? Those who are in his camp. We do not envy a government minister who is appointed to high office, or a rosh yeshivah appointed to a certain position, but those who are in the same circle, the same faculty, the same camp - they are the ones who feel jealousy. If your neighbor tells you that so-and-so won the lottery and moved to an upscale neighborhood, and you remember him from before, you are precisely the one prone to envy him, because he was in your own peer group. Someone who has nothing to do with us does not arouse our envy at all. So it was with David: those who envied him were Doeg and Achitophel, the great men who were in his camp. The simple people, when they saw him become king, were not jealous at all - he was not in their league.
And because Doeg and Achitophel envied him, other people were aroused to speak against David, claiming that he was unworthy and unfit: after all, "An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter the congregation of Hashem," and David was descended from Ruth the Moabitess; therefore, he should be disqualified from entering the congregation. The Sages, however, expounded: "An Ammonite," but not an Ammonitess; "a Moabite," but not a Moabitess. Thus, according to the plain meaning of the Written Torah, David would be forbidden to enter the congregation, whereas according to the exposition of Chazal, David is fit to enter the congregation.
The Vilna Gaon explains: the expression of dibbur (speech) primarily characterizes the Written Torah - Vayedabber, Vayedabber, Vayedabber; and although it also says Vayomer, its primary form is dibbur. By contrast, the expression of amirah (saying) primarily characterizes the Oral Torah - amar Abaye, amar Ravina, amar Rav Pappa; it never says dibber there. Thus, the Oral Torah is characterized by amirah, and the Written Torah by dibbur. According to this, see how beautifully the verse reads: "Princes persecuted me without cause" - these are Doeg and Achitophel, the men of authority who envied David. "But of Your word (u-midvarecha) my heart was afraid" - devarcha refers to the Written Torah, and it was from it that my heart feared, for in the literal text it appears that David is disqualified from entering the congregation. And immediately David continues: "I rejoice over Your word (imratecha)" - this is the Oral Torah, in which they permitted me to enter the congregation, "as one who finds great spoil."
There is another marvelous allusion here: shalal ("spoil") has the numerical value of Shas (the Talmud, 360) - indicating that this exposition is found in the Shas. Look also at the initial and final letters: K'motzei Shalal Rav (כמוצא שלל רב) - the initial letters spell Kasher (כשר), and the final letters are aleph-lamed-beit, spelling the word lavo ("to enter"). Kasher lavo - David HaMelech is fit to enter the congregation!
The Rav of Nikolsburg explains: sometimes a prince is allowed to persecute and harass a righteous person so that when the righteous person is gripped by fear from the persecution, he will take note of himself and say: How is it that you fear this nobleman so much? When did such fear ever overcome you during prayer? When did such dread seize you from the fear of Hashem and the majesty of His grandeur? The persecution comes to awaken the tzaddik to examine himself as to whether he fears Hashem to such a degree. Regarding this, David HaMelech says: in my case, this was entirely unnecessary; "Princes persecuted me without cause" - for no reason, because in any event "of Your word my heart was afraid," and even more so. There is no need for princes to persecute me to bring me to the fear of Heaven, when the fear of Heaven is already within me.
שָׂשׂ אָנֹכִי עַל אִמְרָתֶךָ כְּמוֹצֵא שָׁלָל רָב׃ (קיט, קסב) - I rejoice over Your word as one who finds great spoil. (119:162)
Rashi explains: "Over Your word" - over Your promise that You made to me. Another explanation: over one of Your obscure sayings when I come to understand it. That is, when I am privileged to understand an obscure teaching, to penetrate the depths of a passage in the Gemara that until now I had not been able to grasp, I feel immense joy over it, like one who finds great spoil.
Our Sages expounded this verse in reference to the mitzvah of circumcision: when David was in the bathhouse, he saw himself without tzitzit, without tefillin, and without Torah study, and he said: Woe to me that I am bare of all mitzvot! Once he looked at his circumcision, he rejoiced, and as he exited the bathhouse he said: "I rejoice over Your word." And why is circumcision specifically called imratecha ("Your saying")? Because it was initially given with the term amirah rather than dibbur - "And God said (Vayomer) to Avraham: And you shall keep My covenant" - an amirah, not a dibbur.
In Sefer Tehillot Maharitz, this is explained with further depth. A person must fulfill the entire Torah even when he does not understand it. Why? Because if you wait until you understand, it may happen that you only understand at a later stage, and then you will discover that for twenty years you did nothing - since you did not understand, you did not perform. Therefore, a person must fulfill the mitzvot even without understanding, and when his eyes are opened and he is granted understanding, he will discover in retrospect: How wonderful! What great spoil I possessed without realizing it! What tremendous merits I acquired without even paying attention! I performed simply because I was commanded to do so, and suddenly, when the depth is revealed to me, I discover what immense merits I have accumulated for myself.
And he continues: this is just like circumcision. Circumcision is performed on an infant when he does not understand at all what is being done to him. When he grows up, he rejoices like someone who finds great spoils: How wonderful, an act was performed on me through which I was privileged to belong to the King's legion, the King's signet mark is engraved upon me, and I did nothing to earn it; and even if I felt it, I was very small and remember nothing of it. And this is the meaning of "I rejoice over Your word": not only over the covenant of circumcision, but I rejoice over the entire Torah just as I do over the mitzvah of circumcision. I fulfill the Torah even before I have grasped its depth, and when the time comes that I do understand, it will be for me like finding great spoils - just as with circumcision, where I rejoice over the King's mark engraved in my flesh even though I did nothing to earn it.
Radak explains similarly: I rejoice and am glad over Your word when I understand it, like a person who finds great spoils.
The Malbim anchors the verse on the keyword "word" (imrot), explaining: King David testifies that no worldly matter evokes joy within him. All the physical things that bring joy to human beings are not joy to him at all. His sole, profound joy is: "I rejoice over Your word like one who finds great spoils." And just as we saw earlier that a great fear cancels out smaller fears, so too a great joy cancels out smaller joys: when I possess such immense joy in the study of Torah, all the small, simple pleasures pale in comparison.
The book Imrot Tehorot cites a different explanation in the name of the Baal Shem Tov. When a person finds great spoils and cannot take everything, even though he experiences immense joy over what he has taken, he still feels sadness over what he left behind. The same thing happens to people who attend lavish banquets: they are glad for what they ate, but they regret what they left behind - "We didn't taste this, and that was also here, and what about that dessert?" - yet what can one do when the stomach has limited capacity? When someone finds spoils and his vessels are limited, he rejoices in what he collected but grieves over how much he had to leave behind, and this distress diminishes some of his joy.
In this manner, he explains, act the holy and righteous: even though they have great joy in performing a mitzvah, they still feel sorrow - I missed that mitzvah; I could have merited another mitzvah here; had I rushed, I would have gained that one as well. At every single moment, they feel anguish over what more they could have attained but did not. And this is what David means by "I rejoice over Your word like one who finds great spoils" - like a person who finds great spoils and cannot take it all, who also carries some sadness over what he missed. So too, I rejoice over Your word, yet I cannot seize all the mitzvot and fill my time with Torah, with mitzvot, and with good deeds all at once, which leaves me with sorrow over the mitzvot I miss.
שֶׁקֶר שָׂנֵאתִי וַאֲתַעֵבָה תּוֹרָתְךָ אָהָבְתִּי׃ (קיט, קסג) - "I hate and abhor falsehood; Your Torah I love." (119:163)
Ibn Ezra explains: "I hate falsehood" refers to the negative commandments; "Your Torah I love" refers to the positive commandments. That is to say, I hate transgressing the prohibitions and love fulfilling the positive commandments.
Radak asks: What is the connection between "I hate and abhor falsehood" and "Your Torah I love"? He answers: The Torah is a Torah of truth, and the greatest antithesis to falsehood is the holy Torah. Consequently, one who hates falsehood necessarily loves the Torah, which is the very opposite of falsehood. I hated falsehood - and I loved the truth.
And see: the further people distance themselves from the Torah, the more they cling to falsehood, and this is no coincidence. The individuals furthest from the Torah are also those immersed in all sorts of utopian fantasies - that you gave and should give more and more, and that we are the cruel ones. When you read such things, you wonder how it is possible for a person to be so detached from reality, blind to what is happening right before his eyes, living in a fantasy of how the world ought to look. He does not live with the reality that there are those whose entire desire is to destroy you and who harbor no other intention. The explanation is simple: the further you are from the Torah, the further you are from truth and the closer you are to falsehood. Then you have no problem echoing the lie, shouting it, founding organizations to spread it, and arranging funding for it, so long as it is repeated again and again until it takes root. And indeed it has taken root. Look at what is happening today on campuses across the United States - and this does not concern only Muslims, but also American students who suddenly align themselves with fundamentalist ideologies, with the desire to destroy Jews, and with antisemitism. This teaches you that the gentile has not changed, and the sea remains the same sea. Anyone who thinks something has changed, that the world has learned or progressed, is living in an alternate reality. This is the reality, and there is no need to be shocked anew each time at how these people fail to see it: one cannot see reality when one is far from the Torah and close to falsehood.
The Malbim anchors the verse on the keyword "Torah." Since "Your Torah I love," and the Torah is entirely truth, it is impossible that I should also love falsehood - for whoever loves something necessarily hates its opposite. One who loves warmth hates cold, and one who loves cold hates heat; one who loves his friends hates their enemies, for one cannot love both this and that. The moment you love something, you hate its opposite. Falsehood is the absolute antithesis of truth, and therefore, "I hate and abhor falsehood" - because "Your Torah I love."