This is my comfort in my affliction - Compare Romans 15:4. The word here rendered "comfort" occurs only here and in Job 6:10. The obvious meaning is, that his only consolation in his affliction was derived from the word of God; the word which had caused him to hope, and the word by which he had been quickened or made alive. The particular design of this is to show the value of the word of God as a source of comfort in trouble.

For thy word hath quickened me - Has made me alive; or, caused me to live. That is, the word, the truth of God, had been the instrument of calling him from the death of sin, and of imparting to him new life, or had been the means of his regeneration. Compare James 1:18; 1 Corinthians 4:15; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Peter 1:23. As it was by this "word" that he had been made alive, so his only comfort was in that word, and it was to him a just ground of consolation that God had brought him from the death of sin, and had imparted to him spiritual life.

This is my comfort - While enduring our harsh captivity, we anticipated our enlargement; and thy word of promise was the means of keeping our souls alive.

This is my comfort in my affliction,.... David had his afflictions, and so has every good man; none are without; it is the will and pleasure of God that so it should be; and many are their afflictions, inward and outward: the word of God is often their comfort under them, the written word, heard or read; and especially a word of promise, powerfully applied: this is putting underneath everlasting arms, and making their bed in sickness. This either respects what goes before, concerning the word of promise hoped in, or what follows:

for thy word hath quickened me; not only had been the means of quickening him when dead in am, as it often is the means of quickening dead sinners, being the savour of life unto life; but of reviving his drooping spirits, when in affliction and distress; and of quickening the graces of the Spirit of God in him, and him to the exercise of them, when they seemed ready to die; and to the fervent and diligent discharge of duty, when listless and backward to it.

This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.

50. for-rather, "This is my comfort . that," &c. [Maurer].

hath quickened-What the Word has already done is to faith a pledge of what it shall yet do.

119:49-56 Those that make God's promises their portion, may with humble boldness make them their plea. He that by his Spirit works faith in us, will work for us. The word of God speaks comfort in affliction. If, through grace, it makes us holy, there is enough in it to make us easy, in all conditions. Let us be certain we have the Divine law for what we believe, and then let not scoffers prevail upon us to decline from it. God's judgments of old comfort and encourage us, for he is still the same. Sin is horrible in the eyes of all that are sanctified. Ere long the believer will be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. In the mean time, the statutes of the Lord supply subjects for grateful praise. In the season of affliction, and in the silent hours of the night, he remembers the name of the Lord, and is stirred up to keep the law. All who have made religion the first thing, will own that they have been unspeakable gainers by it.