HTML edition for divineprinciplebible.com, continuing Psalms with chapters 116 through 120. Commentary is included only where the passages are especially significant for thanksgiving after deliverance from death, universal praise for mercy and truth, the LORD’s exalted help, the vanity of human confidence, and the cry of one dwelling among lying and warlike people. Simple diagrams are added where they clarify the movement of the psalm. Divine Principle and True Father are named where the connection is clearly in view.
Comment on 116:1: Psalm 116 begins with love born from answered prayer. This is beautiful. The relation to God is not abstract only, but personal and responsive.
Comment on 116:3–4: The psalmist was brought near death and then cried out. Divine Principle strongly resonates with this pattern: extremity becomes the place where Heaven is sought with urgency and sincerity.
Comment on 116:5–6: Grace, righteousness, mercy, and preservation are all joined here. Heaven’s help is moral and tender at the same time.
Comment on 116:7: The soul is called back to rest after distress. This is a beautiful inner restoration verse.
Comment on 116:8–9: Deliverance reaches soul, tears, and steps. The result is a life consciously walked before God. Divine Principle strongly values this shift from near-death to living attendance before Heaven.
Comment on 116:12–13: Gratitude asks how to respond rightly. The answer includes receiving salvation thankfully and publicly calling on God’s name.
Comment on 116:15: This is a profound verse of Heaven’s valuation. The lives and deaths of God’s saints are not overlooked or cheaply counted before Him.
Comment on 117:1: Psalm 117 is the shortest psalm, yet its horizon is universal. All nations and peoples are called to praise. Divine Principle strongly resonates with this because Heaven’s heart and truth are never meant to remain confined to one people alone.
Comment on 117:2: Mercy and truth are the basis of worldwide praise. What begins toward “us” is meant to open outward toward all peoples. This is a beautiful pattern of providential expansion.
Psalm 117 is a brief but powerful universal praise psalm. It strongly reflects Divine Principle themes of God’s great merciful kindness and enduring truth extending beyond one people to summon all nations into praise before Heaven.
Comment on 118:1 and 118:4: Psalm 118 begins with repeated thanksgiving for enduring mercy. The whole covenant community is summoned to confess this together.
Comment on 118:5–6: The psalm quickly moves from distress to fearless confidence. Divine Principle strongly resonates with the shift from pressured circumstances to assurance that Heaven is on one’s side.
Comment on 118:8–9: These are major trust verses. True Father often emphasized that man and princes cannot be the final object of hope in the providential course.
Comment on 118:13–14: The attack is real, but Heaven becomes strength, song, and salvation. The believer’s identity is re-centered in God.
Comment on 118:17: This is a powerful survival-to-testify verse. Life is preserved for declaration of Heaven’s works.
Comment on 118:22–23: This is one of the great reversal verses in Scripture. Divine Principle strongly resonates with the principle that what fallen men reject may become Heaven’s chosen cornerstone in the providence.
Comment on 118:24 and 118:26: The day of Heaven’s action becomes a day of joy, and the one who comes in the LORD’s name is blessed. This is both liturgical and providentially weighty.
Psalm 118 is a great thanksgiving and reversal psalm. It strongly reflects Divine Principle themes of trusting God over man, surviving through Heaven’s help in order to testify, and the marvellous providential reversal by which the rejected stone becomes the head of the corner.
Comment on 119:1–2: Psalm 119 is the great word-and-way psalm. Blessing is linked to walking, keeping, and seeking with the whole heart. Divine Principle strongly resonates with this because restoration requires recovering the word and aligning the life-course to it.
Comment on 119:9: This is a major path-cleansing verse. The way is cleansed by heed to the word, not by vague desire alone.
Comment on 119:11: The word must be hidden in the heart. True Father often emphasized that Heaven’s word must not remain outward only, but become inward standard and life.
Comment on 119:18: Even with the word present, opened eyes are needed. This is a prayer for revelation, not mere literacy.
Comment on 119:50, 119:67, and 119:71: Psalm 119 repeatedly connects affliction with deeper learning of the word. Divine Principle strongly recognizes that hardship may become the course by which man is brought back into alignment with Heaven’s principle.
Comment on 119:89: This is one of the great permanence verses. The word is settled in heaven even when earth is unstable.
Comment on 119:97 and 119:105: Love of the law and guidance by the word are central here. The word gives both affectional center and practical direction.
Comment on 119:130 and 119:133: Light enters through the word, and the steps are to be ordered by it. This is a strong providential-life pattern.
Comment on 119:165 and 119:176: The psalm ends beautifully and humbly: great peace through loving the law, yet still the cry of a lost sheep needing Heaven’s seeking. Divine Principle strongly resonates with this union of principle and grace.
Psalm 119 is the great Scripture psalm of the word, the way, and the heart. It strongly reflects Divine Principle themes of recovering Heaven’s word, internalizing it as the governing standard of life, learning through affliction, receiving light and ordered steps from it, and still depending on God’s seeking grace like a lost sheep.
Comment on 120:1: Psalm 120 opens the Songs of Degrees with distress and heard prayer. The ascent begins not in ease, but in trouble turned toward Heaven.
Comment on 120:2: The danger here is deceptive speech. This fits a repeated psalmic theme: false words wound deeply and distort the human environment.
Comment on 120:3–4: The psalm answers false speech with the certainty of divine judgment. Words are not weightless before Heaven.
Comment on 120:5: The speaker laments dwelling among alien and hostile surroundings. Divine Principle strongly recognizes the pain of living in an environment far from Heaven’s culture and peace.
Comment on 120:6–7: This is a poignant ending. The righteous soul is for peace but is surrounded by warlike response. True Father often emphasized the sorrow of Heaven in a world that resists peace and prefers conflict.
Psalm 120 is a psalm of distress, false speech, and longing for peace at the beginning of the ascent. It strongly reflects Divine Principle themes of the pain of dwelling amid hostile and deceitful culture, the moral seriousness of speech before Heaven, and the steadfast peace-position of the righteous even when surrounded by those who are for war.
God of Original Ideal Commentary
Psalm 116 is a psalm of answered prayer, deliverance from death, and thankful public response. It strongly reflects Divine Principle themes of crying to Heaven in extremity, finding the soul returned to rest, and walking before the LORD in the land of the living with conscious gratitude and testimony.