Bible Strands
Psalms 119:5
Oh, that my ways were committed to keeping Your statutes!
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses YHWH, having just acknowledged that God ordained His precepts for diligent keeping (v. 4). This is the second verse of the aleph stanza in an acrostic psalm structured on the Hebrew alphabet.
The words — יִכֹּנוּ (yikonnū), jussive of כון (kwn), "they would be established, steadfast" — the psalmist does not ask for a single act of obedience but for his ways to be fixed in place.
The thread — The same prayer appears in Psalms 51:10 ("create in me a clean heart"), 2 Thessalonians 3:5 ("direct your hearts"), and Hebrews 13:21 ("equip you with every good thing to do His will"). In each case the plea is for God to produce a settled disposition the speaker cannot generate alone.
Why it lands — The verse reframes obedience from effort to state: the psalmist is not asking for motivation but for structural stability. It asks the reader to treat the desire to keep God's word as something to be received, not manufactured.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!
Cross-references
- Psalms 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
- 2 Thessalonians 3:5 May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.
- Hebrews 13:21 equip you with every good thing to do His will. And may He accomplish in us what is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
- Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.
- Psalms 119:36 Turn my heart to Your testimonies and not to covetous gain.
- Romans 7:22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.
- Psalms 119:32 I run in the path of Your commandments, for You will enlarge my heart.
- Psalms 119:173 May Your hand be ready to help me, for I have chosen Your precepts.
- Psalms 119:159 Consider how I love Your precepts, O LORD; give me life according to Your loving devotion.
- Psalms 119:44 I will always obey Your law, forever and ever.