(99) More understanding . . .--The Rabbinical writers disliked the idea of a scholar professing wisdom above his teachers, and rendered, "from all my teachers I got wisdom," which was certainly far more in keeping with the process by which the Talmud grew into existence.
Verse 99. - I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. Teachers of secular knowledge are intended, wise in their special branches of learning, but not "wise unto salvation." Such "teachers" have often no spiritual knowledge or discernment.
119:97-104 What we love, we love to think of. All true wisdom is from God. A good man carries his Bible with him, if not in his hands, yet in his head and in his heart. By meditation on God's testimonies we understand more than our teachers, when we understand our own hearts. The written word is a more sure guide to heaven, than all the fathers, the teachers, and ancients of the church. We cannot, with any comfort or boldness, attend God in holy duties, while under guilt, or in any by-way. It was Divine grace in his heart, that enabled the psalmist to receive these instructions. The soul has its tastes as well as the body. Our relish for the word of God will be greatest, when that for the world and the flesh is least. The way of sin is a wrong way; and the more understanding we get by the precepts of God, the more rooted will be our hatred of sin; and the more ready we are in the Scriptures, the better furnished we are with answers to temptation.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,.... Such as had been or would have been his teachers, who were bad ones in religious matters; especially such might be the religious teachers in Saul's time, when David was a young man: as the priests, whose lips should keep knowledge, and deliver it to the people, were in the times of Malachi; and as the Scribes and Pharisees, who, sat in Moses's chair, were in Christ's time; and as those legal teachers were in the apostles' times, who would be teachers of the law, not knowing what they said, nor whereof they affirmed; such as these David exceeded in spiritual understanding. Or his good teachers are meant; and though in common it is true that "a disciple is not above his master", Matthew 10:24; yet there are sometimes instances in which scholars exceed their teachers in knowledge and learning; and this is no reproach to a master to have such scholars: no doubt Apollos so improved in knowledge as to excel Aquila and Priscilla, of whom he learned much; as the Apostle Paul excelled Ananias; and so David excelled his teachers: and which is said by him, not in an ostentatious way of himself, nor in contempt of his teachers; but to commend the word of God, the source of his knowledge; and to magnify the grace of God, to whom he attributes all his wisdom, as in Psalm 119:98. Kimchi interprets it,
"of them all I have learned and received instruction; and from them I have understood the good way, and they have taught me;''
for thy testimonies are my meditation; what he learned of his teachers he compared with the word, the Scriptures, which testify of the mind and will of God; he searched into them, he meditated upon them, and considered whether what his instructors taught him were agreeable to them or and by this means he got more understanding than they had.
"of them all I have learned and received instruction; and from them I have understood the good way, and they have taught me;''
for thy testimonies are my meditation; what he learned of his teachers he compared with the word, the Scriptures, which testify of the mind and will of God; he searched into them, he meditated upon them, and considered whether what his instructors taught him were agreeable to them or and by this means he got more understanding than they had.