Psalm 119:172

The Hebrew word here for righteousness is tsedeq. Phonetically it's tsawdak. It gives one the picture of equity—something that is even, something that is equal of a scale that is in equal poise. It is in perfect balance. It is very interesting that the Greek word translated "righteousness" in the New Testament means virtually the same thing. It is dikaios in the Greek, and it means "to divide." It means equity. It means to divide to each his due. It means perfect balance. We have two words here that mean essentially the same thing, and He is saying here that all His commandments—not just the Ten Commandments—but the statutes, the judgments, the customs, the rituals, and all instruction in general are righteousness.

That word "commandments" is a word you are familiar with in the Hebrew. You have probably said it many times in your life. It is the word "mitzvah." A Jewish person has a bar mitzvah. When a person makes his bar mitzvah, he becomes a son (a bar) of the commandment. Now it means "commandment" in a general sense, in a broad sense, and is used even in the Bible to indicate the Torah, even though there is a separate word Torah. Torah means law or instruction. You put this all together, and when He says all His commandments are righteousness, it means all of His instruction is righteousness.

I am giving this to you so you will understand that right doing (righteousness) is not confined to law. There are things having to do with life that do not touch on law, that God has no "Thus saith the LORD," but He does have examples He gives of things that are right.

Psalm 119:172

In gleaning what these men have said, it is the way we live that reveals the children of God. John is especially clear that the accent is on doing. Now in this context what is righteousness?

We may be able to give a legal definition from Psalm 119:172: All your commandments are righteousness. But that is a bare-bones, legal definition of what righteousness is. In the context, it is to love our brother. To not do anything is a form of hatred. It is almost equated with murder. John says what we have to do is to reach out and really help the person.

There is something we can do. We might not be able to help the person physically because we are simply unable to do it - we are not where they are, we have not the mind (the technical expertise), or the resources in terms of finances, or whatever to actually do something that way physically - but the very least we can do is pray for the person. That is doing something, is it not? That is expressing your concern for the person to God. Surely we can all do something like that. That is an active step toward doing righteousness, a very important one.

So we can have fine words, fine thoughts, fine feelings, but none of those things will ever take the place of deeds. God's emphasis is always on action. Christ laid down His life for us.

Psalm 119:171-172

God teaches through His Word, all His commandments are righteousness. The use of all here makes it clear, it denotes all of the Ten Commandments, but also the entirety of God's instruction. In fact, if we had time and went back and read even the first ten verses of this psalm, Psalm 119, we would see many positive and negative statements that described God's righteousness. Way, walk, seek, law, testimonies, no iniquity, His ways, precepts, statutes, commandments, judgments, word. All of those are just different ways of describing God's righteousness.

Psalm 119:172

They were ignorant of God's righteousness. Righteousness simply means right doing; rectitude. According to Psalm 119:172, righteousness is defined as the commandments of God. That is right doing! So we see here that, by definition, these people did not know of God's right doing - God's right way, God's right method, God's commandments. We see that confirmed in Mark 7, where Jesus said:

Psalm 119:172

Brethren, it says in Psalm 119:172 that ALL of God's commandments are righteousness. Understanding is the result of doing the commands of God. When we stop doing, we begin to lose the understanding. It is not something that will happen quickly. It will not happen overnight, or in the blink of the eye. But, in the biblical milieu there, You use it, or you lose it.