“It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”
My Notes
What Does Psalms 119:71 Mean?
"It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes." This is a sentence that can only be written in retrospect. No one says affliction is good while they're in it. The psalmist is looking back — and from the other side, he can see what the suffering produced.
"Good" (tov) — the same word God used in Genesis 1 when He surveyed creation. Not just acceptable or tolerable. Good. The psalmist isn't gritting his teeth through a theological platitude. He's making a genuine assessment: what happened to me was good. Not the pain itself, but what the pain accomplished.
"That I might learn thy statutes" — the purpose clause. Affliction was the classroom. God's statutes were the curriculum. And the psalmist couldn't access that curriculum without the suffering. Something about the affliction — the stripping, the humbling, the breaking of self-sufficiency — created a capacity for learning that comfort never could.
This echoes Hebrews 12:11: "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness." The "afterward" is where this verse lives. The psalmist has crossed from grievous to afterward, and he can see the fruit.
Reflection Questions
- 1.Is there a past affliction you can now honestly say was 'good' for you? What did it teach you that comfort never could?
- 2.What's the difference between saying suffering is good and saying it was used for good? Does the distinction matter to you?
- 3.If you're in a season of affliction now, what might God be trying to teach you that you can only learn in this kind of classroom?
- 4.How do you hold space for pain being real and terrible while also trusting that God can bring something good from it?
Devotional
You can't say this verse honestly until you're on the other side. In the middle of affliction, it doesn't feel good. It feels like abandonment, punishment, or meaningless suffering. But the psalmist isn't writing from the middle. He's writing from afterward. And afterward changes everything.
Look at what he learned: not just theology, not just information — God's statutes. The practical, livable, daily-walk instructions of God. Affliction didn't teach him abstract truths. It taught him how to live. Because when everything else is stripped away — comfort, control, self-sufficiency — you're finally teachable. The lessons God has been trying to give you suddenly have room to land.
This doesn't mean you should seek out suffering or pretend to enjoy it. The psalmist didn't say "it was fun." He said "it was good." Good like surgery is good. Good like pruning is good. Good because of what it produced, not because of how it felt.
If you're in the middle of something painful right now, you may not be ready to call it good. That's fine. The psalmist wasn't either, when he was in it. But you can hold this verse as a future possibility: one day, I might look back and see what this taught me. One day, the affliction might make sense — not as punishment, but as education. The classroom was terrible. The curriculum was priceless.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right,.... His word, the doctrines and precepts of it, they are all consistent…
It is good for me that I have been afflicted - See the notes at Psa 119:67. Whatever may have been the form of the…
See here, 1. That it has been the lot of the best saints to be afflicted. The proud and the wicked lived in pomp and…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture