Read
Psalm 119:19
I am a stranger on the earth. Don’t hide your commandments from me.
17Do good to your servant. I will live and I will obey your word.
18Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of your law.
19I am a stranger on the earth. Don’t hide your commandments from me.
20My soul is consumed with longing for your ordinances at all times.
21You have rebuked the proud who are cursed, who wander from your commandments.
Notice
A stranger on the earth asks God for his commandments, linking the sense of not belonging with the need for God's instruction.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What does calling yourself a stranger on the earth express about your life today?
Write on thisHow does the request for God's commandments compare with what you seek when you feel out of place?
Write on thisConnect
Where else Scripture says this
11 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
1 Chronicles 29:15For we are strangers before you and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.Both texts describe human life on earth as a stranger's life and speak from that condition to God.
Psalm 39:12“Hear my prayer, LORD, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.Both prayers name the speaker as a stranger and ask God not to withhold something needed: his commandments or his hearing.
Hebrews 11:13–16These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and …Both describe people as strangers on the earth, with Hebrews placing that confession among those who died in faith.
Psalm 119:10With my whole heart I have sought you. Don’t let me wander from your commandments.Both prayers express dependence on God concerning his commandments: one asks that they remain accessible, the other asks for help against wandering.
2 Corinthians 5:6Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord;The shared thread is limited: the psalm speaks of being a stranger on earth; Paul speaks of being absent from the Lord.
1 Peter 2:11Beloved, I beg you as foreigners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul,Both connect the identity of a stranger with conduct: the psalm seeks God's commandments, while Peter urges resistance to fleshly lusts.
Genesis 47:9Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not …Jacob describes his years as a pilgrimage, while the psalmist describes himself as a stranger on the earth.
Luke 24:45Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures.The psalm asks God not to hide his commandments; Luke describes Jesus opening minds to understand the Scriptures.
Isaiah 63:17O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways, and harden our heart from your fear? Return for your servants’ sake, the tribes of your inheritance.Both address God about access to his ways, though Isaiah protests wandering and hardness while the psalm asks for his commandments.
Psalm 119:45I will walk in liberty, for I have sought your precepts.Both express desire for God's instruction: one asks that his commandments not be hidden, while the other speaks of seeking his precepts.
Genesis 23:4“I am a stranger and a foreigner living with you. Give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”Both speakers call themselves strangers; Abraham asks for a burial place, while the psalmist asks for access to God's commandments.
Where this verse fits
Loneliness. feeling distant from God. wanting a steady prayer habit.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
Feeling like a stranger need not keep you from speaking to God. The psalmist brings that very condition into a plea for God's commandments.
Now put it in your words.
Start an entry on Psalm 119:19. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.
Keep goingPsalm 119 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms
Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).