We’ve now come to the end of Psalm 119, the taw section. Like much of the psalm, there is an interchange between pleading with God for deliverance and publicly confessing the psalmist’s commitment to God. In this section, that commitment shows up as praise.
In 119:169-171 we read of the plea:
May my cry come before you, O Lord;
give me understanding according to your word.
May my supplication come before you;
deliver me according to your promise.
This very common use of parallelism between the verses leads us to see line 1 and 3 as largely the same and lines 2 and 4 as complementing. His cry is a supplication; his understanding is as needful as his deliverance. He doesn’t just want God to make clear to him what is going on, he wants God to deliver him.
This reminds me of John the Baptist sending two disciples to Jesus to ask if Jesus was or was not the “one who is to come.” I doubt John was “googling” Jesus for information; he wanted a specific answer (yes) so he could then make a plea — get me out of prison.
So the psalmist: he pleas — as he’s done throughout the entire psalm — for deliverance.
He seeks for insight from God’s Word; he expects deliverance because, knowing that Word, he knows God is faithful to his promises.