Psalms 25:4
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Show me your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Show me your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Show me thy ways, O Jehovah; Teach me thy paths.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
Make your steps clear to me, O Lord; give me knowledge of your ways.
Webster's Revision
Show me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.
World English Bible
Show me your ways, Yahweh. Teach me your paths.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.
Clarke's Psalms 25:4 Bible Commentary
Show me thy ways - The psalmist wishes to know God's way, to be taught his path, and to be led into his truth. He cannot discern this way unless God show it; he cannot learn the path unless God teach it; and he cannot walk in God's truth unless God lead him: and even then, unless God continue to teach, he shall never fully learn the lessons of his salvation; therefore he adds, "Lead me in thy truth, and teach me;" Psalm 25:5.
That he may get this showing, teaching, and leading, he comes to God, as the "God of his salvation;" and that he may not lose his labor, he "waits on him all the day." Many lose the benefit of their earnest prayers, because they do not persevere in them. They pray for a time; get remiss or discouraged; restrain prayer; and thus lose all that was already wrought for and in them.
Barnes's Psalms 25:4 Bible Commentary
Show me thy ways, O Lord - The "ways" of God are His methods of administering the affairs of the world; His dispensations; the rules which He has prescribed for Himself in the execution of His plans; the great laws by which He governs the universe. Deuteronomy 32:4, "all his ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he." The prayer of the psalmist is, that he may be able to understand the methods of the divine government; the principles upon which God bestows happiness and salvation; the rules which He has been pleased to prescribe for human conduct; the arrangements by which He confers favors upon mankind; the scheme by which He saves people. The idea evidently is that he might understand so much of this as to regulate his own conduct aright; that he might not lean upon his own understanding, or trust to His own guidance, but that He might always be under the guidance and direction of God.
Teach me thy paths - The paths which thou dost take; to wit, as before, in administering the affairs of the world. The prayer is expressive of a desire to be wholly under the direction of God.
Wesley's Psalms 25:4 Bible Commentary
25:4 Teach - Teach me my duty, and cause me to keep close to it, notwithstanding all temptations.