Turn away my eyes that they may not behold vanity: quicken me in thy way.

“Next you say, "and all his pomp." The pomp of the devil is the craze for the theater, the horse races in the circus, the wildbeast hunts and all such emptiness, from which the saint prays to God to be delivered in the words, "Turn away my eyes that they may not behold worthless things." Avoid an addiction to the theater, with its portrayal of sinful conduct, the lewd and unseemly antics of actors and the frantic dancing of degenerates. Not for you, either, the folly of those who, to gratify their miserable appetite, expose themselves to wild beasts in the combats in the amphitheater. They pamper their belly at the cost of becoming themselves, in the event, food for the mouths of savage beasts; of these gladiators it is fair to say that in the service of the belly that is their god they court death in the arena. Shun also the bedlam of the races, a spectacle in which souls as well as riders come to grief. All these follies are the pomp of the devil.”

“The next words in the Psalm which we have undertaken to expound are, "O turn away my eyes, lest they behold vanity: and quicken Thou me in Your way" [Psalm 119:37]. Vanity and truth are directly contrary to one another. The desires of this world are vanity: but Christ, who frees us from the world, is truth. He is the way, too, wherein this man wishes to be quickened, for He is also the life: "I am the way, the truth, and the life," [John 14:6] are His own words.”

“Turn away my reproach which I fear,.... Either for the sake of religion, which was disagreeable to him; and he might be afraid it would be too heavy for him to bear, and be a temptation to him to forsake the good ways of God: or rather by reason of sin, which brings a reproach on good men; and causes the enemy to speak reproachfully, and is therefore dreaded by them who desire to be kept from sin, for that reason as well as others; see Psa 39:8. Jarchi and Kimchi think that David has some reference to his sins, in the case of Uriah and Bathsheba; lest they should be a perpetual reproach on his name and family, which he greatly feared; for thy judgments are good; the laws of God, and punishment of sin according to them; the Scriptures, and the doctrines contained in them; the ways of God, and true religion; which are evil spoken of, through the sins of the professors of them.”