12:6 purified seven times. The fires of anti-Christian persecution, caviling philosophies, literary criticism, scientific skepticism, pagan pantheism, cultic distortion, and apathetic indifference have been directed at God’s Word, but it always emerges brighter and surer than ever.

12:7 Thou shalt keep them. God has promised to guard His “pure words” (Psalm 12:6) through all future generations. Though the original autographs have long been lost or destroyed (possibly translated to heaven with the ark of the covenant—see notes on II Chronicles 36:18; Revelation 11:19), His “words” on these autographs have been meticulously preserved generation after generation by dedicated scribes and scholars, so that we still have them today, as He promised. Even though scribes and scholars sometimes have to decide between variant readings in different manuscripts, we can be sure the original words are still there somewhere. Very few real questions remain about any of these, so we have the original to a very high degree of accuracy.

12:7 thou shalt preserve them. The preservation of the divinely given words of Scripture is incomparably superior to that of all other ancient writings. We can be confident that God has not allowed any of them to “pass away” (Matthew 24:35). They are forever “settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89).