Commentaire de citation sur Les Psaumes 119:3

But his delight is in the law of the Lord: – He says: if he has departed from the evil way and yet has not done good, behold, he has not performed his work completely and it is not said of him, “Happy is he!” And so it says: “Depart from evil and do good” (Ps. 34:15). And although our teachers of blessed memory have said (Midrash, Shoher Tob, adloc.), “If a man sits and has not committed sin, he is rewarded as one who performs a mitzvah,” they have also interpreted (ibid.) [Depart from evil and do good] applying it to the case of him to whom transgression has come and who has been delivered from it, as it is said “Depart from evil and do good,” i.e. Depart from evil for the sake of doing good. And so it says (Ps. 119:3), “Yea, they do no unrighteousness; they walk in His ways.” And they hold that he who has conquered his inclination in regard to an action is as one who has performed a mitzvah, when the temptation has befallen him, and so it is as is said, “Yea, they do no unrighteousness,” etc.; although they have done no unrighteousness, still it is necessary that they should walk in His ways and do a good work. And so he says, Happy is the man that walketh not. But what does he do? His delight is in the law of the Lord. And included in delight is both learning and doing, as (in the text) “from doing thy delight” (Is. 58:13); and doing apart from learning is not sufficient.

כל הדברים אשר דבר ה' נעשה. The word נעשה, “we will do,” here includes all the commandments of the Lord, negative commandments as well as positive ones, the ones requiring an exertion, an activity. The reason why this is not a misnomer is that if someone refrains from violating a negative commandment he is considered as having “performed” a commandment, i.e the commandment not to violate G’d’s legislation in that matter. We have a complete verse confirming this in Psalms 119,3 אף לא פעלו עולה, בדרכיו הלכו, “they have done no wrong, but have followed His ways.” In other words, not doing evil is considered equivalent to doing good.

ויכתב משה את כל דברי ה', “Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord.” This refers to the conditions spelled out in 19,5: “it will be if you listen to My voice, etc.”
וישכם בבוקר ויבן מזבח תחת ההר, “he arose early in the morning and erected an altar beneath the mountain.” This occurred on the fifth day of Sivan.
כל הדברים אשר דבר ה' נעשה, “all the words the Lord has said we shall do.” Rabbeinu Chananel writes that the word נעשה includes the positive and the negative commandments. The reason for this is simple. Anyone who deliberately refrains from violating a negative commandment thereby performs a positive commandment. There is an explicit verse in Psalms 119,3 making precisely this point. The psalmist says: “they have done no wrong but have followed His ways.”