1 Judge me, Jehovah, for I--in my integrity do I walk,
And in Jehovah do I trust unwavering.
2 Test me, Jehovah, and try me,
My reins and my heart.
3 For Thy loving-kindness is before my eyes,
And I walk in Thy troth.
4 I sit not with men of vanity,
And with those who mask themselves do I not go.
5 I hate the congregation of evil-doers,
And with the wicked I do not sit.
6 I will wash my hands in innocence,
That I may compass Thine altar, Jehovah,
7 To cause the voice of praise to be heard,
And to tell forth all Thy wonders.
8 Jehovah, I love the shelter of Thy house,
And the place of the dwelling of Thy glory.
9 Take not away with sinners my soul,
Nor with men of blood my life,
10 In whose hands is outrage,
And their right hand is full of bribery.
11 But I--in my integrity will I walk;
Redeem me, and be gracious to me.
12 My foot stands on level ground;
In the congregations will I bless Jehovah.
The image of "the way" which is characteristic of Psalm xxv. reappears
in a modified form in this psalm, which speaks of "walking in
integrity" and truth and of "feet standing in an even place." Other
resemblances to the preceding psalm are the use of "redeem," "be
merciful"; the references to God's loving-kindness and truth, in which
the psalmist walks, and to his own integrity. These similarities may
or may not indicate common authorship, but probably guided the
compilers in placing the psalm here. It has not clear marks of date or
of the writer's circumstances. Its two ground tones are profession of
integrity and of revulsion from the society of the wicked and prayer
for vindication of innocence by the fact of deliverance. The verses
are usually grouped in couples, but with some irregularity.
The two key-notes are both struck in the first group of three verses, in
which vv. 2 and 3 are substantially an expansion of ver. 1. The prayer,
"Judge me," asks for a Divine act of deliverance based upon a Divine
recognition of the psalmist's sincerity and unwavering trust. Both the
prayer and its ground are startling. It grates upon ears accustomed to
the tone of the New Testament that a suppliant should allege his
single-eyed simplicity and steadfast faith as pleas with God, and the
strange tone sounds on through the whole psalm. The threefold prayer in
ver. 2 courts Divine scrutiny, as conscious of innocence, and bares the
inmost recesses of affection and impulse for testing, proving by
circumstances, and smelting by any fire. The psalmist is ready for the
ordeal, because he has kept God's "loving-kindness" steadily in sight
through all the glamour of earthly brightnesses, and his outward life
has been all, as it were, transacted in the sphere of God's
truthfulness; _i.e._, the inward contemplation of His mercy and
faithfulness has been the active principle of his life. Such
self-consciousness is strange enough to us, but, strange as it is, it
cannot fairly be stigmatised as Pharisaic self-righteousness. The
psalmist knows that all goodness comes from God, and he clings to God in
childlike trust. The humblest Christian heart might venture in similar
language to declare its recoil from evil-doers and its deepest spring of
action as being trust. Such professions are not inconsistent with
consciousness of sin, which is, in fact, often associated with them in
other psalms (xxv. 20, 21, and vii. 11, 18). They do indicate a lower
stage of religious development, a less keen sense of sinfulness and of
sins, a less clear recognition of the worthlessness before God of all
man's goodness, than belong to Christian feeling. The same language when
spoken at one stage of revelation may be childlike and lowly, and be
swelling arrogance and self-righteous self-ignorance, if spoken at
another.
Such high and sweet communion cannot but breed profound distaste for
the society of evil-doers. The eyes which have God's loving-kindness
ever before them are endowed with penetrative clearness of vision into
the true hollowness of most of the objects pursued by men, and with a
terrible sagacity which detects hypocrisy and shams. Association with
such men is necessary, else we must needs go out of the world, and
leaven must be in contact with dough in order to do its transforming
work; but it is impossible for a man whose heart is truly in touch
with God not to feel ill at ease when brought into contact with those
who have no share in his deepest convictions and emotions. "Men of
vanity" is a general designation for the ungodly, pronouncing on every
such life the sentence that it is devoted to empty unrealities and
partakes of the nature of that to which it is given up. One who has
Jehovah's loving-kindness before his eyes cannot "sit" with such men
in friendly association, as if sharing their ways of thinking, nor
"go" with them in their course of conduct. "Those who mask themselves"
are another class, namely hypocrites who conceal their pursuit of
vanity under the show of religion. The psalmist's revulsion is
intensified in ver. 5 into "hate," because the evil-doers and sinners
spoken of there are of a deeper tint of blackness, and are banded
together in a "congregation," the opposite and parody of the
assemblies of the righteous, whom he feels to be his kindred. No doubt
separateness from evil-doers is but part of a godly man's duty, and
has often been exaggerated into selfish withdrawal from a world which
needs good men's presence all the more the worse it is; but it _is_ a
part of his duty, and "Come out from among them and be separate" is
not yet an abrogated command. No man will ever mingle with "men of
vanity," so as to draw them from the shadows of earth to the substance
in God, unless his loving association with them rests on profound
revulsion from their principles of action. None comes so near to
sinful men as the sinless Christ; and if He had not been ever
"separate from sinners," He would never have been near enough to
redeem them. We may safely imitate His free companionship, which
earned Him His glorious name of their Friend, if we imitate His
remoteness from their evil.
From the uncongenial companionship of the wicked the psalmist's
yearnings instinctively turn to his heart's home, the sanctuary. The
more a man feels out of sympathy with a godless world, the more
longingly he presses into the depths of communion with God; and,
conversely, the more he feels at home in still communion, the more
does the tumult of sense-bound crowds grate on his soul. The psalmist,
then, in the next group of verses (6, 7), opposes access to the house
of God and the solemn joy of thankful praises sounding there to the
loathed consorting with evil. He will not sit with men of vanity
because he will enter the sanctuary. Outward participation in its
worship may be included in his vows and wishes, but the tone of the
verses rather points to a symbolical use of the externalities of
ritual. Cleansing the hands alludes to priestly lustration; compassing
the altar is not known to have been a Jewish practice, and probably is
to be taken as simply a picturesque way of describing himself as one
of the joyous circle of worshippers; the sacrifice is praise. The
psalmist rises to the height of the true Israelite's priestly
vocation, and ritual has become transparent to him. None the less may
he have clung to the outwardnesses of ceremonial worship, because he
apprehended them in their highest significance and had learned that
the qualification of the worshipper was purity, and the best offering
praise. Well for those who, like him, are driven to the sanctuary by
the revulsion from vanities and from those who pursue them!
Ver. 8 is closely connected with the two preceding, but is perhaps
best united with the following verse, as being the ground of the
prayer there. Hate of the congregation of evil-doers has love to God's
house for its complement or foundation. The measure of attachment is
that of detachment. The designations of the sanctuary in ver. 8 show
the aspects in which it drew the psalmist's love. It was "the shelter
of Thy house," where he could hide himself from the strife of tongues
and escape the pain of herding with evil-doers; it was "the place of
the dwelling of Thy glory," the abode of that symbol of Divine
presence which flamed between the cherubim and lit the darkness of
the innermost shrine. Because the singer felt his true home to be
there, he prayed that his soul might not be gathered with sinners,
_i.e._ that he might not be involved in their fate. He has had no
fellowship with them in their evil, and therefore he asks that he may
be separate from them in their punishment. To "gather the soul" is
equivalent to taking away the life. God's judgments sort out
characters and bring like to like, as the tares are bound in bundles
or as, with so different a purpose, Christ made the multitudes sit
down by companies on the green sward. General judgments are not
indiscriminate. The prayer of the psalmist may not have looked beyond
exemption from calamities or from death, but the essence of the faith
which it expresses is eternally true: that distinction of attitude
towards God and goodness must secure distinction of lot, even though
external circumstances are identical. The same things are not the same
to men so profoundly different. The picture of the evil-doers from
whom the psalmist recoils is darker in these last verses than before.
It is evidently a portrait and points to a state of society in which
violence, outrage, and corruption were rampant. The psalmist washed
his hands in innocency, but these men had violence and bribes in
theirs. They were therefore persons in authority, prostituting
justice. The description fits too many periods too well to give a clue
to the date of the psalm.
Once more the consciousness of difference and the resolve not to be
like such men break forth in the closing couple of verses. The psalm
began with the profession that he had walked in his integrity; it ends
with the vow that he will. It had begun with the prayer "Judge me"; it
ends with the expansion of it into "Redeem me"--_i.e._, from existing
dangers, from evil-doers, or from their fate--and "Be gracious unto
me," the positive side of the same petition. He who purposes to walk
uprightly has the right to expect God's delivering and giving hand to
be extended to him. The resolve to walk uprightly unaccompanied with
the prayer for that hand to hold up is as rash as the prayer without
the resolve is vain. But if these two go together, quiet confidence
will steal into the heart; and though there be no change in
circumstances, the mood of mind will be so soothed and lightened that
the suppliant will feel that he has suddenly emerged from the steep
gorge where he had been struggling and shut up, and stands on the
level ground of the "shining table-lands, whereof our God Himself is
sun and moon." Such peaceful foretaste of coming security is the
forerunner which visits the faithful heart. Gladdened by it, the
psalmist is sure that his desire of compassing God's altar with praise
will be fulfilled, and that, instead of compulsory association with
the "congregation of evil-doers," he will bless Jehovah "in the
congregations" where His name is loved and find himself among those
who, like himself, delight in His praise.