Bible Commentaries

The Longing of the One Who Is Persecuted innocently, to Give Thanks to God in His House

Ps. 25 and Psalm 26:1-12 are bound together by similarity of thought and expression. In the former as in this Psalm, we find the writer's testimony to his trustin God (בּטחתּי, Psalm 25:2; Psalm 26:1); there as here, the cry comingforth from a distressed condition for deliverance (פּדה, Psalm 25:22; Psalm 26:11), and for some manifestation of mercy (חנּני Psalm 26:11; Psalm 25:16); and in the midst of theses, other prominent points of contact(Psalm 26:11; Psalm 25:21; Psalm 26:3; Psalm 25:5). These are grounds sufficient for placing thesetwo Psalms close together. But in Psalm 26:1-12 there is wanting the self-accusation that goes hand in hand with the self-attestation of piety, thatconfession of sin which so closely corresponds to the New Testamentconsciousness (vid., supra p. 43), which is thrice repeated in Ps 25. Theharshness of the contrast in which the psalmist stands to his enemies,whose character is here more minutely described, does not admit of theintroduction of such a lament concerning himself. The description applieswell to the Absolomites. They are hypocrites, who, now that they haveagreed together in their faithless and bloody counsel, have thrown off theirdisguise and are won over by bribery to their new master; for Absolomhad stolen the hearts of the men of Israel, 2 Samuel 15:6. David at that timewould not take the Ark with him in his flight, but said: If I shall findfavour in the eyes of Jahve, He will bring me back, and grant me to seeboth it and His habitation, 2 Samuel 15:25. The love for the house of God,which is expressed herein, is also the very heart of this Psalm.

Psalm 26:1-2

The poet, as one who is persecuted, prays for the vindicationof his rights and for rescue; and bases this petition upon the relation inwhich he stands to God. שׁפטני, as in Psalm 7:9; Psalm 35:24, cf. Psalm 43:1. תּם (synon. תמים, which, however, does not take anysuffix) is, according to Genesis 20:5., 1 Kings 22:34, perfect freedom from allsinful intent, purity of character, pureness, guilelessness (áá). Upon the fact, that he has walked in a harmless mind, withoutcherishing or provoking enmity, and trusted unwaveringly (לא אמעד, an adverbial circumstantial clause, cf. Psalm 21:8) in Jahve, he basesthe petition for the proving of his injured right. He does not self-righteously hold himself to be morally perfect, he appeals only to thefundamental tendency of his inmost nature, which is turned towards Godand to Him only. Psalm 26:2 also is not so much a challenge for God to satisfyHimself of his innocence, as rather a request to prove the state of his mind,and, if it be not as it appears to his consciousness, to make this clear tohim (Psalm 139:23.). בּחן is not used in this passage of proving by trouble,but by a penetrating glance into the inmost nature (Psalm 11:5; Psalm 17:3). נסּה, not in the sense of ðåéñábut of äïêïìáצרף, to melt down, i.e., by the agency of fire, the precious metal, andseparate the dross (Psalm 12:7; Psalm 66:10). The Chethîbis not to be read צרוּפה (which would be in contradiction to the request), but צרופה, as it is out of pause also in Isaiah 32:11, cf. Judges 9:8, Judges 9:12; 1 Samuel 28:8. The reins are the seat of the emotions, the heart is the very centre of thelife of the mind and soul.

Psalm 26:3

Psalm 26:3 tells how confidently and cheerfully he would set himself in the lightof God. God's grace or loving-kindness is the mark on which his eye isfixed, the desire of his eye, and he walks in God's truth. חסד isthe divine love, condescending to His creatures, and more especially tosinners (Psalm 25:7), in unmerited kindness; אמת is the truth with which God adheres to and carries out the determination of His love and the word of His promise. This lovingkindness of God has been always hitherto the model of his life, this truth of God the determining line and the boundary of his walk.

He still further bases his petition upon his comportment towards the menof this world; how he has always observed a certain line of conduct andcontinues still to keep to it. With Psalm 26:4 compare Jeremiah 15:17. מתי שׁוא (Job 11:11, cf. Psalm 31:5, where the parallel word is מרמה) are “not-real,” unreal men, but in a deeper stronger sense than weare accustomed to use this word. שׁוא (= שׁוא, fromשׁוא) is aridity, hollowness, worthlessness, and therefore badness(Arab. (su')) of disposition; the chaotic void of alienation from God; untruthwhite-washed over with the lie of dissimulation (Psalm 12:3), and thereforenothingness: it is the very opposite of being filled with the fulness of Godand with that which is good, which is the morally real (its synonym isאון, e.g., Job 22:15). נעלמים, the veiled, are thosewho know how to keep their worthlessness and their mischievous designssecret and to mask them by hypocrisy; post-biblical צבוּעים, dyed (cf. áLuther “ungefärbt,” undyed). (את) בּוא עם, to go in with any one, is a short expression for: to go in andout with, i.e., to have intercourse with him, as in Proverbs 22:24, cf. Genesis 23:10. מרע (from רעע) is the name for one who plots thatwhich is evil and puts it into execution. On רשׁע see Psalm 1:1.

The poet supports his petition by declaring his motive to be his love forthe sanctuary of God, from which he is now far removed, without anyfault of his own. The coloured future ואסבבה, distinct fromואסבבה (vid., on Psalm 3:6 and Psalm 73:16), can only mean, in this passage, et ambiam, and not et ambibam as it does in a different connection (Isaiah 43:26, cf. Judges 6:9); it is the emotional continuation (cf. Psalm 27:6; Song of Solomon 7:12; Isaiah 1:24; Isaiah 5:19, and frequently) of the plain and uncoloured expression ארחץ. He wishes to wash his hands in innocence (בּ of the state that is meant to be attested by the action), and compass (Psalm 59:7) the altar of Jahve. That which is elsewhere a symbolic act (Deuteronomy 21:6, cf. Matthew 27:24), is in this instance only a rhetorical figure made use of to confess his consciousness of innocence; and it naturally assumes this form (cf. Psalm 73:13) from the idea of the priest washing his hands preparatory to the service of the altar (Exodus 32:20.) being associated with the idea of the altar. And, in general, the expression of Psalm 26:6. takes a priestly form, without exceeding that which the ritual admits of, by virtue of the consciousness of being themselves priests which appertained even to the Israelitish laity (Exodus 19:16). For סבב can be used even of half encompassing as it were like a semi-circle (Genesis 2:11; Numbers 21:4), no matter whether it be in the immediate vicinity of, or at a prescribed distance from, the central point. לשׁמע is a syncopated and defectively written Hiph., for להשׁמיע, like לשׁמד, Isaiah 23:11. Instead of לשׁמע קול תּודה, “to cause the voice of thanksgiving to be heard,” since השׁמיע is used absolutely (1 Chronicles 15:19; 2 Chronicles 5:13) and the object is conceived of as the instrument of the act (Ges. §138, 1, rem. 3), it is “in order to strike in with the voice of thanksgiving.” In the expression “all Thy wondrous works” is included the latest of these, to which the voice of thanksgiving especially refers, viz., the bringing of him home from the exile he had suffered from Absolom. Longing to be back again he longs most of all for the gorgeous services in the house of his God, which are performed around the altar of the outer court; for he loves the habitation of the house of God, the place, where His doxa, - revealed on earth, and in fact revealed in grace, - has taken up its abode. ma`owndoes not mean refuge, shelter (Hupfeld), - for although it may obtain this meaning from the context, it has nothing whatever to do with Arab. (‛ân), med. Waw, in the signification to help (whence (ma‛ûn), (ma‛ûne), (ma‛âne), help, assistance, succour or support), - but place, dwelling, habitation, like the Arabic (ma‛ân), which the Kamus explains by (menzil), a place to settle down in, and explains etymologically by Arab. (mḥll) ('l) -(‛ı̂n), i.e., “a spot on which the eye rests as an object of sight;” for in the Arabic (ma‛ân) is traced back to Arab. (‛ân), med. Je, as is seen from the phrase (hum) (minka) (bi) -(ma‛ânin), i.e., they are from thee on a point of sight (= on a spot where thou canst see them from the spot on which thou standest). The signification place, sojourn, abode (Targ. מדור) is undoubted; the primary meaning of the root is, however, questionable.

It is now, for the first time, that the petition compressed into the oneword שׁפטני (Psalm 26:1) is divided out. He prays (as in Psalm 28:3),that God may not connect him in one common lot with those whosefellowship of sentiment and conduct he has always shunned. אנשׁי דּמים, as in Psalm 5:7, cf. ááéSir. 31:25. Elsewhere זמּה signifies purpose, and more particularly in a badsense; but in this passage it means infamy, and not unnatural unchastity,to which בּידיהם is inappropriate, but scum of whatever isvicious in general: they are full of cunning and roguery, and their righthand, which ought to uphold the right - David has the lords of his people inhis eye - is filled (מלאה, not מלאה) with accursed(Deuteronomy 27:25) bribery to the condemnation of the innocent. He, on thecontrary, now, as he always has done, walks in his uprightness, so thatnow he can with all the more joyful conscience intreat God to interposejudicially in his behalf.

The epilogue. The prayer is changed into rejoicing which is certain of theanswer that shall be given. Hitherto shut in, as it were, in deep tracklessgorges, he even now feels himself to be standing בּמישׁור,

(Note: The first labial of the combination בם, בף, when the preceding word ends with a vowel and the two words are closely connected, receives the Dagesh contrary to the general rule; on this orthophonic Dag. lene, vid., Luth. Zeitschr., 1863, S. 414.)

upon a pleasant plain commanding a wide range of vision (cf. בּמּרחב, Psalm 31:9), and now blends his grateful praise of God with the song of the worshipping congregation, קהל (lxx ἐν ἐκκλησίαις ), and its full-voiced choirs.