Psalms 26:4

_I HAVE NOT SAT WITH VAIN PERSONS, NEITHER WILL I GO IN WITH DISSEMBLERS._ Vain persons - i:e., deceitful persons. He who keeps before his eyes the "truth" of God (Psalms 26:3) cannot have pleasure in untruth. NEITHER WILL I GO - into the same meeting or association (Genesis 49:6)....

4._I have not sat with vain men. _He again declares the very great dissimilarity which existed between him and his adversaries. For the contrast is always to be observed, that wicked men, by all the harm and mischief they wrought against him, could never drive him from the path of rectitude. This verse might likewise be joined with the former, as if completing the sentence, in this way, That David, by confiding in the favor of God, had withdrawn himself from deceivers. The words, _sitting _and _walking, _denote _sharing in counsel and fellowship in working, _according to what is said in the first psalm. David denies that he had any intercourse with vain and deceitful men. And certainly the best remedy to recall and save us from the assembly of the wicked is to fix our eyes upon God’s goodness; for he who walks in the confidence of God’s protection, committing all events to his providence...

Verse Psalms 26:4. _I HAVE NOT SAT WITH VAIN PERSONS_] מתי שוא _methey shav,_ _men of lies, dissemblers, backbiters_, c. _NEITHER WILL I GO IN WITH DISSEMBLERS_] נעלמים _naalamim_, the _hidden ones_, the _dark designers_, the _secret plotters_ and conspirators in the state....

I HAVE NOT SAT WITH VAIN PERSONS - That is, I have not been found among them; I have not made them my companions. See the notes at Psalms 1:1. The word “vain” here is in contrast with those who are sincere and true. The expression would be applied to people who are false and hollow; to those who have no sincerity or solidity of character; to those who are hypocrites and pretenders. The psalmist urges it as one evidence of his attachment to God that he had not been found among that class of persons, either as making them his companions, or as taking part with them in their counsels. NEITHER WILL I GO IN WITH DISSEMBLERS - Neither will I walk with them; neither will I be found in their company. The word here rendered “dissemblers” means properly those who are “hidden” or “concealed;” then, those who hide their purposes or desi

EXPOSITION DAVID, about to sacrifice at God's altar, protests his integrity, but still prays for God's protection (Psalms 26:9) and for his redeeming mercy (Psalms 26:11). The psalm has all the notes of David's style, is full of his thoughts and imagery, and is allowed to be his by almost all critics. It must belong to the time following the removal of the ark to Mount Zion, and preceding the committal of the great offence. PSALMS 26:1 JUDGE ME, O LORD; FOR I HAVE WALKED IN MINE INTEGRITY. It seems to Christians a bold act to call on God for judgment, but the saints of the earlier dispensation, having, perhaps, a less keen sense of human imperfection,

I HAVE NOT SAT WITH VAIN PERSONS,.... Or "men of vanity" t; who are full of it; who are addicted to the vanities of the world; who pursue the riches, honours, pleasures, and profits of it; which is no other than walking in a vain show: whose thoughts, words, and actions are vain; who are vainly puffed up in their fleshly mind, and walk in the vanity of it; who take the name of God in vain, and whose common discourse is foolish, frothy, light, and empty; and who are men of a vain conversation, and are rash, imprudent, and deceitful: men of bad principles may very well go by this name, who are vain and unruly talkers, and whose doctrines are doctrines of vanity, and no other than vain babbling; and also men guilty of idolatrous practices, who observe lying vanities, and worship them, and lift up their souls unto them; with such vain men, in any of these senses, the psalmist would have noth...

No doubt this Psalm was written by David when his cruel persecutor Saul, the more effectually to stab at him, spread false reports concerning his character. When the wicked can use no other weapons, they always have their quivers full of slanderous reports. Let us learn here that the best of men must expect to be misrepresented, and to have the worst of crimes laid to their charge. Let us learn, also, from the example of David, to carry our case to the highest court at once, not to meddle with the lower courts of earth, but to go at once to the Court of King's Bench in heaven, and there plead our cause before the eternal throne. Psalms 26:1. _Judge me, O LORD;_ As if he turned away from all other judges, bribed and false as they had proved themselves to be in his ease, and put himself on trial before God: «Judge me, O Lord; «-...

Psalms 26 An Appeal on Account of Righteousness _ 1. Pleading integrity (Psalms 26:1)_ 2. Separated unto the Lord (Psalms 26:6) 3. Be gracious unto Me (Psalms 36:9) Psalms 26:1. The opening verses remind us of the First Psalm and well may we put these words into the lips of the perfect man, who walked in integrity and was separate from sinners. Here we find no confessions of sin, no pleadings for forgiveness, but instead an avowal of conscious uprightness and separation from wicked men as well as love for His house and for the p

XXVI. A persecuted man protests his absolute innocence, his avoidance of unfaithful Jews, his joy in the Temple service. The claim to innocence is repugnant to Christian feeling, scarcely less so than the imprecations upon enemies which occur frequently in other Pss. Men become humble in the Christian sense through the vision of Him in whom there was no sin. PSALMS 26:3. IN THY TRUTH: _i.e._ in the confidence that Thou art faithful. Psalms 26:6. This is the only direct evidence in the Bible for the festal procession round Yahweh's altar. Psalms 26:12. congregations: probably guilds of singers, etc....

_I have not sat_ Of deliberate and prolonged intercourse, implying community of tastes and interests. Cp. Psalms 1:1; Jeremiah 15:17. _vain persons_ Lit. _men of vanity_; hollowness, falsehood, unreality: the opposite of truth and righteousness. See Psalms 12:2; Psalms 24:4. _neither will I go in_ To their houses: or an abbreviation for _go in and out_, associate with. _dissemblers_ Lit. _those who hide themselves_; hypocrites who disguise their real thoughts and purposes (Psalms 28:3)....