Psalms 26:5

_I HAVE HATED THE CONGREGATION OF EVIL DOERS; AND WILL NOT SIT WITH THE WICKED._ Congregation of evil-doers - i:e., their meetings for mischief. What God forbids is not all intercourse with them, which is unavoidable, but association with them in evil (1 Corinthians 5:9; 2 Corinthians 6:14)....

5._I hate the assembly. _The Psalmist protests again how greatly he abhorred the ungodly. Formerly he denied that he had any fellowship with them; now he still more explicitly declares that he fled from their company with loathing, for that is the meaning of the phrase, _I hate. _It is indeed true, that the wicked are everywhere hated; but how few withdraw themselves from them, that they may not imitate their vices! David asserts both; he tells us that he hated their society, and that he had no communion with them, from which it appears that he warred not so much with their persons as with their evil doings. He mentions also as another qualification, that he shunned the wicked in such a manner as not on that account to forsake the congregation of God, or withdraw himself from the company of those with whom he was commanded by divine appointment to associate. Many err in this way grievous...

Verse Psalms 26:5. _I HAVE HATED THE CONGREGATION OF EVIL DOERS_] I have never made one in the crowds of discontented persons; persons who, under pretense of rectifying what was wrong in the _state_, strove to subvert it, to breed general confusion, to overturn the laws, seize on private property, and enrich themselves by the spoils of the country....

I HAVE HATED - We have here the same evidence of his piety repeated in another and a stronger form. In the previous verse he had merely stated that he had not been found among that class of persons, or that he had not made them his companions. He here says positively that he disapproved of their principles; that he hated the purpose for which they gathered themselves together; that he had no sympathy whatever with them. THE CONGREGATION OF EVIL-DOERS - All such assemblages as were gathered together for wicked purposes, for sin and revelry; to plot wickedness; to injure men; to oppose God. AND WILL NOT SIT WITH THE WICKED - That is, I will not be associated with them. This was the fixed purpose of his soul; and this was then, as it is now, an evidence of true piety. This, moreover, is an “indispensable” evidence of piety. He who does thus sit with the wicked; w

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 HATED THE CONGREGATION OF EVILDOERS,.... That do harm to the persons, characters, or properties of men; and who meet together in bodies, to consult and form schemes to do mischief, and have their assemblies to encourage each other in it; these, their works and actions, the psalmist hated, though not their persons; and showed his displicency at them, and dislike and disapprobation of them, by absenting from them; see Jeremiah 15:17; AND WILL NOT SIT WITH THE WICKED; ungodly and unrighteous men, sons of Belial; for with such what fellowship and concord can there be? 2 Corinthians 6:14; the word x signifies restless and uneasy persons, who cannot rest unless they do mischief; are like the troubled sea, continually casting up mire and dirt,...

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....

CONGREGATION. assembly: in its military aspect. WICKED. lawless. Hebrew. _rasha'_ App-44....