seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Psalm 26:1 Vindicate me, Lord,
for I have led a blameless life;
I have trusted in the Lord
and have not faltered.
2 Test me, Lord, and try me,
examine my heart and my mind;
3 for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love
and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.
for I have led a blameless life;
I have trusted in the Lord
and have not faltered.
2 Test me, Lord, and try me,
examine my heart and my mind;
3 for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love
and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.
4 I do not sit with the deceitful,
nor do I associate with hypocrites.
5 I abhor the assembly of evildoers
and refuse to sit with the wicked.
6 I wash my hands in innocence,
and go about your altar, Lord,
7 proclaiming aloud your praise
and telling of all your wonderful deeds.
nor do I associate with hypocrites.
5 I abhor the assembly of evildoers
and refuse to sit with the wicked.
6 I wash my hands in innocence,
and go about your altar, Lord,
7 proclaiming aloud your praise
and telling of all your wonderful deeds.
8 Lord, I love the house where you live,
the place where your glory dwells.
9 Do not take away my soul along with sinners,
my life with those who are bloodthirsty,
10 in whose hands are wicked schemes,
whose right hands are full of bribes.
11 I lead a blameless life;
deliver me and be merciful to me.
the place where your glory dwells.
9 Do not take away my soul along with sinners,
my life with those who are bloodthirsty,
10 in whose hands are wicked schemes,
whose right hands are full of bribes.
11 I lead a blameless life;
deliver me and be merciful to me.
12 My feet stand on level ground;
in the great congregation I will praise the Lord.
in the great congregation I will praise the Lord.
I read through one or two of the other commentaries and they are so flowery I can't understand them. I think Psalms do that to people.... you know that viral song that gets in your brain and it keeps running over and over until you hear another song... gratefully.... that's what I'm talking about... a commercial jingle or a kids song can be the worst. And preachers know people like songs... so the preachers feel bound to do the flowery preachy stuff because they think the congregation is expecting it. Anyway.... the Easy English is really the easiest .... HOWEVER.... it has a bonus scripture verse that goes with it.... a BONUS... yippee.
Zechariah 3:1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan[a] standing at his right side to accuse him. 2 The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”
3 Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 4 The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.”
Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.”
From the easy English commentary......
An angel is a servant of God in heaven. Satan is the enemy of God. Joshua was wearing very dirty clothes. This is a picture of the bad things that Joshua did. But the LORD took away the dirty clothes. He gave Joshua rich clothes. This means that they were clean and beautiful. When God looked at Joshua he did not see the bad things. God saw good things. This is the wonderful thing about Christians. When men look at them they see the bad things that they do. But when God looks at them he sees them as clean and good.
David was honest to God. He told God that he was bad. In Psalm 51 he told God that he was sorry for the bad things that he did. God forgave David and forgot those bad things. God saw David as good. He will do the same for you if you ask him.
Now... back to the original scripture.... still from the same easy English commentary.We do not know when David wrote Psalm 26. He wrote Psalms 2-41 when his enemies were fighting him. So, he probably wrote Psalm 26 when he was fighting someone. He did not feel safe. He asked God to show him that he was safe because he was honest to God.
Verses 1 – 3: We can walk with God when he makes us new, whole people. Only God can make us whole. When we are right with God then we can start being right with people. We become right with God, or honest to God, when we become Christians. We ask God to excuse us and we promise to become his servants. Then we are whole people . . . . . on the inside to God and on the outside to people.
In Psalm 26:3 David wrote about God's good ways. These are the rules that God gives to us in the Bible. If we do not obey these rules we can start again. We ask God to forgive us and he does. Look after Psalms 1 and 5.
Verses 4 – 7: A part of the Bible is called Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 21:6-7 we read about people washing their hands. This was to show that they had not done murder. We find the same idea in verse 6. Here it is not murder, but anything that is wrong. In verse 6 we also read about the altar of the LORD. There were two altars. On the big one they killed animals. They burnt their bodies as a gift to God. On the small one they burnt incense. It made a nice smell. The small one was inside the house of God.
Verses 8 – 12: The house of God was a tent. A tent was a small building made of animal skins. The Jews carried it with them. When David was king he took it into Jerusalem. In verse 8 David says that he loves the place where they put this tent. He did this because he believed that God was there as well as in his home in heaven. In verse 9 David means that when he dies he does not want to be with sinners. He wants to be free, as David wrote in verse 11. This means free after he dies. He wants to be with God in heaven, not with sinners. The flat place in verse 12 is a safe place.
I was thinking... as I opened up this poem and commentary.... David could be writing some of these when he's frustrated with his bookkeeper. David had a lot on his plate.... for almost his whole life.... I bet he got frustrated more than once... I mean... take that man off the throne and he's an average sheep herder and he's counting millions and millions of dollars in profit in a time when a penny was the dream of someone centuries in the future. I doubt there was a cashflow report yet... he probably had to deal with a P&L that doesn't show him half of what he needs to know.... see... frustration.... I know it's a lot more complicated than that... and all the preachers will want to stay on the discussion of salvation... a life without sinners running around... but David did a lot more than just run and hide. He was quite a guy and this could have been written on a day when David would have been plopping in the seat of his massive throne... tossing his hands in the air... and yelling "give me a break!"
The poem is about renewal.... old clothes for new... old attitudes for new.... renewal because, just like Joshua in the Bonus Scripture, David counted on God.... not the humans around him.
