Psalms 26: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In this psalm the speaker asks the LORD to examine him and clear his name, pointing to his honest conduct and his trust in God. He describes staying away from worthless people and pretenders, and from the gathering of evildoers, and says he loves the place where God's presence dwells. He asks not to be swept away along with sinners and men of blood, and promises to keep walking in integrity and to praise the LORD when the people gather.

Claim by Claim

1. 26:1
   • The psalm is ascribed to David.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to judge him.
   • The speaker says he has walked in his integrity.
   • The speaker says he has trusted in the LORD.
   • The speaker says he will not slip or waver.
2. 26:2
   • The speaker asks the LORD to examine him.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to test him.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to refine his inward parts and his heart.
3. 26:3
   • The LORD's steadfast love is before the speaker's eyes.
   • The speaker has walked in the LORD's truth.
4. 26:4
   • The speaker has not sat with worthless or false men.
   • The speaker will not go in with those who conceal what they are.
5. 26:5
   • The speaker has hated the assembly of evildoers.
   • The speaker will not sit with the wicked.
6. 26:6
   • The speaker will wash his hands in innocence.
   • The speaker will go around the LORD's altar.
7. 26:7
   • The speaker will make heard the voice of thanksgiving.
   • The speaker will recount all the LORD's wondrous works.
8. 26:8
   • The speaker has loved the dwelling place of the LORD's house.
   • The speaker has loved the place where the LORD's glory dwells.
9. 26:9
   • The speaker asks the LORD not to gather his soul away with sinners.
   • The speaker asks the LORD not to gather his life away with men of blood.
10. 26:10
    • In the hands of those men is wicked scheming.
    • Their right hand is full of bribes.
11. 26:11
    • The speaker will walk in his integrity.
    • The speaker asks to be redeemed.
    • The speaker asks for mercy.
12. 26:12
    • The speaker's foot stands on level ground.
    • The speaker will bless the LORD in the assemblies.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

26:1

"Judge me" in the King James is not an invitation to be condemned. It is a legal request: the speaker asks the LORD to hear his case and hand down a verdict in his favor, the way a wronged person asks a court to clear his name. The chapter keeps this courtroom setting throughout. "Slide" means to slip or lose one's footing, an image the psalm returns to in the last verse.

26:2

"Reins" is an old English word for the kidneys. Hebrew writers located a person's innermost feelings and impulses in the kidneys, and the will and thinking in the heart, so "my reins and my heart" means roughly what we mean by a person's feelings and thoughts together, the whole inner self, hidden from other people. The two words for testing come from metalworking: assaying a metal to find out whether it is genuine.

26:3

"Lovingkindness" translates the Hebrew word hesed, which has no single English equivalent. It means the loyal, committed kindness owed within a lasting relationship, the sort of faithfulness that keeps its promises rather than a feeling of affection.

26:4

"Vain" here does not mean conceited. It carries its older sense of empty or worthless, describing people whose word amounts to nothing. "Dissemblers" are people who conceal what they really are.

26:5

"Congregation" here does not mean a religious gathering. It means a crowd or gang, an assembled group of people, and the psalm is deliberately setting this crowd against the worshiping assemblies he joins in verse 12.

26:6

Washing the hands was a public gesture, not hygiene: a person made the gesture in view of others to declare that his hands were clean of a particular crime. To "compass" the altar means to walk in procession around it. The altar was the raised structure in the sanctuary courtyard where sacrifices were offered; worshipers moving around it in a circle was part of a ceremony of thanksgiving.

26:7

"Publish" in 1611 English has nothing to do with printing. It means to announce something out loud so that a crowd hears it. This is public testimony spoken in front of the assembled worshipers, not private prayer.

26:8

"The place where thine honour dwelleth" renders a Hebrew word, kabod, usually translated "glory": the visible weight and splendor of God's presence, understood to settle on the sanctuary. The verse is about a physical building, the tent, and later the temple, where that presence was held to reside.

26:9

"Gather" is an idiom for death. To be gathered was to be collected up with one's dead and laid alongside them, so the request is not to be swept off in the same fate that overtakes the guilty. "Bloody men" means men of bloodshed, killers, not men covered in blood.

26:10

"Mischief" in the King James means serious harm or wicked scheming, not petty trouble-making. The "right hand" was the hand used for swearing oaths and striking agreements, so a right hand full of bribes points to justice being bought, most likely the bribing of judges and witnesses, which fits the trial setting of the psalm.

26:11

To "redeem" was originally a transaction in family law: paying the price to buy back a relative who had fallen into slavery or debt, or to recover property that had been sold off. The word carries that sense of someone paying to get another person out of a situation they cannot escape alone.

26:12

"An even place" is level ground, firm, open footing where a person cannot stumble, the opposite of the slipping named in verse 1. "Congregations" means the assembled crowds of worshipers; the word is deliberately set against the "congregation of evil doers" in verse 5, the one gathering the speaker refuses and the other he joins.