Psalms 28:3
Do not drag me away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors while evil is in their heart.
28:4
Repay them according to what they have done and according to the evil of their deeds; According to the work of their hands repay them; Return to them their due.
Psalms 19:11
Moreover by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is much reward.
19:12 Who can discern his errors? *Clear me of my secret faults.
19:13 Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Do not let them have dominion over me; Then I will be blameless and cleared of great transgression.
19:14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable before You, O Jehovah, my rock and my Redeemer.
*Clear:
David’s prayer in vv. 12-14 indicates that David was endeavoring to keep the law to the extent of being dealt with in his secret faults, in his presumptuous sins, in the words of his mouth, and in the meditation of his heart. However, even if David could have been perfect, this would not have pleased God.
According to the entire principle of the Bible, God does not want anything merely from man. Regardless of how good a thing is, as long as it is merely human, God will put it aside. What God wants is not a good man, or even a perfect man, but a God-man. God’s desire was to be incarnated as a man by the name of Jesus, to die on the cross, to be resurrected, and in resurrection to become a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:6, 17a) to indwell us (Rom. 8:11), to live in us (Gal. 2:20), and to live Himself out of us (Phil. 1:21a).
This psalm should be evaluated in view of the entire principle of the Bible, which is that God’s main purpose is to make Himself one with man and to make man one with Him, that He and man may have one life, one nature, and one living.
Those who are one with God are God’s organism, the Body of Christ, which will consummate in the holy city, New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2 — 22:5).
Psalms 18:1
I love You, O Jehovah, my strength.
18:2
Jehovah is my crag and my fortress and my Deliverer; My God, my crock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my high retreat.
18:3
I called upon Jehovah, who is worthy of praise, and from my enemies I was saved
Psalm 18 is a human talk with the divine God, implying David’s intimacy with God.
Psalms 18:20
Jehovah has recompensed me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my hands He has repaid me
"recompensed"
In vv. 20-28 David considered his righteousness, perfection, faithfulness, cleanness, and purity as the cause of God’s saving him, and he considered God’s salvation a recompense to him. This is a wrong concept. God saves us not because of our righteousness but because of His mercy and His compassion (Lam. 3:22; Eph. 2:1-9; Titus 3:5) and because of His own purpose (2 Tim. 1:9).
A Psalm of David
15:1
Jehovah, who may sojourn in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy mountain?
15:2
He who walks in integrity and does righteousness and speaks truth from his heart.
15:3
He does not slander with his tongue;
He does not do evil to his friend, nor does he take up a reproach against his neighbor.
15:4
In his eyes a reprobate is despised, but he honors those who fear Jehovah.
Should he swear to his harm, he does not change.
15:5
He does not lend his money on interest, nor accept a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things will not be shaken forever
14:1
The fool has said in his heart,
There is no God.
They are corrupt; they commit abominable deeds;
There is none who does good.
14:2
Jehovah looked down from heaven
Upon the sons of men
To see if there was anyone who had insight,
Who seeks after God.
14:3
They have all turned aside;
They are together perverse.
There is none who does good;
There is not even one
14:4
Have they no knowledge, all the workers of iniquity,
Who eat up my people as they would eat up bread
And do not call upon Jehovah?
<quote>Psalms 8:4
What is *mortal man, that You *remember him, / And the son of man, that You visit *him?</quote>
*mortal
Man is the central object of God in His creation for the accomplishing of His economy to fulfill His heart’s desire. What is written in vv. 4-6 concerning man was first alluded to in Gen. 1:26-28 and then quoted in Heb. 2:6-8. These three portions of the word reveal man in three stages: first, the God-created man in God’s creation in Gen. 1:26; second, the Satan-captured man in man’s fall in Psa. 8:4; and third, Christ as a man in His incarnation for the accomplishing of God’s redemption in Heb. 2:6. Such a man God remembers in His economy and visits in His incarnation.
*remember
God in the heavens first remembered man; then, He came to visit man by becoming a man through His incarnation (v. 5a; John 1:14; Phil. 2:7). In this way He brought the heavens down to the earth and joined the earth and the heavens, making these two one.
*Him
Referring to the man Jesus in His incarnation with His human living for His all-inclusive death
Psalms 7:8 Jehovah will execute judgment on the peoples; / Judge me, O Jehovah, according to my righteousness / And according to my integrity that is with me.
Psalms 7:9 Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, / But establish the righteous man. / For the righteous God / Tries the hearts and the inward parts.
