Hatred, is this a virtue or a vice? This is a no brainer, of course—hatred is an evil, as we hear about all the time. The trending morality of the day is to be nice, accepting, tolerant, and respectful to all. There is nothing worse than to fall into the family of hatred: bigotry, racism, and phobia with its many prefixes. And this seems to be in line with Scripture, where the law calls us to love God, to love the saints, family, and neighbors, and even to love our enemies who hate us. Love then equals virtue, and hatred is vice.
Reality is more complex and messier, however. For example, what should be your disposition towards a heinous criminal? Do you have to love the person who murdered your mom? Pick your favorite despot of history; are we supposed to love them? Or more currently, there are some who wave the flag of love zealously who refuse to share holidays with a family member who voted for the other side—is this love? So then, is hatred of wickedness proper or not? Well, in its own way, Psalm 26 dives into this headfirst.
When it comes to prayer, the Lord allows us lots of liberty. That is, we can pray for all sorts of things. As long as it falls in line with his will, which is open to a broad interpretation, we can ask for it. In the Gospels, our Lord often encourages us to pray boldly by saying, “Ask and it will be given to you” (Matt 7:7). We have a wide berth in prayer; however, just because something is permissible does not mean it is beneficial. A petition may be allowable, but not very wise. And the psalmist seems to step on one of these as he barges in on God with the request to be judged. Yes, the opening word of this prayer is the demand, “Judge me, Yahweh! (v. 1)” Sure, the nuanced target is to be vindicated, but vindication by definition is judgment with a positive verdict. It is to go under the scrutinizing eye of the Holy One.
On first impression, why would anyone ask God for this? As it says elsewhere, our Lord is a jealous God, a consuming fire (Deut 4:24). It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the Living God (Heb 10:31). For a sinner to ask the Almighty to judge him comes across as a death wish, suicide by cop. Yet, this is what David pleads for, and it gets more intense: “Prove me, test me, and probe my heart and mind” (v. 2) The psalmist does not just set his behavior before the heavenly tribunal; he offers up his entire inner self to be audited by the holy vision of the Lord. “Put my heart in your scales; unroll my mind to inspect each thought in every little crevasse; let my intentions be put in a hot crucible to reveal their purity.” This is way scarier and more invasive than a strip search, for it lays your intimate thoughts and feelings bare before God.
Who does this? How can this not be but folly? Yet, this is what David prays, and his confidence for a positive verdict is grounded in his twofold piety. First, he says, “Judge me for I have walked in my integrity . . . I walk in your faithfulness” (vv. 1, 3). One’s walk is their obedience, their upright devotion to the Lord. David asserts that his righteousness is characterized by integrity; it is sincere, sound, and honorable. His obedience is virtuous through and through.
Of course, about now, we want to raise our hands in protest. How can David pray this? We know his dirty laundry; his sins are recorded for us, exposing David as well-below upright. And yet, this idiom about walking in integrity or blamelessness is used elsewhere for David. In 1 Kings, God himself commends David as one who walked in integrity and kept his commandments. This upright lifestyle is not perfection, but there is a real sense in which it applies to David.
Secondly, though, the psalmist prays to be judged based on his faith. As he confesses, “I have trusted in the Lord . . . your steadfast love is before my eyes” (vv. 1, 3). His believing eyes never blinked from gazing upon God and his fidelity. He is confident of vindication grounded in his exclusive faith in Yahweh. And this makes more sense. To be judged by faith, this is the only hope a sinner has of vindication. Whatever lack of perfection his integrity suffers is made up for by his faith.
Either way, being set upon this twofold foundation of obedience and faith, the psalmist is sure of God’s approval, as he asserts, “I will not stumble” (v. 1). This wavering of verse 1 is literally, “I will not slip,” meaning he will not stagger in judgment but will stand firm. To stand in judgment is to be approbated, justified, vindicated. He has no doubts about God’s favorable judgment.
In this confidence, he goes on to assert his blamelessness further, but now, he states it negatively. That is, he affirms the sins that he is innocent of. “I have not sat with false men; I hold no company with hypocrites. I dwell not with the wicked” (v. 4). With a clear echo of Psalm 1, David has not sat, stood, or resided with evil and wicked men. The psalmist seems to have a more definite sin in mind here, however. The word here for falsehood has the sense of vanity and the unreal, and it is used concretely for idols. The people he will not hang with are men of idols. The primary sin he is disavowing is idolatry. So, the company or assembly can be a worshipping congregation (v. 5). And hypocrites connotes what is done in secrecy, with duplicity. These are the people who say nice things about the Lord but keep idols at home. The primary way that David’s walk has been blameless is that he has never touched an idol. He will not associate with any person who venerates idols. And this makes good sense, as David never dabbled with idolatry.
In the Old Testament, idolatry was the great sin. It was the high crime under the law. If you had nothing to do with idols, then God’s mercy was abundant towards your other sins; but idolatry triggered intense wrath and judgment. David is innocent of idolatry, and he will have nothing to do with idolaters.
Yet even though idolatry is the chief concern, other sins are included, since wickedness naturally flows from idolatry. So, in verses 9–10, he mentions sinners, bloodthirsty men, infamy, and bribes. To be bloodthirsty is to murder, but this is used at times for child sacrifice, the most detestable form of idolatry in the Old Testament. Infamy includes sexual perversions and infidelity, which can be a metaphor for idol worship. And bribes, this is taking money to ruin the administration of justice. Bribes let criminals go free; it looks the other way to permit false worship.
The believing uprightness to be vindicated is that David is undefiled by idolatry and the other wickedness that sprouts so vigorously from idolatry. In fact, his abhorrence for idols is so pure that he hates the worship services of evildoers (v. 5). As an expression of his integrity, he hates idolaters and their evil piety, and he desires for them to be punished.
This is intense and awkward. He asserts his godliness by hating evildoers. Such hatred makes us feel a tad uncomfortable and dubious. Is this proper? Is this for us? Yet, David states it as the most natural and fitting thing, and he moves on to further confess his obedient devotion. He detests the idolatry of evildoers, and he is the defender of orthodox worship (vv. 6–8). He washes his hands in innocence, which includes him not being guilty and being pure for worship. He goes around the altar, which is a metaphor for protection. To encircle something is a sign of affection and security. Out of high esteem, he guards the altar of God from all impurities and sins. The end goal of protecting the altar is to proclaim thanksgiving, to recount Yahweh’s wonderous deeds, and such praise is shorthand for pure worship.
This is lawful and orthodox worship undefiled by any idolatry or hypocrisy. He is the great supporter and defender of regulative principle worship, which is definitely for us. Following David, to detest idolatry is godly and blameless, and to defend the pure worship is our faithful devotion to Christ. And this zeal David has for the worship of the Lord we will see further unpacked in our next segment on Psalm 26.
©Zach Keele. All Rights Reserved.
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Zach Keele
Rev. Zachary Keele grew up on a ranch in a small town named Crawford, Colorado. He attended Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and received his Master of Divinity from Westminster Seminary California. He has served as the pastor of Escondido OPC since 2006.
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