([A Psalm] of David.) Judge me, O Jehovah, for I have walked in mine integrity, and I have confided in Jehovah I shall not slip.
Psalm 26 opens with a bold request: David asks God to examine his case and clear his name. It raises hard questions. How can anyone ask God to test him on the ground of his own integrity? And what is left for a person who knows he has failed?
The psalm does not stand alone. It follows a psalm of confession, and one writer reads the two as cause and effect.
In Psalm 25, there is confidence in the grace and righteousness of God, and this leads to the confession of sins. We see the result in this psalm. Once sins are confessed, there is a sense of integrity before God, separation from evil associations, worship, and witness.
He wants God to clear his name. One writer says God does answer such honest prayers. He also warns against making our own integrity the usual ground of appeal.
It is true that God honors the integrity that honestly honors Him. He will certainly answer such a prayer as the psalmist makes in verse 1, and He will judge in his favor when He knows the prayer is honest. Still, it is generally wiser for us to appeal to the pure grace of God than to base our appeals on our integrity. If we are not guilty of evil, and yet are accused of it, we naturally want to be cleared. Yet even the Lord Jesus received no public vindication while He was on earth. His resurrection was a perfect vindication from God.
"Integrity" here does not mean a flawless record. One writer reads it as the prayer of God's faithful people at a time when most of the nation had turned away from God.
This is the faithful few among God's people. What they plead is not exactly moral perfection, but uprightness of heart, and that uprightness has led them away from the part of the nation that has abandoned God. They hate the company of evildoers, and for that reason they look to God to vindicate them. No Christian believer pleads on such grounds with God. We plead that worthy Name, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Commentators differ on how far a believer today may pray this way. Gaebelein rules it out. Grant allows that God honours honest integrity, but still points to grace as the safer ground.
The verse pairs two things: a walk in integrity and trust in the Lord. Trust is what holds him steady. It is also why he can invite God to search him.
Psalm 26 is especially the pleading of integrity and trust in Jehovah. Having trusted Him, the godly would surely not slide. He invites Jehovah to search his inmost heart, as Peter did even after he had fallen. Even here, the goodness of Jehovah was still his first motive.
The same man who claims integrity also throws himself on God's mercy. One writer sees that mix as a sign of health, not a contradiction.
In the middle of these claims of integrity, he casts himself on the mercy and redemption of God. That shows a very right state of soul.
The verse ends with a confidence that never gives way. One writer says only one man could claim that perfectly.
Such a claim could be perfectly true only of the Lord Jesus, for we know that in some things David did slip, though God generally kept him from serious evil.
Another writer looks at the purity that stands behind this appeal.
Verses 1 and 2 express the purity and spotlessness of the Man who could make this appeal to the Judge of all on the ground of personal integrity. All the while Jehovah was His support and His confidence, as He walked with a whole heart in His fear. Jesus only could make this appeal. Everything in the Just One was willingly open and exposed to the eye of divine holiness.
The rest of the psalm works this claim out as a break with evil company. One writer explains why that step follows once a person belongs to God.
First of all we must learn the grace that alone gives us confidence to lay hold of God at all. But once we have learned it, we have crossed the line that divides the world into two companies. We have become His, and most people are, sadly, hostile to Him. From then on we can only go on with God if we separate from evildoers. This is the principle of the psalm before us... Scripture makes much of the company we keep, though even Christians make light of it today.
- Confession first. You can only plead integrity after you have owned your sins. Integrity grows out of grace; it never replaces it.
- Integrity next. The word means uprightness of heart, not moral perfection. It is a life that will not shrink from God's search.
- Trust holds. The steadiness of the closing phrase rests on trust in the Lord, not on the strength of the walk itself.
- Separation follows. Belonging to God draws a line through the world. Refusing the company of evildoers is how integrity shows itself.
- Christ completes it. Only Jesus could make this appeal with nothing held back. God vindicated Him by raising Him from the dead. So believers today plead His name and His grace.
Prove me, Jehovah, and test me; try my reins and my heart
In the psalm before this one, David confessed his sin. Now he asks God to search what no one else can see — a bold prayer, and not one everyone can pray.
The order matters here. Pardon comes first, and integrity comes with it.
Integrity is the inseparable companion of pardon. So it will be with the Jews at the end of the age, and so it is with the Christian now. If there is faith, there is also repentance.
So his confidence rests on God's goodness, not on a clean record. One writer finds the same in Peter, after his own failure.
Psalm 26 is especially the pleading of integrity and trust in Jehovah. Having trusted Him, the godly one would surely not slip. He invites Jehovah to search his inmost heart, as Peter did even though he had fallen. Here, still, the goodness of Jehovah was his first motive... Though integrity was pleaded, redemption is sought, and mercy.
The ESV says "heart and mind" here. Older versions read "reins and heart," and the writers below use "reins." The word has nothing to do with control or direction. It names a part of the body.
The kidneys, used symbolically for the inward thoughts and feelings.
So the verse covers the hidden person: the deepest thoughts and the feelings. He does not offer his record. He offers where it comes from.
Sure that this is his real condition, he can appeal to God to try him: to test his reins (his inmost thoughts) and his heart. He has learned in the mercy of God to fear Him, and he himself has walked in the truth he knows in Him.
Translations differ here. One reads the second half of the verse as "purify my reins and my heart" rather than "try" (William Kelly). The testing aims at cleansing, not only at inspection.
Anyone can repeat this prayer. Not everyone can mean it.
In verse 2 he invites the Lord to examine him. One cannot honestly do this if he is careless about his walk and ways. Yet David even asks that the Lord would try his mind and his heart. What was his mind set on? Today we are told, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth" (Col. 3:2). Do we ask the Lord to judge whether we are doing this or not? Are we willing to have the desires of our hearts tested by God's measure of wisdom and truth?
God tests by His own word. It does the opposite of what human words do.
The word of man flatters our nature and entertains our mind. The word of God tries the reins and the heart. It awakens and searches the conscience. It proves what and where I am. And, more important still, it presents the remedy for my soul's disease.
Commentators differ on how far a believer today should copy this way of praying. One writer notes that the psalmist stands under law. A Christian, he says, would not plead with God on that ground.
A work of God has gone on in his soul. We clearly have before us one born of God. But he is under law, and rightly so, and can speak of his integrity and uprightness... So in Psalm 26 he asks Jehovah to judge him, for he has walked in his integrity. He then lists what his ways and desires have been. Now a Christian, it is plain, if he understands the truth, will not plead on such ground with God.
Another writer holds that God honours honest integrity and answers such a prayer. Even so, he thinks it wiser to appeal to God's pure grace than to our own integrity (L M Grant).
This prayer sits inside a larger change. Grace makes a person God's own, and that draws a line through the world.
We must first learn the grace which alone gives us confidence to lay hold of God at all. But once we have learned this, we have passed the line that divides the world into two companies. We have become His, and the mass of men are, sadly, hostile to Him. From then on, separation from evildoers becomes the necessary condition of going on with God.
- Pardon first. The examination comes after confession, not instead of it. Integrity always goes with pardon.
- Depth next. "Reins" means the kidneys, a picture of the inward thoughts and feelings. He opens his inner life, not just his conduct.
- Honesty required. No one can mean this prayer while careless about his ways. It hands your desires over to God's measure of wisdom and truth.
- Word as probe. Human words flatter; God's word tries the reins and the heart, proves what and where you are, and offers the remedy.
- Separation as result. Once grace has made you God's own, leaving evildoers is the condition of going on with Him.
For thy loving-kindness is before mine eyes, and I have walked in thy truth.
The psalmist has just asked God to test his heart and mind. This verse gives his reason for daring to say it: God's love held in view, and God's faithfulness as the path he walks. The order matters.
Verse 2 is a bold ask. Verse 3 explains why the psalmist can make it without fear. Where the ESV reads "I walk in your faithfulness," the older translation these writers quote has "I have walked in Your truth."
The psalmist then states the grounds on which he invites the searchings of the Lord. First, the loving kindness of the Lord is before his soul. He knows there is grace with the Lord to meet all that the Lord's searching may uncover. Second, his daily ways are what suit a godly man: he can say, "I have walked in Your truth." Third, he had kept himself separate from sinners in practice.
The psalm as a whole pleads uprightness. Yet what is named first is not the psalmist's record but God's kindness.
Psalm 26 is especially the pleading of integrity and trust in Jehovah. Having trusted Him, the godly would surely not slide. He invites Jehovah to search his inmost heart, as Peter did, even after his own fall. Here, still the goodness of Jehovah was his first motive.
The second half of the verse is not a separate boast. It grows out of the first half — what he has taken in of God is what he then lives.
We have first the plea of integrity, which is the companion and also the fruit of faith. ... He has learned in the mercy of God to fear Him, and in the truth which he realizes in Him he has walked himself.
The verses that follow (4–5) grow straight out of verse 3. They show what walking in God's faithfulness looks like among other people.
So his path is now, of necessity, only with those who follow what is true. He does not go with the false and the pretenders; and gatherings of evil-doers, brought together by their shared wickedness, he refuses and hates.
Separation is not the end of it.
In verses 6 to 8 the psalmist speaks of the results that flow from walking in the truth, and in maintaining separation from evil. First, he can, with clean hands, approach God's altar for worship; secondly, he can bear witness before the world of all God's wondrous works.
Commentators are careful here. They call the appeal to your own uprightness real, but they put grace first.
First of all we must learn the grace which alone gives us confidence to lay hold of God at all. But once we have learned it, we have crossed the line that divides the world into two companies. We have become His, and the mass of men are, alas, hostile to Him. From now on, separation from evil-doers becomes the necessary condition of going on with God. This is the principle of the psalm before us, and the soul's plea is that it has kept to it: I have separated myself from sinners; do not join me with them. That is a true ground of confidence before God, though plainly a secondary one.
That caution shapes how we pray.
It is true that God honors the integrity that honestly honors Him. He will certainly answer such a prayer as that of the psalmist in verse 1, and will judge in his favor when He knows the prayer is honest. Yet it is generally wiser for us to appeal simply to the pure grace of God than to base our appeals on our integrity.
One writer sees the psalm's claim of personal integrity as fitting only one Man.
Verses 1, 2 express the purity and spotlessness of the Man who could appeal to the judge of all on the ground of personal integrity. Jehovah was always His stay and confidence as He walked with a whole heart in His fear. Jesus only could make this appeal. Everything in the Just One was willingly naked and open to the eye of Divine holiness.
- Love first. The psalmist keeps God's steadfast love in view. That love, not his own record, is his first motive.
- Love frees the search. He can ask God to test his heart because there is grace with the Lord to meet whatever the testing turns up.
- Love becomes walk. What he has learned of God's mercy is the very truth he then walks in — integrity is the fruit of faith, not its foundation.
- Walk decides company. Walking in God's faithfulness turns him away from the false and the pretenders. It turns him toward God's altar, for worship and witness.
- Love outranks the plea. Pleading your integrity is a real ground of confidence, but a secondary one. Grace is the wiser appeal, and only Jesus could make the claim perfectly.