For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness; evil shall not sojourn with thee.
Surrounded by enemies, the psalmist prays in the morning. In verse 4 he turns from his trouble to God's nature — and that raises a hard question: how can anyone come near such a God?
The verse begins with "for" — it gives the reason the psalmist expects God to hear him. His argument is that God must share the loyalties of the person praying.
Psalm 5 sets out the cry of the godly. God's character must answer to the character of the godly. So the psalm appeals to that character: it requires Him to hear the godly man and judge the wicked. If the godly love godliness, surely the Lord does; if the godly hate wickedness, surely He does.
The nations around Israel had their own mighty ones. God differs from them in what He takes pleasure in.
The second part dwells on His nature as set against evil. He is not like one of the mighty ones of the nations, who combine power with pleasure in wickedness. Evil cannot dwell with Him for even the briefest moment.
Evil goes on unpunished around the psalmist, and that could look like God does not mind.
Can David have confidence that God hears him? Yes indeed. He bases his confidence on the very character of God, who takes no pleasure in wickedness and cannot allow evil any place in His presence. His patience with evil is not by any means indulgence, nor indifference.
This is not a policy God has adopted and could change. It belongs to what He is, and it sits alongside other things Scripture says God is unable to do.
His power clearly has no limit. Yet His love governs Him, and in matters of morality there are certain things He cannot do. "He cannot deny Himself" (2 Timothy 2:13). "God cannot be tempted with evil" (James 1:13)… His own nature governs Him so completely that He can do nothing opposed to justice. He has not merely bound Himself to use His almighty power in line with justice. Justice is part of His moral nature, so He cannot act otherwise.
If evil cannot stay with God, where does that leave us? Until a person feels the answer, sin is not truly known.
Look at God as righteousness, as having "purer eyes than to see evil". A true sense of sin would make us feel that we could not come into His presence. Defiled as we are, we could not appear before His holy majesty. There is no true sense of sin, no real effect of His presence on the conscience, until we feel this… In justice, He ought not to allow such people in His presence. But Christ gives Himself for these sins. Having put them away, He appears in the presence of God in the power and worth of that work.
Three verses later the psalmist says he will come into God's house. Mercy is what gets him there.
The sense of God's holiness produces fear of the Holy One. Only abundant mercy allows anyone to come to God's house… And how shall we have "confidence to enter the holy places," or draw near to God at all, except "by the blood of Jesus"?
The same principle shapes life among God's people. It draws a line between failure and tolerated wrong.
He could not dwell where evil was deliberately and openly approved. Blessed be His name, He can and does bear with weakness. But His eyes are too pure to look at evil, and He cannot look on wrongdoing. Evil cannot dwell with Him, nor can He have fellowship with it. It would mean denying His very nature; and He cannot deny Himself.
- Character — The prayer rests on what God is, not on what the psalmist deserves. If the godly hate evil, so does God.
- Cannot — This is not a rule God keeps. It is what He is. Justice is so much part of Him that He cannot act otherwise.
- Patience — God is slow to judge, but that is not indulgence or indifference. In Him, power and pleasure in wickedness never meet.
- Conscience — Take the verse honestly and you have no right to stand in His presence. Feeling that is where a real sense of sin begins.
- Mercy — The same psalm still enters God's house, through abundant mercy. The confidence to draw near comes by the blood of Jesus.
Insolent fools shall not stand before thine eyes; thou hatest all workers of iniquity.
Psalm 5 is a morning prayer, and its plea rests on what God is like rather than on the psalmist's worthiness. Verse 5 draws the consequence: God's hatred of every evildoer is settled, which raises the question of whether anyone can stand before Him at all.
The psalmist argues from God's character to what God must do.
Psalm 5 presents the cry of the godly. God's character must answer to the character of the godly, and the psalmist appeals to it as requiring God to hear him and judge the wicked. If the godly love godliness, surely Jehovah does; if the godly hate wickedness, surely He does.
One writer quotes Delitzsch on the meaning of the Hebrew verb behind "stand":
On Psalm 5:5, where the verb is yatsab, Delitzsch writes: "It is said of such people that they cannot keep their position when they come into view before the eye of God."
The same writer draws out what this does and does not say about the sinner.
Before that throne, then, the sinner in his sins cannot stand. "The wicked will not stand in the judgment." The point here is not that his standing has been a bad one, or that he must change it. On the contrary, the psalm plainly states that as a sinner, as a foolish person, he has no standing before a God of judgment — that is, before His throne.
Many read God's delay in acting as tolerance. One writer answers that, and traces the hatred to what evildoers have made of themselves.
His patience with evil is not indulgence, and it is not indifference. Proud boasters will not stand in His sight. Those who do evil can only expect hatred, because of the hateful character they have formed. Those who speak falsehood must reap the result of it: destruction.
The psalmist does not only report God's attitude. He shares it, and that is why such a God is his confidence.
The godly recognise God's holiness and share it by hating what is evil. His confidence is in a God who hates sin and evil, a holy God. He has no pleasure in wickedness or in folly. Falsehood He hates and liars He will destroy. Such are the enemies of God and his enemies also.
One writer calls the verse a fixed rule of God's government, and points beyond today to the day of Christ.
God's government has a standing rule: the foolish (or the proud) will not be established in His sight, for His eyes are too pure to look on evil. But the grand fulfilment of this truth waits for the coming of the day of Christ. When Jehovah's arm awakes, it will overthrow the proud in the imaginations of their heart.
Psalm 5 goes on to ask God to destroy His enemies, and many readers find they cannot pray it. One commentator faces the difficulty rather than smoothing it over.
God has set the godly apart for Himself, so of necessity He "hates all evildoers." Here, for the first time, the psalmist pleads against them, and no longer with them. It is one of those psalms whose words most Christians find hard to make their own. No wonder they cannot square "Destroy them, O God" with their Lord's "Father, forgive them."
Older translations render that line of Psalm 5 "Destroy them, O God"; the ESV has "Make them bear their guilt, O God."
No evildoer can hold ground before God. The gospel answers with a standing the sinner never earned.
The wicked cannot stand, but every believer has a standing that is unassailable. What is the ground of this standing? Is it his good experience, his enjoyment of divine things, his energy in service, his happy state? Not at all! He stands in grace — the grace revealed in the gospel.
- Character — The prayer rests on God's nature: what the godly love and hate, He loves and hates first.
- Standing — "Shall not stand" means the boastful cannot keep their footing under God's eye. The sinner has no position before the throne to improve.
- Hatred — God's patience with evil is not indulgence. His hatred answers the character the evildoer has formed.
- Day — This rule of God's government holds now. It reaches full display when Christ appears and overthrows the proud.
- Grace — The gospel gives the believer the very standing this verse denies the wicked, and it rests on nothing in the believer.