Biblion Bible Commentary
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Lead Me in Your Righteousness
Psalms 5:1-12
1 For the Chief Musician, with the flutes. A Psalm by David. Give ear to my words, Yahweh. Consider my meditation. · WEB
A morning prayer that says plainly what God is not able to tolerate, and then asks to be let in anyway.
Yahweh, in the morning you will hear my voice. In the morning I will lay my requests before you, and will watch expectantly Psalms 5:3.
Morning, twice, and then a verb borrowed from the sacrificial system: the word for laying a request out is the word for arranging wood on an altar. Prayer is being described as something set in order at the start of a day rather than something produced when needed. And the last clause is the part most easily skipped — he watches for an answer, which means he expects one to arrive and intends to notice it.
For you are not a God who has pleasure in wickedness. Evil can't live with you. The arrogant will not stand in your sight Psalms 5:4–5.
Four verses of what God cannot tolerate, and the list is uncomfortable because it names people rather than abstractions: the arrogant, workers of iniquity, those who speak lies, the bloodthirsty and deceitful. Modern readers often want this softened into a statement about actions only. The psalm does not allow it, and the reason it does not is the next verse.
But as for me, in the abundance of your loving kindness I will come into your house Psalms 5:7.
The contrast is the point of the whole psalm. Having said who cannot come in, the writer says that he will — and states the reason, which is not that he belongs to a different category of person by nature but that there is an abundance of loving kindness. Nothing in the verse claims he has met the standard of the preceding four. He comes in on something else entirely.
Lead me, Yahweh, in your righteousness because of my enemies. Make your way straight before my face Psalms 5:8.
The request is for guidance, and the stated reason is the enemies — not that they might be defeated but that they are watching. A man under scrutiny asks to be kept straight, because a false step would be theirs to use.
Their throat is an open tomb. They flatter with their tongue Psalms 5:9.
Paul takes this line into the long chain of quotations by which he argues that the whole human race is under sin Romans 3:13. In the psalm it describes particular enemies; in the letter it describes the reader, which is a use the psalm's own honesty about the heart makes available rather than resisting.
But let all those who take refuge in you rejoice... For you will bless the righteous. Yahweh, you will surround him with favor as with a shield Psalms 5:11–12.
The closing image is the same as the third psalm's: not a shield held up in front, but favor all the way around.
settled What this mark means