Psalm 101

Psalms 101:1-2

The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, reads A Psalm of David, and the older commentators have read the psalm as David's resolve for his own household, some connecting it to the season he was bringing the ark to Jerusalem. He pledges to sing of mercy and judgment together, refusing to praise one of God's attributes while ignoring the other, and asks when God will come to him, tying the whole vow to a hoped for visit. I will walk within my house with a perfect heart makes plain the resolve begins at home before it reaches the court.

Psalms 101:3-5

The vow turns to inward discipline before it reaches other people: no wicked thing set before the eyes, no cleaving to the work of them that turn aside, no fellowship with a froward heart or a wicked person. Verse 5 widens from the eyes to the tongue and the countenance, cutting off the neighbor who slanders in secret and refusing to suffer the proud look and the high heart. Henry reads the list as a king's household code, bad company kept from his own sight before he ever legislates for the nation, and Gill notes the private slanderer is judged more severely than the open enemy, since his harm is hidden.

Psalms 101:6-7

faithful of the land: The positive counterpart follows: mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me, the same eyes that in verse 3 refused to look on wickedness now searching out the faithful to keep near. He that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me sets the standard for anyone admitted to the king's service, and verse 7 closes the negative side again, no worker of deceit dwelling in the house and no liar tarrying in his sight. Spurgeon calls it a resolve for a clean court, the household purged before the kingdom is governed.

Psalms 101:8

The vow ends at the city gate rather than the palace door: I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord. Early suggests a settled daily practice, morning by morning, rather than a single purge, and city of the Lord names Jerusalem as the seat where the king's own resolve becomes public justice. The older writers read the whole psalm as the pattern any ruler under God is bound to follow, private integrity spent outward into public government.