Psalm 101
8 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 119×3Psalms 89×1Psalms 71×1Psalms 145×11 Kings 9×11 Timothy 3×1
Summary
Chapter summary
A king's vow for his house and his court: 'I will sing of lovingkindness and justice… I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way… I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.' No base thing before the eyes; the perverse heart shall depart; the secret slanderer will he destroy; no worker of deceit shall dwell within his house. 'Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me.' Morning by morning will he destroy the wicked of the land, the standard every son of David fell short of until the Son of David.
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 101The history
In the ancient world a king was his court. He had no police force and no civil service in our sense; he ruled through a few dozen men — a recorder, a scribe, a commander, stewards, and the officials who ate at his table. Whoever got close to the king got power, which is why the psalm is mostly a list of the kind of man who will and will not be hired.
Morning was the hour of justice. The king or the elders sat in the open space just inside the city gate at first light, heard cases, and gave rulings before the heat of the day. That is the picture behind the line about cutting off the wicked morning by morning — not a massacre, but the daily grind of a court finally doing its job.
Two dangers named here were real occupational hazards of a palace. The first is the whisperer who slanders a rival in private; a courtier's word in the king's ear could end a career or a life. The second is the man with a proud look, the flatterer who tells the king what he wants to hear. Israel had watched both wreck Saul's household.
The line about walking within the house with a whole heart is not about private devotions. The house was a government building. Its corridors, its stewards, its guards, and its dinner table were where the kingdom was actually run.
What it meant to them
Israel had lived under a court that rewarded informers and punished honest men. Here the king publishes his hiring policy in public, in a song the nation could sing back to him.
It is also a promise a king could be held to. Every Israelite who sang it was reminding the throne that the throne was not the standard — God was.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- Walton, Matthews and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 101. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.