Psalm 5
12 verses · BSBPsalms book hub →
Speaks with:Psalms 11×21 John 5×1Psalms 54×1Psalms 19×1Psalms 65×1Psalms 3×1
Summary
Chapter summary
A morning prayer: 'in the morning will I order my prayer unto thee, and will keep watch.' God takes no pleasure in wickedness; the arrogant shall not stand before him. David enters the house by the multitude of Jehovah's lovingkindness and asks to be led in righteousness because of his enemies, whose throat is an open sepulchre (quoted in Romans 3). Let all who take refuge in Jehovah rejoice; he will compass the righteous with favor as with a shield.
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others — Psalms overview
The world behind this chapter
Psalms 5The history
Israel's day at the sanctuary opened with a lamb burned on the altar at first light and closed with another at dusk. Those two offerings framed the day, and prayer attached itself to them — which is why this psalm says "in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee." The word behind "direct" is the same one used for laying the wood and the pieces of the offering in order on the altar. The prayer is being arranged like a sacrifice and left there.
"I will look up" pictures a man watching for the answer the way a lookout watches a road. Worshipers prayed toward the sanctuary — later, toward the temple — and the posture was one of expectation, not resignation.
The throat like an open sepulchre is a grim, concrete image. Rock-cut tombs stood outside the towns, and an opened grave in that climate announced itself before you saw it. Touching a grave or a corpse also made an Israelite ceremonially unclean for a week. So a flattering mouth is not merely unpleasant — it is contaminating.
"Thou hatest all workers of iniquity" sat inside a world of temples where a worshiper's main job was to feed and flatter a god into a good mood. Israel's God is described here as one who cannot be lobbied: evil does not get lodging with him.
What it meant to them
For first hearers the psalm drew a hard line down the middle of the worshiping community. Some come to the house of God in the multitude of his mercy; others come with smooth talk and open-grave mouths, and God is not fooled by attendance.
It ends where an Israelite most wanted to be — surrounded, as with a shield, by favor. The word is the large body shield a soldier stood behind, not a small buckler on the arm.
Sources cited
- Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David on Psalm 5
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 5. 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.