101 A Psalm of David.
101:1 I will sing of steadfast love and justice;
to you, O Lord, I will make music.
2 I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;
3 I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.
4 A perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.
5 Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly
I will destroy.
Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart
I will not endure.
6 I will look with favor on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me;
he who walks in the way that is blameless
shall minister to me.
7 No one who practices deceit
shall dwell in my house;
no one who utters lies
shall continue before my eyes.
8 Morning by morning I will destroy
all the wicked in the land,
cutting off all the evildoers
from the city of the Lord.
Section Overview
Psalm 101 is a royal psalm, a song about the place the Davidic monarchy has in God’s plan for his people. This psalm sets out, for David and his heirs, the ideal kind of ruler they should aim to be. The people who sing this will find their desires for their king shaped by it and will receive guidance for their prayers for the ruling king. The psalm’s “I” is the Davidic king, in whom the people are included (2 Sam. 20:1; 1 Kings 12:16), and therefore with him they sing. The king’s task described here is his devotion to achieving covenant faithfulness, both in his personal life and in the social life of Israel. As God’s people, Israel is called to display the true humanness that is godliness in active operation. The Davidic king should set the pattern for covenant faithfulness, and each Israelite should have the same aims in his own daily life.
This is the first psalm attributed to David since Psalm 86; the only other Davidic psalm in Book Four (Psalms 90–106) is Psalm 103.
The psalm follows a loose structure; perhaps the simplest way to see this structure is to find the first half (101:1–4) as speaking of the king’s own commitment to faithfulness and the second (vv. 5–8) as speaking of his zeal for the social well-being of the people.
Section Outline
I. The King Will Aim to Be Blameless (101:1–4)
II. The King Will Destroy the Wicked and Favor the Faithful (101:5–8)
Response
As the faithful sing this psalm, they imagine themselves in the persona of the king. The song sets the ideal for the king, in both his private life and his public activities, and enables the people to pray that their king would in fact live by this ideal. One important job of the king is to be someone whose faith and life are worthy of imitation. This psalm also helps the people to admire and aspire for the kind of personal piety and social relationships that reflect God’s own steadfast love and justice. Such an orientation should help them to resist the temptation to engage in exploitation or injustice.
Christians sing this, rejoicing that they have in Jesus the perfect embodiment of the Davidic ideal; this can lead them to reflect on what kind of people they should aim to be, since they have such a king. They further can embrace its ideal of leadership in church and state and seek to honor such leaders when they appear.Psalm 101
Psalm 102