15 A Psalm of David.
15:1 O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart;
3 who does not slander with his tongue
and does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
4 in whose eyes a vile person is despised,
but who honors those who fear the Lord;
who swears to his own hurt and does not change;
5 who does not put out his money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.
Section Overview
This psalm is a hymn celebrating the ideal worshiper of the Lord. Similar passages appear in Psalm 24:3–6; Isaiah 33:14–16.
Some have suggested that the psalm has a very specific purpose, namely, as “an entrance liturgy” prescribing questions and answers by which the priests examine would-be worshipers for their qualifications for entering holy space (based on the possible use of such entrance examinations in other ancient cultures). As Clements points out, however, this is unlikely; while “it is certainly not to be doubted that conditions of entry were an important feature of cultic life in the ancient Near East,” nevertheless “we should have expected from comparative evidence that such conditions would be of a formal and predominantly physical nature.” The “qualifications” that we have here are “personal, highly ethical and of such a kind that only the worshipper would actually know whether they had been met!”136
I agree with Clements that the psalm’s “content shows it to be a piece of ethical admonition.”137 But its form as a song for public worship enables us to appreciate just how it works, and the term “ethical admonition” may be misleading. Rather, the psalm paints a picture of what the Sinai covenant, by which people come into the Lord’s presence in his “tent” and “holy hill,” seeks to produce in those who embrace this covenant from their hearts. In the Response section I show that the covenant aims at far more than simple conformity to a set of rules; in fact, to use the laws merely for that purpose is to miss their point altogether. The covenant expresses God’s purpose of renewing his image in the community of his people, and this song furthers that purpose by nurturing the right aspirations.
Section Outline
The flow is easy to see: a question (Ps. 15:1) is followed by an answer (vv. 2–5b), and then an assurance draws the question and answer together (v. 5c).
I. Question: Who Shall Dwell with God? (15:1)
II. Answer: He Who Walks Blamelessly (15:2–5b)
III. Assurance: Such a Person Shall Never Be Moved (15:5c)
Response
The discussion above has indicated that there are two principles to appreciate as we discuss how this song is to shape its singers.
To begin with, we must consider how the laws of the Pentateuch were to function. In an insightful examination Gordon Wenham argues:
The law sets a minimum standard of behaviour, which if transgressed attracts sanction. . . . Laws generally set a floor for behaviour within society; they do not prescribe an ethical ceiling. Thus a study of the legal codes within the Bible is unlikely to disclose the ideals of the law-givers, but only the limits of their tolerance.143
The “ceiling,” the ethical ideal, comes from the creation account and the image of God: humans were made to imitate God’s character.
The second principle concerns whether to treat this psalm as embodying some kind of “entrance liturgy.” As Patrick Miller posited, “Psalm xv is a ‘torah’ liturgy which sets forth the conditions for entry into the sanctuary for worship.”144 As already mentioned, Clements has offered reasons for rejecting this characterization: there is no way a priestly doorkeeper could know whether the ideals of Psalm 15 had been met! Nevertheless, we might suspect that the psalm is referring to some kind of ethical merit, by which the person who does these things deserves his place in the sanctuary. The tenor of the entire Pentateuch, however, is against this: not only does it found the Sinai covenant on God’s grace for both Israel and the Gentiles (Ex. 34:6–7), but it also abounds with provisions for moral failures (such as sacrifices)!
These two principles point us to the conclusion that the singing congregation does not claim to have achieved these character qualities; instead, in describing these qualities the members are enabled to admire their beauty and to yearn to have them more and more. They may not rest content with merely external conformity to the laws; rather, with God’s help they will seek to foster a community that flourishes when all of its members aspire to their ethical flourishing. Ideally this will not lead to looking down on those who do not “perform”; rather, love and gentle nurture of these people will be part of the pure and tender character of the community.
Were this psalm some kind of entrance liturgy, with a focus on moral qualifications for admission, Christians would naturally think of God’s gift of righteousness in Christ. However, the exposition here shows that the focus is on the kind of corporate life God is building among his people. Christians profess that among them, both Jewish and Gentile, “the new self . . . is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:5–11); the very context of that passage from Colossians has to do with a well-functioning community of care, purity, and safety.Psalm 15
Psalm 16