Psalms 101

The vow opens by naming the two things David means to sing of, and they are not the two we might expect from a king: I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O LORD, will I sing (v. 1). These are the twin pillars of any rule that means to imitate God's own, and the genius of the verse is that it refuses to choose between them. A throne that is all mercy and no judgment lets the wicked prey on the weak; a throne that is all judgment and no mercy crushes the very people it exists to protect.

David binds the two together and aims them in a single direction: unto thee, O LORD, will I sing. The standard for his reign is not his own preference or his people's applause but the character of the God he serves. He will rule the way he sings - with mercy and judgment held in one hand - because that is how the LORD reigns, and a king is only ever a steward of a throne that finally belongs to Another.

The resolution that follows has been badly misread by readers who hear in it a boast of flawlessness: I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way… I will walk within my house with a perfect heart (v. 2). The word behind perfect means whole, complete, undivided - a life pointed single-mindedly in one direction rather than split between God and something else. David is not claiming he has arrived; he is naming the aim.

And notice the tender interruption planted in the middle of the verse: O when wilt thou come unto me? Right as he vows to walk a perfect way, he breaks off to long for God's own presence, as if to confess that the integrity he promises is not something he can manufacture alone.

Notice, too, where he means to walk it: not in the throne room or the public square, but within my house - the private rooms where no subject watches and no record is kept. The truest test of a ruler's integrity is the person he is at home, and David puts that hardest test first.

From the heart the vow moves to the eyes: I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me (v. 3). David understands something every honest person learns eventually - that what we deliberately put in front of our eyes does not stay in front of our eyes; it works its way in. So he resolves to guard the gate, to refuse to set evil there in the first place, because he knows how it behaves once admitted: it cleaves, it sticks, it attaches itself and will not easily be shaken off.

This is not the language of censorship imposed on others; it is the discipline a leader accepts for himself. The phrase them that turn aside pictures people who have left the straight path, and David refuses to let their work become his entertainment or his counsel. A kingdom takes its character, in the end, from what its ruler is willing to look at and live with. David means to set the standard at his own eyes before he sets it anywhere else.

Now the vow turns outward, and David names the corruptions he will not let take root in his court - and the first two are sins of the tongue and the heart, not the sword. Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off: him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer (v. 5). The word privily means secretly, in the shadows; David singles out the slanderer who destroys a reputation in whispers, where the victim cannot answer and the damage spreads unseen.

It is telling that the very first thing a just king resolves to root out is not violence or theft but quiet character-assassination - because a court runs on trust, and the secret slanderer poisons it at the source.

Beside him stands the proud: an high look and a proud heart. The high look is the lifted eye that despises others; the proud heart is the inner posture that has made itself the measure of all things. David will not suffer - not tolerate, not give room to - either one. These are the sins that hollow out a household from within long before any external enemy arrives, and the king names them first.

The vow is not only negative. For every evil David resolves to remove, there is a good he resolves to gather, and verse 6 is its bright centre: Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me. The same eyes that in verse 3 refused to look on wickedness are here turned, watchful and deliberate, toward the faithful - the reliable, the steady, the people of proven loyalty.

A leader becomes, over time, the company he keeps; the voices admitted to the inner circle shape the decisions made there. So David does not merely banish the corrupt; he actively seeks out the trustworthy and draws them close, gives them a place to dwell and a share in his service.

This is the constructive half of integrity, and the harder half. It is one thing to know what you are against; it is another to deliberately build your life around those who walk the way you mean to walk. The standard David sets for those who will serve him is the very standard he set for himself in verse 2 - a perfect, undivided way.

David returns once more to the household and to the tongue: He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight (v. 7). The repetition is not accidental. Twice now the king has fixed on falsehood - the secret slander of verse 5, the worked deceit and told lies of verse 7 - as the thing he is most determined to keep out of his presence.

A throne depends on truth: a king who cannot trust the words spoken in his own house cannot govern, cannot judge rightly, cannot tell the loyal servant from the flatterer. So the liar shall not tarry - shall not be allowed to settle, to become established, to gain a foothold - in my sight. Notice how personal it stays: not “in the kingdom” but within my house, in my sight, close to me. The reform that began at the king's own eyes (v. 3) now reaches the threshold of his home, and the rule is the same on the inside as the out: what is false does not get to stay.