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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comTreasury of David - Psalms 26:9 - 26:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
9 Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men:
10 In whose hand is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes.
Psa 26:9
“Gather not my soul with sinners.” - Lord, when, like fruit, I must be gathered, put me not in the same basket with the best of sinners, much less with the worst of them. The company of sinners is so distasteful to us here, that we cannot endure the thought of being bound up in the same bundle with them to all eternity. Our comfort is, that the Great Husbandman discerns the tares from the wheat, and will find a separate place for distinct characters. In the former verses we see that the Psalmist kept himself clear of profane persons, and this is to be understood as a reason why he should not be thrust into their company at the last. Let us think of the doom of the wicked, and the prayer of the text will forcibly rise to our lips; meanwhile, as we see the rule of judgment by which like is gathered to its like, we who have passed from death unto life have nothing to fear. “Nor my life with bloody men.” Our soul sickens to hear them speak; their cruel dispatches, in which they treat the shooting of their fellow-men as rare sport, are horrifying to us; Lord, let us not be shut up in the same prison with them; nay, the same paradise with such men would be a hell, if they remained as they now are.
Psa 26:10
“In whose hands is mischief.” - They have both hands full of it, plotting it and carrying it out. “And their right hand,” with which they are most dexterous, “is full of bribes;” like thieves who would steal with impunity, they carry a sop for the dogs of justice. He who gives bribes is every way as guilty as the man who takes them, and in the matter of our parliamentary elections the rich villain who gives the bribe is by far the worse. Bribery, in any form or shape, should be as detestable to a Christian as carrion to a dove, or garbage to a lamb. Let those whose dirty hands are fond of bribes remember that neither death nor the devil can be bribed to let them escape their well-earned doom.