The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"examine," Hebrew bechaneni (בְּחָנֵנִי), test as an assayer tests metal. This is a bold prayer. Falsely charged by his enemies, David does not defend himself before men but appeals to God: "Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart." The first of his three words of testing is borrowed from the assayer's bench, where metal is tested to find out what it actually is.

"prove," nasseni (נַסֵּנִי), put to the proof. The second word of testing. David is not claiming sinless perfection; the whole psalm rests on God's lovingkindness (v3) and cries "redeem me, and be merciful unto me" (v11). Rather, in the specific matter of the accusations against him, he can honestly ask God to put him to the proof and see whether he has walked in integrity.

"try," tzarfah (צָרְפָה), refine, smelt. The third word of testing, and the most searching of the three: the smelter's fire that melts the ore down so that pure metal and dross are separated. He piles up these three words, all drawn from the assaying and refining of precious metal, and invites God to apply them to his innermost being.

"reins," kilyotai (כִלְיוֹתָי), the kidneys, seen as the seat of the deepest emotions and motives. This is where David asks that refining heat to fall -- on his "reins," the hidden seat of motive. It takes a clear conscience to pray this way. Most of us are quick to have our conduct examined by others but slow to invite God to search our hidden motives.

"heart," libbi (לִבִּי). With the reins, the other half of the innermost man that David lays open to God. This is the healthy posture of the soul: to say with the psalmist, "Search me, O God, and know my heart... and see if there be any wicked way in me" (Psalm 139:23-24). The one who walks in integrity can welcome the searching gaze of God, not because he is flawless, but because he has nothing he is hiding from the God who sees all.

Explanation

Read verse 1 and verse 2 together and you will see what David is really doing: he is demanding a trial, but choosing his court. The psalm opens, "Judge me, O LORD" (v1), and presses straight on, "Examine me... prove me; try my reins and my heart" (v2). A man falsely accused usually longs for a human hearing to clear his name; David does something far bolder. He appeals clean over the heads of his accusers to the highest court of all, and asks the Judge there to examine evidence no earthly tribunal could ever reach, "my reins", his kidneys, the ancient image for the deepest, most hidden motives. No human court can subpoena a man's inward parts; only God can read the reins. And here is the striking thing: the very quality that makes God's court the most terrifying, that He sees absolutely everything, hidden motive and secret thought alike, is exactly what makes it the one court that can truly vindicate the innocent. Men can only weigh appearances and may get it wrong; God weighs the heart and cannot. So the falsely charged believer does not fear the all-seeing eye; he runs to it, because the Judge who misses nothing is the only Judge whose acquittal is worth having.

Gospel Focus

"Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart", the One who tries the reins and hearts is the Lord Jesus Christ, and only in Him can the tested heart stand. The risen Christ declares, "I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts" (Revelation 2:23), the very testing David invites; nothing is hidden from His eyes. To pray "examine me" is a fearful thing, for if He tries us by the standard of the law, we all fail; but it becomes a hopeful thing in the gospel, for Christ was tried in our place and found perfect, and clothes the believer in His own righteousness. Only one heart ever endured God's full examination and was found without flaw, the sinless heart of Jesus; and because He stood the test for us, we who are in Him can invite God's searching not to establish our own merit but to be cleansed and conformed. The Physician who searches the heart also heals it. So we pray with David, "try my heart," and with the assurance the gospel gives, we add, "create in me a clean heart, O God" (Psalm 51:10), knowing that the Christ who tries the reins is also the Saviour who purifies them.

Word Study

"loved," Hebrew ahavti (אָהַבְתִּי). In the midst of a psalm about integrity, David reveals what lies at the root of it: a love for God and for God's presence. "LORD, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth." His separation from evildoers (vv4-5) is not cold or self-righteous; it flows from a warm love for God's house and worship.

"habitation," me'on (מְעוֹן), dwelling place. The word names the sanctuary as a dwelling place, somewhere God is at home among His people. That is why David's affection settles there rather than on any other spot in Israel.

"thy house," beitekha (בֵּיתֶךָ). He treasures the sanctuary, not for the building itself, but because it is God's. This is the true source of a holy life: not merely a disciplined avoidance of sin, but a heart captivated by God Himself, longing to be near Him.

"place," meqom (מְקוֹם). David's love is for an actual place he can go to and worship in. Notice how that love expresses itself: he desires to wash his hands in innocency and compass God's altar, "that I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works" (vv6-7). Love for God's house issues in grateful praise.

"thine honour," kevodekha (כְּבוֹדֶךָ), thy glory. What makes the place precious is the glory that rests there: it is the place "where thine honour dwelleth", where the glory of God abides. The man who loves God's presence will naturally love what God loves and shun what grieves Him.

"dwelleth," mishkan (מִשְׁכַּן), abides, tabernacles. The glory does not merely visit; it abides, it tabernacles there. Where a person's deepest affection is set on God and His abiding presence, integrity and worship grow together from that one root.

Explanation

Set this verse against verse 5 and you will hear the two notes that make up the chord of integrity. In verse 5 David says, "I have hated the congregation of evil doers"; here in verse 8 he says, "LORD, I have loved the habitation of thy house." A love and a hatred, deliberately paired. This tells us something we easily forget: integrity is never a cool neutrality, a bland tolerance of everything. It is a set of loves and hatreds pointed in the right direction, a heart that loves what God loves and hates what God hates. And the order matters. The love is the deeper thing; the hatred is only its far side. Because David so loves the place "where thine honour dwelleth," he cannot bear the company that dishonours God, the two feelings are one affection seen from opposite ends. This also exposes what really shows a person's heart: not chiefly what they avoid, but what assembly they love. You are known by the congregation you long to be in. The man whose deepest joy is the house of God will, without any cold self-righteousness, simply find the "congregation of evil doers" a place he does not love, because his heart is already given somewhere else.

Gospel Focus

"LORD, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth", the house David loved pointed forward to Jesus Christ, in whom the glory of God dwells and who is Himself God's true temple. The honour, the glory, that dwelt in the sanctuary now dwells in Christ, for in Him "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9), and "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory...)" (John 1:14). When Jesus stood in the temple, greater than the temple was there (Matthew 12:6); He spoke of "the temple of his body" (John 2:21), the true place where God's honour dwells. And the zeal that consumed David for God's house was fulfilled in Christ, of whom it was written, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" (John 2:17). Now, through Christ, His people become the dwelling place of God: "ye are the temple of God, and... the Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (1 Corinthians 3:16). To love the habitation of God's house is, in the end, to love Christ and His body, the church, and to long for the day of dwelling in the Father's house for ever. Let a warm love for the Lord and His presence be the root of your holiness, and worship the God whose honour dwells in Jesus.

Word Study

"as for me," Hebrew va'ani (וַאֲנִי), in contrast to the wicked of verses 9-10. The most instructive thing in this psalm is how its final verse holds two truths together that we are tempted to pull apart, and it begins by deliberately setting David apart from the bloody and bribe-taking men he has just described.

"walk," elekh (אֵלֵךְ). In one breath David says, "I will walk in mine integrity", a firm resolve of moral effort, a commitment to live blamelessly -- and he casts it as a walk, a daily course of life rather than a single decision.

"integrity," tummi (תֻּמִּי), wholeness, blamelessness. The word is about being whole, undivided, rather than flawless. The one who truly walks in this integrity is the very one who knows he needs to be redeemed and pitied; his integrity does not make him proud but sends him to God's grace.

"redeem me," pedeni (פְּדֵנִי), ransom me, buy me back. In the very next breath he says, "redeem me, and be merciful unto me", a plea of utter dependence on God's ransoming grace. He does not say "I will walk in my integrity, therefore I need no mercy"; nor does he say "I will cast myself on mercy, therefore integrity does not matter." He says both.

"be merciful," chonneni (חָנֵּנִי), be gracious to me. This is the true balance of the godly life: wholehearted effort to walk uprightly, and wholehearted reliance on God's redeeming mercy. Legalism keeps the first half and drops the second; loose living keeps the second and drops the first; but faith holds both. "I will walk in mine integrity" and "redeem me, and be merciful unto me" belong in the same sentence, and only grace can join them.

Explanation

Stand this verse next to the psalm's opening and you will see the whole song is built as a walk. Verse 1 looks back: "for I have walked in mine integrity." Verse 11 looks forward: "I will walk in mine integrity." The road already travelled and the road still ahead, past tense and future, bracket the psalm like two mile-markers of the same journey. But notice what David tucks into that forward pledge. He does not say merely "I will walk in mine integrity" and stop, as though resolve were enough to carry him; he says it and immediately adds, "redeem me, and be merciful unto me." The very determination to keep walking is what drives him to ask for a ransom, because he knows the road ahead is longer than his own strength. And watch where all this walking finally lands. The next verse, the last of the psalm, sets down his foot: "My foot standeth in an even place: in the congregations will I bless the LORD" (v12). The psalm of walking ends not still trudging on but standing firm, planted on level ground, in the assembly he loves. This is where the walk of integrity, upheld by redeeming mercy, comes to rest: a steady foot, solid ground, and a mouth full of praise.

Gospel Focus

"I will walk in mine integrity: redeem me, and be merciful unto me", this is the very rhythm of the Christian life in Jesus Christ, who both redeems us and enables us to walk. The plea "redeem me" is answered in the Redeemer, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Ephesians 1:7); we are "not redeemed with corruptible things... but with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19). And the resolve "I will walk in mine integrity" is not set against that redemption but flows from it, for Christ "gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Titus 2:14). The gospel joins what our hearts keep splitting: we are saved wholly by grace, "not of works" (Ephesians 2:8-9), and that same grace makes us God's "workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works" (Ephesians 2:10). So the believer, like David, presses on to walk uprightly while resting entirely on mercy, working out his salvation because it is God who works in him (Philippians 2:12-13). We do not walk in integrity to earn redemption; we walk in integrity because we are redeemed, and we lean every step on the mercy of the One who bought us. Hold both, as this psalm does, and you hold the heart of the gospel.