GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 15:1-5
15 A psalm of David.
The question of this psalm is clear: Who may dwell or live in your house, Lord? The answer cuts us all to the heart: None of us. Just like Psalm 5 and Psalm 14, our sins are exposed and our lives are ripped open in these words, because we can’t stand before the Holy Lord of Creation.
But there is someone who can…
1 LORD, who may live in your tent?
Who may live on your holy mountain?
2 He whose walk is blameless
and who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from his heart
3 and has no slander on his tongue,
who does not harm his friend
and does not shame his neighbor,
4 who despises a vile man
but honors those who fear the LORD,
who keeps his word even when it costs him,
5 who lends his money without demanding interest
and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things will never be shaken.
These observations seem simple if one reads them quickly. Oh, I am a Christian. My walk is blameless; fairly blameless, anyway. I do righteous things (and a few other things). I speak the truth (and some other things). I have no slander on my tongue (almost). I don’t do my neighbor any wrong. Well, at least I cast no slur on other people. Well, actually…
The deeper we begin to search our hearts, the more convicted we are. We go back up the list and we finally land on “He whose walk is blameless,” and we end up falling to our knees. We aren’t blameless. We do not deserve to live with God in heaven.
Who does what is righteous? “No one living is righteous before you” (Psalm 143:2). But God gives righteousness as a gift in us. And because it is a gift of God alone, “it can only be hindered,” Luther says, “by any works we do; it cannot be acquired by our works.” And Jesus explains this by saying: “No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 8:44). So righteousness is a divine work in us, done by God on our behalf, because “what we mortal men achieve is closer to iniquity than righteousness, to perdition than salvation” (Luther again). Hosea says: “You destruction is your own, O Israel. Your salvation comes from me” (Hosea 13:9).
To “speak the truth from the heart” is to speak in a godly way without trying, without even being tempted to lie or to twist things to one’s own favor or advantage. This, too, is a problem for sinful man. How often does the Bible speak of truth in a man’s heart? In almost every instance of truth being spoken of, it is God who speaks the truth, gives the truth, and who is himself the truth. “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
Slander is the speech of a fool (Proverbs 10:10), and “the godless destroys his neighbor with his mouth,” so “do not believe everything you hear.” It is easier to harm a friend with words than with any other weapon. Bringing shame to your neighbor is easy to do, but no easy thing to live with, whether you are the one shamed or the one who brought it to light. “For what will you do in the end if your neighbor puts you to shame?” (Proverbs 25:8), and yet “the wicked neighbor gets no mercy” (Proverbs 21:10).
The godly man must despise a vile and sinful man, calling him to repentance if it’s possible, although “a fool finds pleasure in his evil conduct” (Provers 10:23), and “fools detest turning from evil” (Proverbs 13:19). Therefore the godly person will turn away and honor those who fear the Lord, seeking them out, to clasp hands and rejoice in their faith, “for godliness has value for all things” (1 Timothy 4:8).
Verse 4 ends with the difficult saying: “He keeps his word even when it costs him.” The Hebrew words say: “The one who swears will be hurt yet will not change.” If you are going to take the trouble to take an oath, then do not break it. Do not prove false about things you promise to do, or not to do. Never say, “Oh, but I changed my mind.” Would you want your wife to say to you, “I guess I want to be married to someone else”? Or would you want your children to say, “We’re sorry you feel lonely in your old age, but we want to go and do something to please ourselves instead of spend any time with you”? Or would you want your bank to say, “Thanks for letting us use your money. We’ve decided not to give it back to you”? A promise is a promise. Be the example other people follow, not the exception other people avoid.
The 19th century theologian George Bush said: “We nowhere learn from (the laws of) Moses that the simple taking of interest, especially from the neighboring nations (Deuteronomy 23:19-20) was forbidden to the Israelites; but the divine law would give no countenance to the griping and extortionate practices to which miserly money lenders are always prone… ‘Remember (God says) that you are lending to my people, my poor, and therefore take no advantage of their necessities. Trust me against the fear of loss, and treat them kindly and generously’” (Notes on the Book of Exodus, 1856).
This Psalm is an interesting and rare example of climactic parallelism in a unique form. Here, the initial paired question (verse 1) is answered by five pairs of responses which build one on the other. The fifth and final response is a triplet, not a couplet, and it is concluded with a rare single verse rather than a constructed couplet. The outline, then, looks like this:
I, Question: “Who may live…” (15:1a,1b).
II, One with a blameless / righteous walk (15:2a,2b)
III, One with truth / no slander (15:2c,3a)
IV, Who does not harm / does not shame (15:3b,3c)
V, Who despises / honors (15:4a,4b)
VI, Who keeps word / lends / does not accept bribes (15:4c,5a,5b)
VII, He will never be shaken (15:5c)
Perhaps the VI group above is not a single triplet, but three shorter couplets. But this is an argument for poets and translators.
To conclude: the Fifteenth Psalm teaches us our sins, but the rest of the Bible shows us our Savior. For where we have fallen on our faces and eaten dust in these sins of ours, God has sent his Son down to rescue us and forgive us. Through Jesus alone, “We will never be shaken.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Psalm 15:1-5 Live in God’s tent