Today’s Passage: Psalm 5
This is a Psalm of David, written for the choirmaster and meant to be sung to the sound of flutes, and it is a morning prayer. Before the day has begun, David asks the LORD to give ear, to consider, to attend, and then he lays his plea down and waits. He knows the God he is praying to. This is a God who takes no delight in wickedness and cannot let evil dwell with Him, and yet a God who shelters everyone who runs to Him for cover. So David asks to be led in the LORD’s own righteousness rather than in his own.
As you read, hold this: In the morning I lay my plea. Lead me in Your righteousness.
Context At daybreak
The heading over this psalm is unusual, asking that the prayer be sung to the accompaniment of flutes. And the prayer itself is timed. It belongs to the morning, to daybreak, when David lays his plea down before the day has the chance to crowd it out. Then, having spoken, he does not hurry off. He waits in expectation.
Psalm 5:1-3 (BSB)
For the choirmaster, to be accompanied by flutes. A Psalm of David. ¹ Give ear to my words, O LORD; consider my groaning. ² Attend to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I pray. ³ In the morning, O LORD, You hear my voice; at daybreak I lay my plea before You and wait in expectation.
Give ear, consider, attend. Three times over, before he names a single thing he wants, David simply asks to be heard. He calls the LORD his King and his God, and he brings his prayer in the morning, laying his plea down at daybreak and then waiting in expectation for the God who hears him.
Psalm 5:4-6 (BSB)
⁴ For You are not a God who delights in wickedness; no evil can dwell with You. ⁵ The boastful cannot stand in Your presence; You hate all workers of iniquity. ⁶ You destroy those who tell lies; the LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.
These are hard lines, and they are meant to be. God takes no delight in wickedness, and no evil can dwell with Him. The boastful cannot stand in His presence, He hates all who work iniquity, He destroys those who tell lies, and He abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit. We do well to teach these words as they stand and not sand them down smooth, for they tell the truth about a holy God.
Psalm 5:7-9 (BSB)
⁷ But I will enter Your house by the abundance of Your loving devotion; in reverence I will bow down toward Your holy temple. ⁸ Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness because of my enemies; make straight Your way before me. ⁹ For not a word they speak can be trusted; destruction lies within them. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.
Notice how David comes in. He will enter God’s house, but not on the strength of a cleaner record than his enemies have. He comes only by the abundance of the LORD’s loving devotion. And so he prays to be led in God’s righteousness and to have God’s way made straight before him. As for the mouths ranged against him, he does not soften what they are, for their throats are open graves.
Study notes Open graves
When Paul reaches for words to describe the whole human race apart from God, he takes up verse 9, and he will not leave it lying with David’s enemies alone.
"Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." Romans 3:13 (BSB)
Apart from grace, he says, this description belongs to every one of us. And that is why the gospel here is the same gospel David prayed: no one enters God’s house on a clean record, but only by His loving devotion, asking to be led in a righteousness that is His and not our own.
Psalm 5:10-12 (BSB)
¹⁰ Declare them guilty, O God; let them fall by their own devices. Drive them out for their many transgressions, for they have rebelled against You. ¹¹ But let all who take refuge in You rejoice; let them ever shout for joy. May You shelter them, that those who love Your name may rejoice in You. ¹² For surely You, O LORD, bless the righteous; You surround them with the shield of Your favor.
David does not flinch from what he has just prayed: declare them guilty, let them fall by their own devices, drive them out, for they have rebelled against You. Yet in the same breath he turns to shelter, asking that all who take chasah, pronounced khah-SAH. Strong's H2620, to take refuge, to seek shelter. It names the safety a person finds by fleeing to Someone strong enough to cover them, and that shelter is offered right on the heels of a raw prayer. We teach verse 10 as it stands: we do not baptize revenge, and we do not sand it down into a passing mood. What David does is hand the judgment over to God, and only having handed it over does he turn to the shelter, asking that all who take refuge rejoice, for the LORD surrounds the righteous with the shield of His favor. in the LORD rejoice and shout for joy, surrounded by the shield of His favor.
In the morning I lay my plea. Lead me in Your righteousness.