Today’s Passage: Psalm 26
This is a psalm of David, and it opens with a bold request. He asks the LORD to vindicate him, for he has walked with integrity, and then he asks something braver still: test me, try me, examine my heart and mind. He is not claiming that he has never sinned. He is offering God a life he is willing to have searched, all the way down.
As you read, hold this: Test me, O LORD, and try me.
Psalm 26:1-3 (BSB)
Of David. ¹ Vindicate me, O LORD! For I have walked with integrity; I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. ² Test me, O LORD, and try me; examine my heart and mind. ³ For Your loving devotion is before my eyes, and I have walked in Your truth.
He begins by asking to be vindicated, because he has walked with integrity and trusted the LORD without wavering. Then comes the request that proves he means the first line: test me, try me, examine my kilyotai velibbi, pronounced kil-yoh-TAI veh-lib-BEE. Strong's H3629, kidneys and heart, the inmost being. The phrase is quite literally “my kidneys and my heart.” Our English flattens the picture. To the Hebrew mind the heart was the seat of the will and the thoughts, and the kidneys were the seat of the conscience and the deepest feelings, the places no one else can see. So David is not asking for a surface glance. He is asking God to search him at every level his language had words for. . A man who was hiding something would never invite that kind of looking. He can ask for it because God’s loving devotion has been before his eyes all along, and he has walked in the truth of the One he trusts.
Psalm 26:4-8 (BSB)
⁴ I do not sit with deceitful men, nor keep company with hypocrites. ⁵ I hate the mob of evildoers, and refuse to sit with the wicked. ⁶ I wash my hands in innocence that I may go about Your altar, O LORD, ⁷ to raise my voice in thanksgiving and declare all Your wonderful works. ⁸ O LORD, I love the house where You dwell, the place where Your glory resides.
Context A verdict, not a mood
Vindicate is a courtroom word. David is asking for a verdict, a judgment that sets him apart from sinners and men of bloodshed. In the same way, washing the hands in innocence was something done in the open, the gesture of a man cleared of a charge, not merely a private feeling of being clean. Notice how concrete it all is. The company he refuses to keep is named, and the house he loves is named. Integrity here is not a mood. It is something you could see.
He will not sit with deceitful men, and he refuses the company of the wicked. Instead he washes his hands and goes about the LORD’s altar, because he loves the house where God dwells. Where a man chooses to sit, and where he loves to be, tells you a great deal about him.
Study notes Examine yourselves
Paul turns this same searching back on the reader.
"Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you fail the test?" 2 Corinthians 13:5 (BSB)
David asks God to do the examining; Paul tells us to examine ourselves. Between the two, the same quiet confidence holds: a genuine life can bear the look. Test me, O LORD, and try me.
Psalm 26:9-12 (BSB)
⁹ Do not take my soul away with sinners, or my life with men of bloodshed, ¹⁰ in whose hands are wicked schemes, whose right hands are full of bribes. ¹¹ But I will walk with integrity; redeem me and be merciful to me. ¹² My feet stand on level ground; in the congregations I will bless the LORD.
He prays that God will not sweep his soul away with sinners, men whose hands are full of bribes. But for himself he says, I will walk with integrity. And then, in the same breath, he asks to be redeemed and shown mercy. Even the man who can invite God to search him knows he still needs grace. His feet stand on level ground, and there, among the gathered congregations, he will bless the LORD.
Test me, O LORD, and try me.