Thoughts On the Psalms: Psalm 5

It’s easy to forget where our protection and salvation come from, especially in this day and age of seeking out human leaders to come and save us. The election cycle is all about pointing out the evils of the other party while ignoring their own and trying to convince the people that they are the only ones who can save them. It works, too. People become polarized and they are confident that their candidate is the only good one who could possibly lead the country well. Unfortunately, they are all evil. God sets up kings and tears them down according to His purpose for them, but that doesn’t make them righteous or even good. They are unrighteous and immoral men, so why do Christians seek to have them rule over them? 

There is a story in the first book of Samuel that we should carefully consider before choosing a candidate this year. The first king of Israel was about to be selected, and God picked a man to please the people. He was tall, good-looking, humble, and an excellent warrior—a man any nation would love to have in office. Still, this man later turned from God as the power of his position corrupted his heart, and God took the kingdom from him and gave it to the author of the Psalm we are about to read. Before Saul was set up as king by God, the Prophet and Judge of the Lord, Samuel, was feeling down and rejected because the people would rather have a king than the system God had set up. Let’s pick the story up here.

1 Samuel 8:4-9 NKJV Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, 

5 and said to him, "Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations." 

6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to judge us." So Samuel prayed to the LORD. 

7 And the LORD said to Samuel, "Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. 

8 "According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day--with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods--so they are doing to you also. 

9 "Now therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them."   

God reminded Samuel that it was not him the people had rejected but God Himself. He was the one they were no longer willing to have rule and lead them. God gave them a chance to change their mind about choosing to have a king, and He told Samuel to warn them about all the things a king would do to them. 

1 Samuel 8:10-18 NKJV So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who asked him for a king. 

11 And he said, "This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint [them] for his own chariots and [to be] his horsemen, and [some] will run before his chariots. 

12 "He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, [will set some] to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and [some] to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 

13 "He will take your daughters [to be] perfumers, cooks, and bakers. 

14 "And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give [them] to his servants. 

15 "He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants. 

16 "And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put [them] to his work. 

17 "He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. 

18 "And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the LORD will not hear you in that day." 

If the people make this choice, it is permanent. They will cry out because they have chosen a man to lead them, but God will not hear them. A stark contrast between the kings and the judges of Israel is that God spoke directly to the Judges, but with the kings, He did not. He always spoke to them through someone else. Even after this dire warning, the people still chose to have a man rule them rather than God, and the reason they gave is sickening. 

1 Samuel 8:19-20 NKJV Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No, but we will have a king over us, 

20 "that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles."

They wanted a king so they could be like all the nations around them! So they could have a man fight their battles for them rather than God! Pretty foolish, right? Every four years, we do the same thing. We choose a man to save us rather than God.

Psalm 5:1-2 NKJV To the Chief Musician. With flutes. A Psalm of David. Give ear to my words, O LORD, Consider my meditation. 

2 Give heed to the voice of my cry, My King and my God, For to You I will pray.

David starts out this Psalm with a plea to God that He hear and answer his prayer. David rhymes the first two verses, the first three, actually, and declares that it is to God that he prays. David was a king, yet he declared God to be his King and his God. He is the one that he seeks help from, and not from himself. David was one of the few righteous kings and the only truly righteous king to reign over united Israel. One reason for this is that he always knew where his authority came from and who the real ruler of Israel was. 

Psalm 5:3 NKJV My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD; In the morning I will direct [it] to You, And I will look up. 

David continues with his rhyming ideas and rhymes the two lines here with each other and with the verses before. David prays every morning for his kingdom and for righteousness to come because he knows where his victory, throne, and salvation come from. He looks up to God for his deliverance and his prosperity. 

Psalm 5:4 NKJV For You [are] not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, Nor shall evil dwell with You.

Here, we see why David looked to God for his victory and salvation. God takes no pleasure in wickedness, and evil cannot even dwell with God! One of the later Psalms addresses just who can dwell with God, and it is certainly not evildoers and those who practice wicked ways. 

Psalm 5:5-6 NKJV The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity. 

6 You shall destroy those who speak falsehood; The LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

David elaborates a bit about the people God hates: those who will not stand in His sight or in His judgment—boastful, workers of iniquity, liars, or bloodthirsty, deceitful men. This still holds true for us today, just as it did in that day. Remember, the Psalms are prophetic in nature. David was called a bloody man, but he wasn’t bloodthirsty. He only took the lives that had to be taken. 

On another note, do you see the picture this Psalm paints? We are talking heavily about judgment and the destruction of the wicked, specifically end-time judgment. Keep that in mind as we continue through the rest of the Psalm, and more will jump out to you than would otherwise.

Psalm 5:7 NKJV But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy; In fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple. 

We then get a contrast between righteous and unrighteous, and it is a contrast that will be repeated a couple more times to add more depth to the idea of judgment, salvation, and deliverance. 

What is interesting in this verse is that David mentions the Temple, but there’s one small problem with that. It wasn’t built yet; in fact, it wouldn’t be built until his son Solomon took the throne. David was forbidden to build the Temple because of all the blood he had shed. So, what is David referring to? 

Everything on earth was made in a pattern of the heavenly, including the temple (Hebrews 8:5). I think David understood this since Moses was told by God that everything he would be building was patterned after the heavenly. With this in mind, I think David was talking about coming before God in the heavenly Temple, into the true House of God. It was only because of God’s mercy that David could do this, however. 

Psalm 5:8 NKJV Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness because of my enemies; Make Your way straight before my face.

It's very easy for us to get distracted and wander from the true path, and it was no different for David. What David seems to say here is that his enemies were so distracting that he needed help from God to stay on the right path. It's easy to sympathize with this, for how often do our troubles loom so large in front of us that we lose sight of God? 

More often than we'd like to admit, I'm sure. 

Psalm 5:9 NKJV — For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; Their inward part is destruction; Their throat is an open tomb; They flatter with their tongue.

Everything these people take in and put out is destruction, and David beautifully employs a synonymous structure to mark the stark contrast that exists between a righteous man and the wicked. Every thought and action of a righteous man is grounded and built on the foundation of God and His ways. Nothing a wicked man does is good. They take in nothing good, and even their compliments are meant to destroy, to achieve their own wicked ends. Their words are death.

Psalm 5:10 NKJV Pronounce them guilty, O God! Let them fall by their own counsels; Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions, For they have rebelled against You.

The destruction and judgment of the wicked is a consistent theme throughout the Psalms, but in this particular Psalm, it fits quite well with the day it lines up with, the Feast of Trumpets. The ironic thing about these wicked men is that since nothing good comes out of them, they will destroy each other and themselves. God will judge them, but He hardly needs to lift a finger to bring about their destruction. There is no honor among thieves as the saying goes. 

David also brings out another interesting point in verse ten that I think we would do well to remember. Wickedness and transgressions are rebellion against God. That is why God takes them so seriously and the penalties are so harsh. Wickedness, perversion, and everything you can think of are rebellion against God. No wonder sinners cannot dwell with God! We must have the blood of Christ to cover and erase our rebellious record.

Psalm 5:11-12 NKJV But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You; Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them; Let those also who love Your name Be joyful in You. 

12 For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous; With favor You will surround him as [with] a shield.

 

Here is the other half of the Feast of Trumpets. With the judgment and destruction of the wicked also comes the deliverance and protection of the righteous, those who seek God fully. They love His name, which as we know, loving Him means keeping His commandments. There will be great shouting on this day when it comes, shouts of victory, and the blasts of trumpets as God’s first fruits are delivered from the hand of the wicked. The righteous will be surrounded with a shield of protection, an impenetrable dome, a hedge from the wicked, and the wicked will meet their Maker.

Even now we enjoy some of this protection. The wicked still have time to run around and perform their wicked deeds so that their iniquity might be complete, but God protects those who seek Him with their whole heart. It’s a beautiful picture indeed!

As we head into yet another election cycle, let’s remember as children of God and people working toward righteousness that a man is not our savior, especially not one from the camp of the wicked, a man rebellious against God. We have a savior, and He loved us so much that He died for us so that we might have eternal life and we can be called righteous. What a wonderful God we have!