A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM CI.
_David maketh a vow and profession of godliness._ A Psalm of David. I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O LORD, will I sing. I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O! when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside, _it_ shall not cleave to me. A froward heart shall depart from me; I will not know a wicked _person_. Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off: him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer. Mine eyes _shall be_ upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house; he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight. I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the LORD. This Psalm contains a most solemn and necessary doctrine: and David puts forth himself, so great a king, as an example. He teaches that impious members and courtiers ought not to be borne with by any godly magistrate or prince. He recounts also the iniquities, by which those who are in the courts of kings and princes, more especially harm the state and the church. He shews that they do the greatest evil when they are given to sin or to false doctrine; and when they injure the causes of good men by their hatred of them.
In the opening of the Psalm David says, “I will sing of mercy and of judgment:” that is as if he had said, ‘I will sing that God most certainly, according to the word of the first commandment, visits the godly with mercy, and the ungodly with judgment, at all times.’ Of this visiting mercy David was himself an example, seeing that he had been so many times delivered from the very claws and jaws of the devil. And of the divine visitations of judgment, Absalom, Ahithophel, Joab, and others, were examples. And every king and magistrate, who sets himself to defend the true religion, and to do good to his nation, is at once exposed to the hatred of all men, even of his own family and court: which is plainly seen in the case of Absalom, Ahithophel, and other persecutors of David. Hence it is that David, having so often experienced God’s fulfilment of the word of his first commandment, sings in all places and at all times, ‘that God is God over all, exercising mercy and judgment.’ And it is with God alone that a kingdom and commonwealth can be rightly governed: for where God is not, there all things are scattered and in confusion, and neither families are subject to their heads, nor citizens to their rulers.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.