Psalm 26:6

Psalm 26 opens with “Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity” (Psalm 26:1), and David goes on to ask God to examine him and try his heart (Psalm 26:2). He has kept away from vain persons, dissemblers and the congregation of evil doers (Psalm 26:4–5). In verse 6 he turns from the company he shuns to the place he seeks. After these verses he asks God to keep him from the fate of sinners and promises again to walk in his integrity (verses 9–11). So these three verses are the warm centre of a plea for vindication, the place where David says what he loves.

“I will wash mine hands in innocency” uses the verb rāḥaṣ, which means to wash or bathe, the whole of something or a part of it, usually with water. David uses it here as a picture, because the washing he means is done “in innocency”. That word, niqqāyôwn, comes from a root meaning to be clean or innocent, and it speaks of moral purity, blamelessness and freedom from guilt. Clean hands stand for a clean life, hands kept clear of the deceit and wickedness David has just described.

The picture comes from Israel’s own worship. God commanded the priests to wash their hands and feet at the bronze laver before they ministered at the tabernacle, “that they die not” (Exodus 30:17–21). David was a king and no priest, and he takes the priests’ washing and applies it to the heart and conduct of a worshipper. Ritual washing had its place, and David shows what it pointed to: a life made clean before God.

Outward worship pleases God when it comes from a clean heart and an upright life. Proverbs puts it plainly: “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight” (Proverbs 15:8). Through Isaiah, God told Israel that their many sacrifices and solemn meetings were a burden to him while they went on in evil, and he called them to “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well” (Isaiah 1:10–17). The prophets kept calling Israel to worship joined with justice and righteousness, and David’s resolve here stands with them.

Psalm 24 asks the question David answers in this verse: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3–4). James carries the same call to believers: “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded” (James 4:8). The New Testament speaks of worship in spirit and in truth, and God has always desired truth and integrity in those who come to him.

David’s care for a clean life is how he gets ready for something he longs to do. Drawing near to God is a joy to him, and the next two verses say why.

Verse 7 gives the purpose of coming to the altar: “That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works.” The verb behind “publish” is shâmaʻ, which usually means to hear. Here it takes its causing sense, to make others hear, and so to tell or proclaim. David wants God’s praise heard and understood by many.

What he makes heard is “the voice of thanksgiving”. The word tôwdâh means thanksgiving or confession, and it is also used for a thanksgiving choir and for a thank offering. A voice is something others hear, so David’s thanks are spoken out loud among God’s people, and his own devotion overflows into the shared praise of the congregation. This was the way of worship in Israel, which remembered the LORD’s mighty acts in hymns, songs and retold history, from the Song of Moses after the deliverance from Egypt (Exodus 15) onward. Telling these acts kept God’s covenant faithfulness before the people and reminded them whose people they were.

The two halves of the verse say one thing twice. The first line names the manner, a voice raised in thanks, and the second names the content, all of God’s wondrous works. Psalm 9 makes the same promise in nearly the same words: “I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works” (Psalm 9:1). Psalm 105 calls all of God’s people to do it: “Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works” (Psalm 105:2). Isaiah looks ahead to the day when God’s people will say, “Praise the LORD, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted” (Isaiah 12:4). The first believers in Jerusalem lived this out, “praising God, and having favour with all the people” (Acts 2:47).

“LORD, I have loved the habitation of thy house” is spoken straight to God. The verb ʼâhab means to love or to have affection for, and it is used of love for a person, an object or a practice. David’s love for the house is love for the LORD he meets there, and he offers it as evidence of where his heart has been. The word for habitation, mâʻôwn, means an abode, a dwelling place or a refuge, and used of God it means his dwelling, his sanctuary among his people. “House” is the ordinary word bayith.

In David’s day the house of the LORD was the tabernacle, the tent sanctuary that held the ark of the covenant, which stood for God’s throne and his presence with his people. There God spoke with Israel, there sacrifices were offered for atonement, and there his glory was shown. Solomon later built the temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 6:1), and it too was called the house of the LORD.

The second line, “the place where thine honour dwelleth”, says the same thing again and shows what makes the house dear. The word for honour, kâbôwd, means glory, honour and splendour. Scripture tells of the moment “the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34), and of the day the priests could not stand to minister in Solomon’s temple, “for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:11). Isaiah saw the Lord “sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). David loves the building because God’s glory lives there, and so his love is in the end for God himself.

The same longing runs through the Psalms. David writes, “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life” (Psalm 27:4). The sons of Korah cry, “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD” (Psalm 84:1–2), and David again says, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD” (Psalm 122:1). Within Psalm 26 the verse completes a contrast. The man who has hated the congregation of evil doers in verse 5 has loved the house where God is honoured, and the place a person loves shows where his heart is.

God has always wanted to live among his people, and in Jesus he came to do so in person. Matthew gives his name as Emmanuel, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). John writes, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The Greek word for “dwelt”, eskēnōsen, means that he pitched his tent or tabernacled among us, so in Christ the glory David loved came to live in human flesh where people could see it. Jesus called his own body the temple: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” for “he spake of the temple of his body” (John 2:19–21).

Through Christ, God’s people are now his house. Paul tells believers that they are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself the chief corner stone, and are “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19–22). Jesus promised, “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Each believer is a dwelling of God too: “your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God” (1 Corinthians 6:19). So loving the habitation of God’s house today means loving the gathering of his people, where his Spirit is present and his word is proclaimed, and honouring the Spirit who lives in you. At the end of all things the longing of verse 8 is fully met: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God” (Revelation 21:3).

David could strive for a clean life, and like all of us he still fell short. Jesus is the one who was truly innocent, “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and his one sacrifice on the cross gives the cleansing that every washing at the laver only pointed to. God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

That is why we can come to God’s altar today. Our access rests wholly on the finished work of Christ, our High Priest and our sacrifice. Because of his blood we have “boldness to enter into the holiest”, and so we “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:19–22). “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Verse 7 is fulfilled in Christ as well. The greatest of God’s wondrous works is the sending of his Son, with his life, death and resurrection, by which God delivers his people from sin and death. So the thanksgiving we publish now centres on the cross and the empty tomb: “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). We confess with the mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in the heart that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9–10), and Jesus sends his people to all nations to make disciples (Matthew 28:19–20). David’s longing to tell of all God’s wondrous works has become the glad work of the whole church.

These verses give a simple shape to the way we come before God. Clean hands come first, and for us they come through confession and the cleansing God gives in Christ, so that we draw near to him with a clear conscience. Our altar today may be private prayer, the worship of the church, or the daily round of life where we seek to honour him, and in each of them clean hands and a clean conscience give us confidence to draw near.

Thanks spoken aloud come next. God’s praise is meant to be heard, in the songs of the church, in what believers tell one another and their unbelieving friends about what he has done, in thanks given aloud when we pray together, and in ordinary conversation. Remembering his works, both those in Scripture and those in our own lives, strengthens our faith and helps others to praise him.

Love for God’s house completes the shape. The Lord is in the midst of his people when they gather, and his Spirit has made each believer his dwelling, so the love David had for the habitation of God’s house belongs to the life of the church today. The God whose glory filled the tabernacle has come near in Christ, and he is glad to be with his people.