Psalm 26—I’m Confused

I read Psalm 26 this morning.  I’m a bit confused.

Written by David, something just doesn’t line up right.

Click here to read Psalm 26.  It’s short.

The first line is “Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have led a blameless life;”

I was under the impression that it was impossible to live a sinless life.  That’s the whole premise of the law and later the Christ, right?  And we know for a fact that David’s life was not blameless (Bathsheba for starters).

Verse 4 goes on “...nor do I sit with hypocrites”, which strikes me as funny since he’s just claimed to be blameless.

Then I considered that this psalm, even though written in the first person, might not be about David.  It’s not unheard of for Psalms to be prophetic, written in the first person.  I thought that it could be about Jesus.

But verse 5 says “I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked.” But Jesus made a point of sitting with tax collectors and “sinners”, such as when he called Matthew, and when he ate with Zaccheus.

So it can’t be about Jesus.

This leaves me confused.  It can’t be about the Messiah.  And if it’s about David then it’s bologna.

Does anyone have any ideas here?

Comments

Well, my answer would be that it was written by a human being.  The Psalms are some of the most human parts of the Bible—expressions of joy, pain, anguish, bewilderment…

But I thought the bible was inerrant.

Is God trying to show us that David was arrogant through this passage?

That seems like a dangerous standard to apply.

Inerrancy aside (I think we differ on that) I would say that it does show that David was arrogant at times (I think a reading of David’s life story bears that out).  This Psalm may not have any other meaning than that.