1 A Psalm of David. O Jehovah, who shall sojourn in thy tent? who shall dwell in the hill of thy holiness?
2 He who walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness and speaketh truth in his heart.
3 [Who] hath not slandered with his tongue, hath not done evil to his neighbor, and hath not taken up a reproach against his neighbor.
4 Despised in his eyes [is] the contemned [one], and the fearers of Jehovah he honoreth; that hath sworn to the injury of [himself] and hath not changed.
5 His silver he hath not given for usury, and a bribe against an innocent [person] he hath not taken. He who doeth these things shall not be moved for ever.
Notes on Psalm 15
Here we have the moral qualities of the remnant, the spared ones, when righteousness governs with Zion as the earthly center. It is simply entitled “a psalm of David.”
These are “the wise” in contrast with “the fool” of the preceding psalm. It is not the sinner converted to God by grace, as we may see even in Psalms 25 and 32. It is the character that grace forms in the remnant for the Kingdom, described positively (2) and negatively (3), and this again (4, 5). The heavenly life which should be in the Christian (and this associated with earthly duties) is not here before us; but the relative responsibilities which a Jew (or any other) would surely neglect without the true fear of God; and the more easily in a religion of outward observances.
Next follows a deeply affecting group, in which Christ appears, more evidently perhaps than in Psalm 8, and as distinctly as in Psalm 2. This is marked in the first and last of the three.