Psalms 17:3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Thou hast proved mine heart Or searched, or tried it, by many temptations and afflictions; by which the sincerity or hypocrisy of men's hearts is discovered, and especially is manifest to thy all-seeing eye. Thou hast visited me in the night Thou hast been present with me in my greatest privacies; to discover whether, in my retirement from the eyes of men, in the night season, when secrecy and solitude prompt the hypocrite to sin, I was forming any evil designs, or indulging any mischievous imaginations. Thou hast tried me Accurately and severely, as goldsmiths do metals. And shalt find nothing Nothing of unrighteousness in me. In the Hebrew it is only, Thou shalt not find; namely, that whereof my enemies accuse me, whether hypocrisy toward thee, or evil designs against Saul, covered with fair pretences. I am purposed I have resolved upon deliberation, as the word here used implies; that my mouth shall not transgress I am so far from taking any measures, or practising any thing against Saul's life, as they charge me, that I will not wrong him so much as in word. Or, more generally, and without any particular reference to Saul, “I am so far from doing any wicked thing, that I will keep a strict watch even over my words; and though mine enemies persecute me ever so much by their evil deeds, I am resolved they shall not tempt me to speak evil.” Observe, reader, he does not say, I hope my mouth shall not transgress, or I wish it may not, but I am fully purposed that it shall not. With this bridle he kept it, Psalms 39:2. Constant resolution and watchfulness against the sins of the tongue will be a good evidence of our integrity. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, James 3:2.