My foot standeth in an even place— Mudge observes, that this is an answer to the first verse: he had said there, Let me not slide, for so it should be rendered: here he says, my foot standeth firm on plain ground.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The greatest innocence is no protection from the envenomed tongue of slander. It is well that there is a day coming which, shall confute the calumnies of the wicked, and turn them with confusion on their own heads.
David here appeals to God for his integrity: not as upright in the sight of God, for there he pretended not to be justified; but as innocent of the charges laid against him by Saul; respecting which, he desires to submit to the heart-searching scrutiny of God, and to abide by his judgment, conscious that there was no just occasion of offence to be found in him; and therefore trusting that God would espouse his righteous quarrel, and preserve him that he should not slide: neither fall before the malignity of his persecutors, nor be ensnared by the power of evil. Note; Under the basest misrepresentations, it is an unspeakable comfort to possess conscious innocence.
2nd, As in the former part of the psalm we are told what company David avoided, in the latter we are informed what company he delighted in,—the worshippers of God.
He declares how he approached the courts of the Lord's house. He washed his hands in innocency, washed in the blessed fountain, open for sin and for uncleanness; and he kept back no allowed sin; but, with a conscience void of offence, compassed God's altar; alluding to the priests who went round the altar, sprinkling the atoning blood on the four corners; so would he wait continually upon God, pleading the blood of sprinkling, and offering the grateful sacrifice of praise. That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wonderous works, works of mercy and grace so astonishing, that they deserve to be proclaimed for the comfort of his brethren and the glory of God. And this was not a mere slavish duty to satisfy conscience, or support a Pharisaical righteousness, no; it was the very joy of his heart. Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house; there could I with pleasure ever abide, and the place where thine honour dwelleth, where in the divine Shechinah thy glory visibly appears.