John Calvin Commentary Psalms 15:3

"He that slandereth not with his tongue, Nor doeth evil to his friend, Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor;" — Psalms 15:3 (ASV)

David, after briefly describing the virtues with which all who desire to have a place in the Church should be endowed, now lists certain vices from which they should be free. He tells them:

1. They must not be slanderers or detractors.
2. They must restrain themselves from doing anything mischievous and injurious to their neighbors.
3. They must not help spread slanders and false reports.

We will encounter other vices from which the righteous are free as we continue. David, then, identifies slander and detraction as the primary form of injustice by which our neighbors are injured. If a good name is a treasure, more precious than all the riches of the world (Proverbs 22:1), no greater injury can be inflicted upon people than to wound their reputation.

However, it is not every injurious word that is condemned here, but the disease and lust of detraction, which stirs up malicious persons to spread slanders. At the same time, it cannot be doubted that the intention of the Holy Spirit is to condemn all false and wicked accusations.

In the clause that immediately follows, the doctrine that the children of God should be far removed from all injustice is stated more generally: Nor does evil to his companion. By the words companion and neighbor, the Psalmist means not only those with whom we enjoy familiar association and live in close friendship, but all people, to whom we are bound by the ties of humanity and a common nature.

He uses these terms to show more clearly the odiousness of what he condemns, and so that the saints may have a greater abhorrence for all wrongdoing, since everyone who hurts their neighbor violates the fundamental law of human society. Regarding the meaning of the last clause, interpreters do not agree.

Some interpret the phrase to raise up a slanderous report as meaning to invent, because malicious persons invent slanders from nothing. Thus, it would be a repetition of the statement in the first clause of the verse: namely, that good people should not allow themselves to indulge in detraction.

But I think the vice of undue credulity is also rebuked here. This vice, when any evil reports are spread about our neighbors, leads us either to eagerly listen to them or at least to receive them without sufficient reason, whereas we should instead use all means to suppress them and trample them underfoot.

When anyone is the bearer of invented falsehoods, those who reject them allow them, so to speak, to fall to the ground. In contrast, those who propagate and spread them from one person to another are, by an expressive figure of speech, said to raise them up.