John Calvin Commentary Psalms 26:5

"I hate the assembly of evil-doers, And will not sit with the wicked." — Psalms 26:5 (ASV)

I hate the assembly. The Psalmist protests again how greatly he abhorred the ungodly. Formerly he denied that he had any fellowship with them; now he still more explicitly declares that he fled from their company with loathing, for that is the meaning of the phrase, I hate. It is indeed true that the wicked are everywhere hated, but how few withdraw themselves from them so that they may not imitate their vices!

David asserts both: he tells us that he hated their society and that he had no communion with them, from which it appears that he warred not so much with their persons as with their evil doings. He also mentions as another qualification that he shunned the wicked in such a manner as not, on that account, to forsake the congregation of God or withdraw himself from the company of those with whom he was commanded by divine appointment to associate.

Many err grievously in this way, imagining, when they see the evil mingled with the good, that they will be infected with pollution unless they immediately withdraw themselves from the whole congregation. This over-strictness drove the Donatists in earlier times, and prior to them the Cathari and the Novatians, into mischievous schisms.

In our own times, too, the Anabaptists, from a similar misguided idea, have separated themselves from the sacred assemblies because they considered them not to be as free from all defilement as could have been wished. Moreover, the Donatists made themselves a laughing-stock in a certain public dispute by tenaciously clinging to mere words.

When an assembly was held to settle dissensions, and they were invited by the president of the meeting to take a seat, intending to honor them, they replied that they would stand, because it was not lawful to sit with the wicked. “Why then,” Augustine wittily replied, “did your conscience permit you to come in among us? For the one is written as well as the other: I will not go in to the wicked, neither will I sit with the ungodly.”

David, therefore, prudently moderates his zeal and, while separating himself from the ungodly, continues to frequent the temple, as the divine commandment and the order prescribed in the law required.

When he calls them the assembly of the ungodly, we may unquestionably conclude that their number was not small; indeed, it is probable that they flaunted about at that time as if they alone were exalted above the people of God and were lords over them. Yet this did not prevent David from coming as usual to the sacrifices.

Indeed, public care must be taken that the Church is not defiled by such wickedness, and each person ought privately to endeavor, in their own capacity, that their remissness and forbearance do not foster the disorders that these vices cause.

However, even if this strictness is not exercised with the necessary care, there is nothing in this to prevent any of the faithful from piously and holily remaining in the fellowship of the Church.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that what kept David was his communion with God and with sacred things.