John Calvin Commentary Psalms 7:3

"O Jehovah my God, if I have done this; If there be iniquity in my hands;" — Psalms 7:3 (ASV)

O Jehovah my God Here David, to induce God to show him favour, protests that he is harassed unjustly and without being guilty of any crime. To give his protestation greater weight, he uses an imprecation. If he has done any wrong, he declares his readiness to bear the blame; indeed, he offers to endure the severest punishment if he is not altogether innocent of the crime of which all men thought him almost convicted.

And by entreating God to help him on no other condition than this, that his integrity should upon trial be found untarnished, he teaches us by his example that whenever we have recourse to God, we must make it our first concern to be well assured in our own consciences regarding the righteousness of our cause; for we do him great wrong if we wish to engage him as the advocate and defender of a bad cause.

The pronoun this shows that he speaks of a matter that was generally known, from which we may conclude that the slander raised by Cush had spread far and wide. And as David was condemned by the false reports and unrighteous judgments that men advanced against him, and saw no remedy on earth, he turns to the judgment-seat of God and contents himself with maintaining his innocence before the heavenly Judge—an example that all the godly should imitate, so that, in opposition to the slanderous reports spread against them, they may rest satisfied with the judgment of God alone.

He next declares more distinctly that he had committed no crime. And in the fourth verse, he mentions two particulars in self-vindication: first, that he had done no wrong to anyone; and secondly, that he had rather endeavoured to do good to his enemies, by whom he had nevertheless been injured without any just cause.

I, therefore, explain the fourth verse as follows: If I have wronged any man that was at peace with me, and have not rather helped the unworthy, who persecuted me without a cause, etc. Since David was hated by almost all men, as if ambition to reign had impelled him treacherously to rise up in rebellion against Saul and to lay snares for the monarch to whom he was bound by the oath of allegiance in the first part of the verse, he clears himself of such a foul slander.

The reason, perhaps, why he calls Saul him that was at peace with him is that, on account of his royal dignity, his person ought to be sacred and secure from danger, so that it should be unlawful to make any hostile attempt against him. This phrase, however, may be understood generally, as if he had said, “No one who has meekly restrained himself from injuring me and has conducted himself kindly towards me can with truth complain that I have ever injured him in a single instance.”

And yet it was the general conviction that David, in the midst of peace, had stirred up great confusion and caused war. From this it is all the more clear that David, provided he enjoyed the approval of God, was content with the consolation arising from this, even if he had comfort from no other source.

In the second clause of the fourth verse, he proceeds further and states that he had been a friend not only to the good but also to the bad, and had not only restrained himself from all revenge but had even helped his enemies, by whom he had been deeply and cruelly injured.

It would certainly not be very illustrious virtue to love the good and peaceable unless self-government and gentleness in patiently bearing with the bad were joined to this. But when a man not only keeps himself from revenging the injuries he has received but endeavours to overcome evil by doing good, he manifests one of the graces of a renewed and sanctified nature, and in this way proves himself to be one of the children of God; for such meekness proceeds only from the Spirit of adoption. With respect to the words: as the Hebrew word חלץ chalats, which I have translated to deliver, signifies to divide and to separate, some, to prevent the necessity of supplying any word to complete the sense, thus explain the passage: If I have withdrawn myself from my persecutors, in order not to help them. The other interpretation, however, according to which the verb is rendered to deliver or rescue from danger, is more generally received, because the phrase to separate or set aside, is applied to those things we wish to place in safety. And thus the negative word not must be supplied, an omission that we will find not infrequently occurring in the Psalms.