16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters.
17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
from my foes, who were too strong for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
but the Lord was my support.
19 He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.
20 The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord;
I am not guilty of turning from my God.
22 All his laws are before me;
I have not turned away from his decrees.
23 I have been blameless before him
and have kept myself from sin.
24 The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
__________
One of the striking things in this section is David’s defense of his righteousness and innocence. In fact, he claims that the Lord’s rescue is a result of his righteous following of the Lord.
Is David claiming to be perfect? Is he claiming that his salvation is a result of his good behavior? No. Far from it. As I’ve mentioned in previous devotions, it is important to keep in mind that when David is protesting his righteousness and innocence, he is speaking about the specific accusations that have been voiced against him. He is, as it were, in court before the Lord his judge making his defense. He claims is innocence, and therefore worthiness of a righteous acquittal and vindication.
David is quite aware of his own sinfulness before the Lord as we will see in other Psalms. But in this case, in this Psalm, in this matter, he is innocent. You might say that this Psalm and others like it make David a kind of “patron saint” of the falsely accused.
In this way, David is also a picture of Jesus facing the events we celebrated last week. Jesus stood falsely accused before the Sanhedrin, before Pilate, and before the jeering crowd gathered around the throne. But there is an important difference between David and Jesus. David is purely a victim of false accusation, pleading his innocence on his own behalf. Jesus, on the other hand, willingly took on the false accusation, and let it take Him to the cross. Why? So that we would be able to stand in innocence before the Judge, not just in a particular matter, as is the case with David, but in eternity. Because Jesus endured the false accusations that led Him to the cross, we now stand in innocence, cleanness and righteousness before our God.
Both of these pictures come to mind for me in reading this Psalm. And so my prayer is twofold. I pray that I may rely on the Lord as David did when falsely accused. But I also pray that I may live each day in the joy of the gift of innocence and righteousness that I have received because Jesus was falsely accused in my place.
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