Psalms 15 - Introduction

XV.

This is the portrait of a perfect character after the ideal of Israel. We naturally compare with it, on the one hand, the heathen types of perfection as we see them in the ethical philosophy of Greece and Rome, and, on the other, the Christian standard as we see it in the New Testament and in modern literature, and the result is to leave us in wonder and admiration before this figure of stainless honour drawn by an ancient Jewish poet. “Christian chivalry,” it has been said. “has not drawn a brighter.” In heart and tongue, in deed and word, as a member of society and as an individual, the character of Psalms 15 is without reproach.

The psalm makes no pretence to art either in form or style.