Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

In the beginning of Psalm 26, it may seem like David is boasting about his righteousness,

but as he continues on, he makes it clear that the source of his

righteousness is God's steadfast love. That's what enables him to trust in God. In verse three, he says

he's walking in God's faithfulness, not his own. This is another crucial distinction. He loves

the nearness of God and hates the things God opposes. This psalm was

likely written about the time when so many of David's friends and family betrayed him and joined

forces with his estranged son, Absalom. So the references to hypocrites and men of falsehood

make a lot of sense. David used to walk closely with these men, so you can see why he would want to set himself

apart from him now that they've shown their true colors. He wants to be markedly different as a man

of integrity for the glory of God. He wants to be vindicated as he disassociates from the evildoers.

Psalm 40 covers a lot of ground. This was written to be a corporate song, but it was almost certainly borne out of a lot of David's personal experiences.

If we zoom out on the timeline of his life, this Psalm almost seems to fit his storyline perfectly so far.

In verse 1, he waits patiently before the Lord, just as he waited 15 years to be king. In verse 2,

God drew him up out of the pit of destruction when Saul was trying to destroy his life.

And David continued to praise God, and God continued to bless David. He mentions repeatedly

how he proclaimed God's goodness for all to hear. In song and in conversation

and among large groups of people, he can't stop talking about God's goodness to him. But then

things take a rough turn in verse 12, just like they did in David's life. His iniquity and sin,

like with Bashiba and Yariah, have overtaken him. They outnumber the hairs of his head.

He asked God to rescue him from the consequences of his own sin, because as he says in verse 14,

some of these people even want to take his life, like Absalom and Ahithafel did. In verse 17, David closes

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