Ps. 101.2-3 (the proximity of evil)

I have behaved / with integrity of mind
at my court.
I have set / before my eyes
no wicked purpose
I hate / devious actions
they have not / clung to me. 

We might say that, as David begins his “song of loyalty and justice”, the first note struck is that of wisdom. This note will resonate throughout and is the, I think, watermark of the entire psalm. David, as a ‘good’ king, enacts wisdom in his realm. It begins with “integrity of mind”. For the following verses, wisdom-enacted is David’s internal ordering of himself. Like the wise man who discerns between good and evil, David describes his integrity of mind in ‘spatial’ terms. Wicked purposes are not “set before my eyes”; devious actions have not “clung to me”; a perverse mind has been “far from me”. However we understand this, it does seem that the ‘evil’ avoided is somewhat like a thing that David could contract were he to be too close to it; it is ‘contagious’ in other words. Simply being in its presence is dangerous and not simply ‘acting it out’. This sense of evil resonates throughout the wisdom portions of the Scriptures. It is not simply that it is to be refrained from; it is to be actively avoided. One should not get ‘close’ to it. To do so, apparently, would draw one into its sphere of influence where, at the center, the ‘evil would perform the performer’, not ‘the performer performing the evil’. Evil is, so to speak, dynamic and not static. This understanding of evil helps explain the parallels between these verses and later ones. Here, the king “behaves with integrity of mind”. In verse 4, a “perverse mind” is “far from me”. The king does not place a wicked purpose “before my eyes” or “those who speak lies” and likewise shuns those “with arrogant eyes.” Later his eyes are “on his faithful countrymen” (vs. 6). The ‘proximity to evil’ that he actively avoids is paralleled to the ‘proximity to good’ that he actively seeks out. This dynamic is the essence of wisdom—the ability to discern and limn the ‘spheres of good and evil’ and to ‘shun the evil’ and ‘seek the good’. 

An important observation in this regard, and one that picks up on the previous reflection, is the fact that ‘wisdom’ here begins within David; it is not simply his ‘rightly ordering’ his people. Rather, he begins by ‘rightly ordering’ himself. From here David will then move ‘outward’ into the social sphere. This outward movement will be a type of blossoming or ex-pression of the wisdom that already governs David’s ‘inner’ life. 

When we turn to the what David actually avoids we learn at least two things. First, we are witnessing the discernment of the ‘wise king’. David is able (in a way, uniquely) to discern deceit from truth. What is clear about these two verses is that what David ‘avoids’ is duplicity. There is the sense that the ‘appearance’ and the ‘reality’ are two separate things; that those in front of him are not unified, or have ‘integrity’. It is the king’s ability to wisely discern this duplicity that is one of his most important roles (think here of Jesus ability to accurately limn the thoughts intentions of those around him, separating the ‘wheat’ from ‘chaff’). One might say that this is the ‘charism’ of the king and it is why, when Solomon asks for wisdom above all else Yhwh finds his request so worthy of being lavishly answered. In this we witness the ‘true’ Adam-king who ‘knows good and evil’; Adam (and Eve) failed in wisdom in being unable to discern the lie of the serpent. The second thing to note is how this deception is particularly important for a king to discern. Anything that makes it past the ‘head of the country’ will infect the rest. David, and the king, therefore must be able to be guard against the infection in a way that is unique to the role as ‘son of Yhwh’. Again, like Adam, they stand as the ‘guardian of the garden’. In so far as they fail, the garden falters.