Commentary on Psalms Volume 1 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
rendered sanctuary, 594 signifies the inner-room of the tabernacle or temple, or the most holy place, where the ark of the covenant was contained, and it is so called from the answers or oracles which God gave forth from thence, to testify to his people the presence of his favor among them.
Psalm 28:3-5
3. Draw me not away with wicked men, nor with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors, while malice is in their hearts. 4. Give them according to their works, and according to the wickedness of their doings; give them according to the work of their hands; render them their reward. 5. Because they regard not the doings of Jehovah, neither the work of his hands, let him destroy them, and not build them up.
3. Draw me not away with wicked men. The meaning is, that in circumstances so dissimilar, God should not mingle the righteous with the wicked in the same indiscriminate destruction. 595 Undoubtedly, too, in speaking of his enemies, he indirectly asserts his own integrity. But he did not pray in this manner, because he thought that God was indiscriminately and unreasonably angry with men; he reasons rather from the nature of God, that he ought to cherish good hope, because it was God's prerogative to distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, and to give every one his due reward. By the workers of iniquity, he means man wholly addicted to wickedness. The children of God sometimes fall, commit errors, and act amiss in one way or other, but they take no pleasure in their evil doings; the fear of God, on the contrary, stirs them up to repentance. David afterwards defines and enlarges upon the wickedness of those whom he describes; for, under pretense of friendship they perfidiously deceived good men, professing one thing with their tongue, while they entertained a very different thing in their hearts. Open depravity is easier to be borne with than this craftiness of the fox, when persons put on fair appearances in order to find opportunity of doing mischief. 596 This truth, accordingly, admonishes us that those are,דבירdebir, is derived from,דברdabar, to speak.
The verb,משךmashak, here rendered draw, "signifies," as Hammond observes, "both to draw and apprehend," and may "be best rendered here, Seize not on me, as he that seizeth on any to carry or drag him to execution. The Septuagint, after having literally rendered the Hebrew by ΜὴσυνελκύσὟς την ψυχήν μου, draw not my soul together with, etc., adds Κίαν μὴσυναπολέσὟς με etc., and destroy me not together with, etc.
Calvin here evidently takes the same view; though he does not express it in the form of criticism.