Do not drag me away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors while malice is in their hearts.
David's opening cry declares what most troubled men never do: he betakes himself to God alone, not wandering here and there for help. He names God his strength precisely because he trusted Him not in peace but in the severest temptations, when all other hope had failed.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 28:1-9
Draw me not away with the wicked. They shall be dragged off to hell like felons of old drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn, like logs drawn to the fire, like fagots to the oven. David fears lest he should be bound up in their bundle, drawn to their doom; and the fear is an appropriate one for every godly man.
David's faith rests on God as his rock, his power and his refuge. What cuts deepest into a gracious soul is not the absence of what he prays for, but God's silence and the sense of His displeasure: nothing can be so killing as the want of His favor, for to be without it is to be like the dead descending to the pit.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 28:1-5