Psalms 26:2. Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
This is a wonderful verse. One would hardly dare to pray it. Here are three kinds of trial. According to the etymology of the Hebrew the first is the trial by touch-" Examine me "; the next is the trial by smell- " Prove me "; and the next is the trial by fire-" Assay my reins and my heart." You see how anxious he is really to have the matter decided by God. "Lord, search me through and through; thou knowest I am not a hypocrite." Now who dares to say this but that true man of God whose soul is wholly fixed upon the Lord? The reins and the heart are mentioned because those were believed to be the seat of the affections, and when the affections are right the whole man is right. The heart is the fountain from which issue streams of life, and if the fountain be pure, the streams cannot be impure; hence he asks chiefly that the examination may be directed to his reins and to his heart.
Psalms 26:2. Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
This is a wonderful verse. One would hardly dare to pray it. Here are three kinds of trial. According to the etymology of the Hebrew the first is the trial by touch-" Examine me "; the next is the trial by smell- " Prove me "; and the next is the trial by fire-" Assay my reins and my heart." You see how anxious he is really to have the matter decided by God. "Lord, search me through and through; thou knowest I am not a hypocrite." Now who dares to say this but that true man of God whose soul is wholly fixed upon the Lord? The reins and the heart are mentioned because those were believed to be the seat of the affections, and when the affections are right the whole man is right. The heart is the fountain from which issue streams of life, and if the fountain be pure, the streams cannot be impure; hence he asks chiefly that the examination may be directed to his reins and to his heart.