Verses 21-25. -

"Jehovah hath requited me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.
For I have kept the ways of Jehovah,
And sinned not so as to depart from my God.
For all his judgments have been kept in sight,

And from his statutes I have not departed.
I was also perfect towards him,
And was on my guard against my sin.
Therefore hath Jehovah recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to my cleanness in his eyesight." It is impossible to suppose that these verses could have been written after David's fall. For while be acknowledges in them a tendency to sin, he affirms that he had been on his guard against it, and that he had ever kept God's statutes present before his view. However complete may be the penitent's recovery, yet can he never again be "perfect," the word applied to an animal without blemish, and therefore fit for sacrifice. The crime remains a blemish, even though the intense sorrow for the sin may make it the means of even attaining to a higher stage of spirituality and devotion. In ver. 22 the words literally are, "I have not sinned away from God," sin necessarily removing the sinner away from that nearness to God which is the privilege of the saint.

22:1-51 David's psalm of thanksgiving. - This chapter is a psalm of praise; we find it afterwards nearly as Ps 18. They that trust God in the way of duty, shall find him a present help in their greatest dangers: David did so. Remarkable preservations should be particularly mentioned in our praises. We shall never be delivered from all enemies till we get to heaven. God will preserve all his people, 2Ti 4:18. Those who receive signal mercies from God, ought to give him the glory. In the day that God delivered David, he sang this song. While the mercy is fresh, and we are most affected with it, let the thank-offering be brought, to be kindled with the fire of that affection. All his joys and hopes close, as all our hopes should do, in the great Redeemer.The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness: according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. See Gill on Psalm 18:20.