Psalm 28: Who Are The Wicked?

In Psalm 28:3, David prays: "Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts."

The text exposes the sin of duplicity, hypocrisy, and calculated betrayal. To "speak peace" refers to offering the traditional Hebrew greeting of shalom—pronouncing wholeness, safety, and blessing upon another person. The wicked use this outwardly righteous, warm, and reassuring posture as an instrument of concealment. Outwardly, they align themselves as trusted allies, friends, or brethren, while inward malice, treachery, and destruction ("mischief" or "evil") occupy their minds. It describes an active conspiracy where the victim's guard is deliberately lowered through false affection so that ruin can be inflicted without warning.

David experienced this exact form of malice multiple times throughout his life. Scripture records several concrete illustrations of this principle in his immediate history:

  •  Saul's Feigned Generosity and Marriage Alliances

   King Saul repeatedly spoke peace and bestowed apparent favors upon David while harboring murderous intentions. In 1 Samuel 18, Saul offered his elder daughter Merab, and later his daughter Michal, to David in marriage. Saul presented this as high royal honor for David's valor, telling him, "Be thou valiant for me, and fight the Lord's battles." However, the biblical narrative directly reveals the hidden thought in Saul's heart: "For Saul said, Let not mine hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him" (1 Samuel 18:17, 21, 25). The public dowry demanded of David was a death trap masked as royal favor.

  •  Doeg the Edomite and the Betrayal at Nob

   In 1 Samuel 21–22, Doeg was "detained before the Lord" at the sanctuary in Nob alongside Ahimelech the priest. Outwardly, Doeg maintained the posture of a worshiper observing religious duty alongside the priests and David. Yet inwardly, he harbored murderous ambition and loyalty to Saul's tyranny, which David later addressed in Psalm 52 ("Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully"). Doeg turned this proximity into the slaughter of eighty-five priests and the entire city of Nob.

  •  The Treachery of Ahithophel

   Ahithophel was David’s counselor, confidant, and companion. Psalm 55 and Psalm 41 refer back to this deep betrayal: "Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me" (Psalm 41:9). Ahithophel spoke counsel and peace to David over years of service, walking to the house of God in company with him, yet he readily defected to Absalom and advised the immediate hunting down and execution of David while he was weary (2 Samuel 17:1-4).

  •  Absalom's Subversion at the City Gate

   Absalom practiced this precise hypocrisy on a national scale prior to his open rebellion. In 2 Samuel 15:1-6, Absalom intercepted the men of Israel coming to the king for judgment. He addressed them with great warmth, took them by the hand, embraced them, and lamented that their grievances went unheard, declaring, "Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice!" Through this calculated performance of love and brotherhood, Absalom "stole the hearts of the men of Israel" while plotting the overthrow and death of his own father.

  •  Joab's Assassinations of Abner and Amasa

   Though Joab was David’s general rather than his enemy, David witnessed Joab commit the exact crime described in Psalm 28. In 2 Samuel 3:27, Joab took Abner aside in the gate "to speak with him quietly" (or peaceably), and struck him dead under the fifth rib. In 2 Samuel 20:9-10, Joab approached Amasa saying, "Art thou in health, my brother?" and took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him, only to disembowel him with a concealed sword.

David’s prayer in Psalm 28 is forged out of direct experience with these realities: men who master the language of peace, alliance, and covenant to disarm their neighbor, all while plotting their destruction.

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