Psalm 15

Psalms 15:3 He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.                                                                                                                                               

“He that backbiteth not with his tongue”---He is one who treats his neighbour with respect. He says nothing that might injure him in his character, person, or property; he remembers no slander, he is author of no slander, he insinuates nothing by which his neighbour may be injured. The tongue, because of its slanderous conversation, is represented in the nervous original as kicking about the character of an absent person; a very common vice, and as destructive as it is common: but the man who expects to see God abhors it, and backbites not with his tongue. The words backbite and backbiter come from the Anglo-Saxon bac, the back, and [A.S.], to bite. How it came to be used in the sense it has in our language, seems at first view unaccountable; but it was intended to convey the sense of cowardice, and brutality. He is acoward, who would rob you of your good name; he is a coward, that would speak of you in your absence what he dared not to do in your presence; and only an ill-conditioned dog would fly at and bite your back when your face was turned. All these three ideas are included in the term; and they all meet in the detractor and calumniator. His tongue is the tongue of a knave, a coward, and a dog. Such a person, of course, has no right to the privileges of the Church militant, and none of his disposition can ever see God.

“Nor doeth evil to his neighbor” ---He not only avoids evil speaking, but he avoids also evil acting towards his neighbour. He speaks no evil of him; he does no evil to him; he does him no harm; he occasions him no wrong. On the contrary, he Shows him mercy.

“nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor”---(to strip, or make bare, to deprive one of his garments)---A man, of a good character is reported to have done something wrong: the tale is spread, and the slanderers and backbiters carry it about; and thus the man is stripped of his fair character, of his clothing of righteousness, truth, and honesty. All may be false; or the man, in an hour of the power of darkness, may have been tempted and overcome Those who feed, as the proverb says, like the flies, passing over all a man's whole parts to light upon his wounds, will take up the tale, and carry it about. Such, in the course of their diabolic work, carry the story of scandal to the righteous man; to him who loves his God and his neighbour. But what reception has the tale-bearer? The good man taketh it not up; he will not bear it; it shall not be propagated from him. He cannot prevent the detractor from laying it down; but it is in his power not to take it up: and thus the progress of the slander may be arrested. He taketh not up a reproach against his neighbour; and the tale-bearer is probably discouraged from carrying it to another door. drive the slanderer of your neighbour far away from you: ever remembering that in the law of God, as well as in the law of the land, "the receiver is as bad as the thief."