You prove to be loyal ¹  to one who is faithful; ²  you prove to be trustworthy ³  to one who is innocent. ⁴ 

biblegateway 2Sa 22:26

"With the kind You show Yourself kind, With the blameless You show Yourself blameless;

With the faithful You prove Yourself faithful; with the blameless man You prove Yourself blameless;

In dealing with faithful people you are faithful, with innocent warriors you are innocent,

biblegateway 2Sa 22:26

"To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless,

"With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless;

bibleoremus 2Sa 22:26

With the loyal you show yourself loyal; with the blameless you show yourself blameless;

To the loyal you show yourself loyal and blameless to the blameless.

biblegateway 2Sa 22:26

"With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;

With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful, [and] with the upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright.

biblegateway 2Sa 22:26

You prove to be loyal ¹  to one who is faithful; ²  you prove to be trustworthy ³  to one who is innocent. ⁴ 

¹ tn The imperfect verbal forms in vv. 26-30 draw attention to God’s characteristic actions. Based on his experience, the psalmist generalizes about God’s just dealings with people (vv. 26-28) and about the way in which God typically empowers him on the battlefield (vv. 29-30). The Hitpael stem is used in vv. 26-27 in a reflexive resultative (or causative) sense. God makes himself loyal, etc. in the sense that he conducts or reveals himself as such. On this use of the Hitpael stem, see GKC 149-50 §54.e.

² tn Or “to a faithful follower.” A חָסִיד (khasid, “faithful follower”) is one who does what is right in God’s eyes and remains faithful to God (see Pss 4:3; 12:1; 16:10; 31:23; 37:28; 86:2; 97:10).

³ tn Or “innocent.”

⁴ tc Heb “a warrior of innocence.” The parallel text in Ps 18:25 reads, probably correctly, גֶּבֶר (gever, “man”) instead of גִּבּוֹר (gibor, “warrior”).