Psalms 51:14-17

Recognising That His Only Hope Lies In Total And Contrite Submission David Makes A Final Plea That God Will Deliver Him From Blood-guiltiness (Psalms 51:14).

Blood-guiltiness is an idea prominent in the Old Testament. When a person slew another person they were seen as blood-guilty and their lives were seen as forfeit to the ‘avengers of blood', relatives of the deceased person who sought to take the slayer's life in return. Indeed, it was seen as incumbent on them to do so. If they slew him no court would find them guilty. It was the only way in which justice could be maintained (there was no police force). That was why ‘cities of refuge' were provided to which men could flee if they had killed someone accidentally. Once in such a city they were safe. But they could only remain there if they could satisfy the elders of the city that the killing had not been intentional. On the other hand, if the avengers of blood were willing to come to some arrangement (such as compensation) with the killer, then he would go free. Much would depend on the circumstances.

Of course, no one was going to try to kill David. He was too powerful. So in cases like this the idea was that God would take their lives. They were forfeit to Him, which is why Nathan had to assure David, ‘You will not die' (2 Samuel 12:13). Thus David, recognising this, is pleading for clemency. He is asking that God will withhold his sentence of death. We are all under sentence of death because of sin (Romans 6:23). We also therefore constantly require God's clemency.

Psalms 51:14

‘Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, you God of my salvation,

And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

O Sovereign Lord, you will open my lips,

And my mouth will show forth your praise.

He cries to God to deliver him ‘from blood'. The blood of his victim Uriah cries out to God for vengeance, as did the blood of Abel (Genesis 4:10), and he hopes that like Cain he might, as a consequence of God's compassion and mercy, be saved from the final punishment that his crime deserved, just as God has delivered him in the past. For he was fully aware of how much he owed to God for past deliverances. God was the God of his salvation. He was only there because God had watched over him so constantly. And he hoped that He would deliver him again. Strictly he could claim before men that he had not killed Uriah. Uriah had died in battle. But he knew that that plea would not work before God. It was he who in a cowardly way had pronounced sentence of death on Uriah (2 Samuel 11:15) for no good reason other than to hide his own sinfulness. We can hardly conceive of those words to Joab as being words of David, if they had not been spelled out in black and white. They are an indication of what even the finest Christian man is capable of when trying to hide something of which he is ashamed.

Alternately ‘from blood' may signify ‘from his own blood being spilled' (compare Ezekiel 18:10), and it may therefore be a plea to be delivered from his own blood being shed as a consequence of high handed sin. It would also then include his adultery. But in either case he is acknowledging that in God's eyes he is under sentence of death, and that his only hope lies in the granting of a pardon.

‘And my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.' He promises that if he is pardoned he will use his gifts as a psalmist and musician to sing about and proclaim God's righteousness. He will not take his pardon as indicating that God's standards have been watered down. He will continually declare God's righteousness and His righteous requirements, in the same way as he has been faced up with them himself. He will not lower God's requirements by even the smallest amount. But the paralleling of salvation with righteousness would be a theme of Isaiah, where righteousness paralleled with salvation often signifies righteous deliverance. Thus we could translate ‘righteousness' as ‘righteous deliverance'. He would make clear how a righteous God could deliver in mercy.

‘O Sovereign Lord, you will open my lips, and my mouth will show forth your praise.' The king whose power was a byword in his day now addresses God as his Sovereign Lord. He is dumb before Him because of his sins. He recognises that as a rebel he has no right to speak. (In those days a person would not speak in the presence of the king unless given the right to do so by the king. Compare Esther 5:1). Thus he tells God as his Sovereign Lord, that when, having pardoned him, He gives him permission to speak (opens his lips), his mouth will show forth His praise. He will humbly (Psalms 51:17) proclaim the goodness, righteousness and mercy of God.

Psalms 51:16

‘For you do not delight in sacrifice, else would I give it,

You have no pleasure in burnt-offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

He acknowledges that no offering that he offers, no sacrifice that he sacrifices, will be acceptable to God, because for the sins that he has committed no such sacrifice was provided. If offered in repentance sacrifices could atone for unwitting sins, but they could not atone for the sins of which he was guilty, ‘sins with a high hand'. He had blatantly committed capital crimes for which the only remedy was execution. If he brought sacrifices God would not delight in them (the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to YHWH - Proverbs 15:8). If he brought offerings God would have no pleasure in them. That his particular situation was in mind comes out in the words ‘or else I would give it'. Both before and after this time he would offer offerings and sacrifices aplenty, but at this stage he recognised that they would simply not be acceptable. He was restrained from offering them because he had put himself beyond their scope.

The only sacrifices that he could offer to God at this stage were the sacrifices of a broken spirit, and a broken and contrite heart. It was all that was open to him But these he was sure God would receive. He would not despise them (as He would offerings and sacrifices from the unrighteous). It was possibly these words that Isaiah had in mind in Isaiah 57:15.

‘A broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.' A broken spirit and heart are a spirit and heart whose resistance has been ‘broken' by God's rebuke and chastening (Proverbs 3:11), and which are thus contrite (repentant and grieved). These are what God seeks in all cases of sin. ‘Whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. --- If you are without chastening, then you are illegitimate children and not sons' (Hebrews 11:6; Hebrews 11:8).