Psalms 51:4

David's confession to Nathan was couched in the simple words (two only in the Heb.), "I have sinned against Jehovah." The additional words "thee only" have been taken as a proof that the Psalm cannot have been written by David. But they need not, as we have seen already, be pressed with such extreme logical precision as to exclude sin against man. All sin, even that by which man is most grievously injured, is, in its ultimate nature, sin against God, as a breach of His holy law; just as man's duty to his fellow-man is based upon his duty to God and is regarded as part of it. Moreover the king, as Jehovah's representative, was in an especial and peculiar way responsible to Him.

and donethis evil Better as R.V., and done that which is evil in thy sight. Cp. 2 Samuel 11:27, "the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of Jehovah": and 2 Samuel 12:9, "Wherefore hast thou despised the word of Jehovah, to do that which is evil in his sight?"

that thou mightest&c. Better, that thou mayest be justified when thou givest sentence: i.e., that Thy righteousness and holiness may be declared and vindicated when Thou dost pronounce sentence on my sin. When thou speakestis shewn by the parallelism to mean, -when Thou dost pronounce sentence." Be justifiedcorresponds to the cardinal divine attribute of righteousness: be clearto that of holiness. Cp. Isaiah 5:16, "God the Holy One proves Himself holy in righteousness."

But this is a hard saying. Can it be meant that the vindication of God's holiness is the object of man's sin? (1) Grammar forbids us to relieve the difficulty by rendering so that thou art justified(consequence) instead of in order that thou mayest be justified(purpose). (2) We might regard thatas depending upon Psalms 51:3 ataken together, and introducing the object of the Psalmist's confession. -I confess my sin, that thou mayest be justified in pronouncing sentence upon me."The sinner's confession and self-condemnation is a justification of God's sentence upon sin, just as, conversely, the sinner's self-justification is a challenge and impugnment of God's justice (Joshua 7:19; Job 40:8; 1 John 1:10). (3) Probably however we are meant to understand that man's sin brings out into a clearer light the justice and holiness of God, Who pronounces sentence upon it. The Psalmist flings himself at the footstool of the Divine Justice. The consequence of his sin, and therefore in a sense its purpose (for nothing is independent of the sovereign Will of God), is to enhance before men the justice and holiness of God, the absolutely Righteous and Pure. "The Biblical writers … drew no sharp accurate line between events as the consequence of the Divine order, and events as following from the Divine purpose. To them all was ordained and designed of God. Even sin itself in all its manifestations, though the whole guilt of it rested with man, did not flow uncontrolled, but only in channels hewn for it by God, and to subserve His purposes.… We must not expect that the Hebrew mind … altogether averse from philosophical speculation, should have exactly defined for itself the distinction between an action viewed as the consequence, and the same action viewed as the end, of another action. The mind which holds the simple fundamental truth that all is of God, may also hold, almost as a matter of course, that all is designedof God" (Bishop Perowne). In this connexion passages such as 2 Samuel 24:1; Isaiah 6:10; Isaiah 63:17; Judges 9:23; 1Sa 16:14; 1 Samuel 18:10; 1 Samuel 19:9; 1 Kings 22:21, require careful consideration.

Such a view is obviously liable to misconstruction, as though, if sin is in any sense treated as part of the divine purpose, and redounding to God's glory, it must cease to be sinful, and there must be an end of human responsibility. But the O.T. firmly maintains the truth of man's responsibility: and St Paul, in applying the words of this verse to the course of Israel's history (Romans 3:4) rebuts as the suggestion of an unhealthy conscience the notion that God is responsible for sin which He overrules to His glory.

The quotation in Romans 3:4 is from the LXX, in which the Heb. word for be clearis taken in its Aramaic sense, be victorious, prevail, and the last word (when thou judgest) is ambiguously rendered. The Greek word may be passive, when thou art judged(as P.B.V., derived from LXX through the Vulg., and A.V. in Rom.), i.e. when Thy justice is challenged: but more probably it is middle, -when Thou comest into judgement." So R.V. in Rom. Cp. Jeremiah 2:9 (LXX); Matthew 5:40.