Psalms 51:1-12

May God graciously grant to all of us the grace which shall enable us to enter into the penitential spirit which is so remarkable in this Psalm!

Psalms 51:1. Have mercy upon me, O God,

He breaks the silence at last, and he does so by crying to God for mercy. Ere he says anything else, he appeals to this attribute of mercy, which is so glorious a trait in the character of Jehovah; and he casts himself, all guilty as he is, upon the absolute mercy of God: «Have mercy upon me, O God,»

Psalms 51:1. According to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

David talks as if the Lord had said to him, «What is the measure of the mercy that you want?» and he knows of nothing by which he can measure it except the boundless and infinite lovingkindness of the Lord. «O God!» he seems to say, «deal out mercy to me according to the measure of thine own boundless nature. Let thy mercy be the only judge of the mercy that I need.»

Psalms 51:2. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity,

The forgiveness of sin is not enough for the true penitent; he wants the defilement, which he has incurred through sin, also to be removed. If washing will not suffice, he asks the Lord to try any other method that will accomplish the desired end.

Psalms 51:2. And cleanse me from my sin.

«If fire is needed to purify me, use fire, O Lord, only ‘cleanse me from my sin.'

Psalms 51:3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

David felt that there was a multitude of transgressions recorded against him in God's unerring register, yet he specially realized the guilt of that one sin which Master Trapp calls the devil's nest-egg, to which so many other sins were added. That first sin was a peculiarly foul one, but he added lying, deception, and murder to it, in order to try to cover it, and thus he made it even greater than it was at first. It was well that he confessed that great sin, which was ever before him.

Psalms 51:4. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. «The essence, the virus, the climax of my sin consists in its assault upon thee, my God; therefore, O God, if thou condemnest me, thou wilt be just!

There is nothing that can be said against the severest verdict of thine infallible justice; yet, O God, I still appeal to thy mercy, and pray thee to forgive me, and to put away all my sin!»

Psalms 51:5. Behold,

David is full of astonishment and amazement; his one great sin has opened his eyes to see the sinfulness of his whole nature.

Psalms 51:5. I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

«I was ‘shapen in iniquity' when I was shapen, and ‘conceived in sin' when I was conceived.» He sees that the sin is in himself, and that it does not happen to him as an accident, but flows from him as naturally as foul water runs from a polluted spring.

Psalms 51:6. Behold,

Here are more wonders.

Psalms 51:6. Thou desirest truth in the inward parts:

First he wondered when he saw how sinful he was; now he wonders as he sees the purity which God demands: «Thou desirest truth in the inward parts:»

Psalms 51:6. And in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop,

«O Lord, thou hast ordained means by which leprous sinners may be cleansed; the outward sign is the bunch of hyssop dipped in sacrificial blood. O Lord, give me in every deed what that sign means! Give me the cleansing influence of the blood of the great sacrifice: ‘Purge me with hyssop,' «

Psalms 51:7. And I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

I cannot help once more remarking, though I have often before made the same observation, that we have here the evidence of wonderful faith on David's part. He has a very real consciousness of the blackness of his sin, yet he also has a triumphant conviction that God can put that sin away, and can make even his defiled nature to become clean and pure: «Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.»

Psalms 51:8. Make me to hear joy and gladness;

How late in the Psalm that prayer comes! He writes seven verses before he dares to pray for joy and gladness; and those seven verses are all either confessions of sin or petitions for deliverance from sin; and, my sinful friend, you must not first seek to get rid of your sorrow; but, rather, be thankful for your sorrow for sin, and pray that you may never lose that sorrow until you lose the sin that causes it: «Make me to hear joy and gladness;»

Psalms 51:8. That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

If God's children fall into sin, the Lord does not wink at their sin, but he chastises them so severely that he sometimes even breaks their bones; but God's pardoning mercy can set those bones, and make each broken and mended bone to become a mouth for holy song: «that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.»

Psalms 51:9. Hide thy face from my sins,

«Do not look at them, O Lord! Even take pains to put them out of thy sight.»

Psalms 51:9. And blot out all mine iniquities.

«Obliterate them; as though they had been written upon tablets of wax, and thou didst, with a hot iron, put the whole record of them away: ‘blot out all mine iniquities.' «

Psalms 51:10. Create in me a clean heart, O God;

He feels that he needs his Creator to again perform his great creating work. David knows that he needs a clean heart, but he does not ask the Lord to make his heart clean, he knows better than to present that request. «That which is born of the flesh is flesh,» so David's cry to God is, « ‘Create in me a clean heart,' let it be a new creation; give me a new heart, and a clean heart.»

Psalms 51:10. And renew a right spirit within me.

There was once a right spirit in man; but, through sin, it has lost its beauty, its tenderness, its delicacy, its sensitiveness, its holiness; so each one of us needs to pray, «O God, renew a right spirit within me!»

Psalms 51:11. Cast me not away from thy presence;

«I cannot bear to be away from thy presence; I must see thy face, or I cannot live.»

Psalms 51:11. And take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

One of our proverbs says, «A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind;» and he who knows by bitter experience what sin is, talks tenderly and sympathetically to his fellow-sinners; and God is sure to bless such earnest personal testimony, and so sinners will be constrained to turn unto him.

Psalms 51:14. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation:

He called his sin by its right name. He knew that he had really been the murderer of Uriah, so he confesses his guilt in all its hideousness: «Deliver me from bloods (see marginal reading), O God, thou God of my salvation.» It is remarkable that, when David confesses his sin in the strongest language that he can use, he at the same time lays hold upon God with the boldest faith that he can exercise. So, the deeper the sense of sin in us is, the stronger can the grace of God make our faith to be.

Psalms 51:14. And my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

Should not David have said, «My tongue shall sing aloud of thy mercy»? That would have been quite right, yet David knew that God had a way of bestowing his mercy in complete consistency with his righteousness; and this being the more singular part of divine forgiveness, the most astonishing wonder of all, he selects that, and says, «My tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.»

Psalms 51:15. O Lord, open thou my lips;

In the eighth verse, he had prayed, «Make me to hear;» and now he does as good as say, «Make me to speak.» Sin puts all the organs of the human body out of order, and grace is needed to put them all right again: «O Lord, open thou my lips;»

Psalms 51:15. And my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice;

The offering of bullocks, and lambs, and rams amid the pomp of priestly ritual: «Thou desirest not sacrifice;»

Psalms 51:16. Else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:

This is all sacrifices put into one, and the man who brings a bleeding heart to God is accepted when the one who brings a bleeding bullock is rejected; and he who brings a bleeding Saviour brings the best sacrifice of all.

Psalms 51:17. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion:

David seems to say, «Whatever thou doest with me, O God, do bless thy people!»

Psalms 51:18. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

«My sin has helped to pull them down, and so has done great mischief; but, O Lord, wilt thou not undo the mischief that I have done, and build again the walls of thy Zion?»

Psalms 51:19. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

Never do men give so freely to the cause of God as when they are rejoicing over pardoned sin. Keep a deep sense of your indebtedness to God alive in your soul, and you will feel that you can never do enough for him who has forgiven you so much.