(Of David. Instruction.) Blessed is he [whose] transgression is forgiven, [whose] sin is covered!
Psalm 32 is David's own song after sin, and it opens not with a rule to keep but with a blessing pronounced over a guilty man. The verse raises three questions. What does "blessed" mean? What does it mean for sin to be "covered"? And how can a guilty man be called happy?
One writer traces the opening word back to its root idea and applies it to eternity as well as to now.
What do we understand by being "blessed"? The main idea of the word is "prosperous." A prosperous man before God knows his sins, and finds the answer to them in God. Happiness marks such a man. Look at man for eternity, and not only for this life: no man is so prosperous as the one who says, "I have nothing but sin in myself, but all my rest is in God." That man has something to sing about. Whichever way he turns, he finds some fresh note of gladness and joy in it.
One writer points out that David wrote about this blessing as a man who had tasted it himself:
David, the guilty sinner once, is now the object of mercy. He knows he is forgiven, and can write of "the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works" (Rom. 4:6). He tasted this blessedness. It was his own real experience.
Read carefully, the verse says nothing about a clean record. It describes a man whose record was bad and has been dealt with.
In the psalm before us (Ps. 32), we get the blessedness of, and God's dealings with, the sinner whose transgressions are removed. "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered [not the one who has not transgressed, who has not sinned]. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit" (that is, the restored soul).
The verse uses two different words, and they are not repetition. One describes what a person did; the other describes what a person is.
"Transgression forgiven" — "sin covered." Transgression is quite different from sin. Transgression is when a person has wandered from a marked path; sin is the principle of self-willed independence in the heart of man. David found both of these things in himself, and they did not suit the heart of a creature in the presence of God. As soon as he had them forgiven and covered, he could see what prosperity it was: he could sing of all his wanderings as tied to the God who had forgiven them.
The word "covered" carries a fixed Old Testament meaning, and its picture goes back to the first pages of the Bible.
Here we have the great Old Testament thought about God's dealing with sin in forgiving mercy. It first appears in Genesis 3:21. Adam and Eve tried to cover their sinful nakedness from God's presence with fig-leaf aprons of their own making, but it did not work. So God Himself covered them with coats of skins — and such coats meant the death of a victim… So the meaning of the word "atonement" is clear: the covering of sin by sacrifice.
When God covers sin, He settles it for good:
"Covered" points back to the covering on the mercy seat. God puts sins away and remembers them no more.
The blessing does not depend on a man's record. One writer presses this home with David himself:
No man in the Old Testament records fell lower than David in his sins against God and man. Yet we learn that his sins did not exclude him from the blessing… It is a blessing into which the works of the best man cannot bring him, and from which the sins of the worst man need not exclude him. It is all of God and from God. It binds the heart of the sinner who receives it in everlasting gratitude to the gracious Giver.
Paul also says more than David could say:
David stood in the dim light of pictures and prophecies. He could only take comfort from the negative side: the Lord will NOT impute sin to the believer. Paul stands in the full light of the redemptive work of Christ, and gives us the comfort of the positive side: "God imputes RIGHTEOUSNESS without works."
Forgiveness like this changes how a person comes to God:
Full absolute forgiveness, the not imputing sin at all, is what takes guile from the heart. Otherwise we run from God. We make excuses and play our sin down, even when we dare not call it right. Where full pardon is before us, we have courage to be true in heart. Who will not list all his debts when the only question is that someone else will pay them? Who will not tell his illness when the cure is certain?
- Blessed — the word means prosperous. The richest person alive is the one who has nothing but sin in himself, and all his rest in God.
- Forgiven — the blessing rests on a man who did transgress and did sin, not on one who never did.
- Covered — the word behind it is atonement: sin covered by sacrifice, put away and remembered no more.
- Not imputed — David could say that God does not charge sin to him. Paul adds the positive side: God credits righteousness without works.
- Guileless — full pardon ends pretending. Nobody hides a debt when someone else has agreed to pay it.
Blessed is the man unto whom Jehovah reckoneth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile!
Psalm 32 does not describe the happiness of a man who never sinned. It describes a man whose sin God refuses to charge against him. Two things stand together in this verse: what God will not put on the account, and what is no longer in the man's spirit.
The blessing here is announced over a sinner. It describes how God deals with a man whose transgressions He has removed.
In this psalm (Ps. 32) we see the blessedness of the sinner whose transgressions are removed, and God's dealings with him — not the man who has not transgressed, who has not sinned, but the restored soul.
To impute is to charge something to a person's account. This verse settles how much God leaves off that account, and what that does to a man's heart.
The phrase is absolute and general — "to whom Jehovah imputes not iniquity." It is the whole condition of the person. It is not that his iniquity or some particular fault is forgiven, though certainly that is true as well. It is absolute non-imputation of any. The man exists before God as having no sin, according to the judgment of God. Then my heart is open and free before God. I know this, and I look up to God as owning no sin, sure that He sees none. So there is no cloud, nothing to hide.
The verse says God does not count the iniquity; it does not say where the iniquity went. Commentators point to the cross for the answer, and to what God counts instead.
There was no denying David's dreadful guilt, yet the Lord in marvellous grace did not impute iniquity to him (v. 2). The only way this could be true was by the Lord Jesus bearing that iniquity in His great sacrifice. Elsewhere we read that instead of imputing iniquity to believers, God imputes righteousness to all "who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 4:22-25).
If sin is not counted, the question naturally follows: what about the sins committed after a person is forgiven? One writer separates God's discipline from God's reckoning.
It is a wonderful thing for anyone to be able to say, "Thank God, there is one thing God will not do: He will not impute sin to me. I know I have sinned badly, even since I was converted... He may take me in hand and use the rod to correct me, but He will not impute sin to me." Our failure will never damage the relationship God has established between us and Himself, because He has established it in Christ. So until sin can be imputed to Christ, it cannot be imputed to the believer.
The second half of the verse names something else: deceit, which older translations call "guile." It is not the sin itself but the cover-up.
"In whose spirit there is no guile." (v. 2.) Guile has nothing to do with guilt. Guilt is the condition of a man who has sinned and has not found an answer to his sin. Guile is pretending. While David was trying to patch himself up, he was forgetting that his sin was out in the open before his people. Think of it: he tried to stand before God as a creature who was not ruined, when he, the man after God's own heart, had taken the place of a model sinner! It would not do. God says, "I know all the iniquity, but I do not impute it."
The two halves of the verse are linked, and the link runs in a direction most people would not expect: honesty is the fruit of grace, not its price.
Happy then, again, is the man to whom Jehovah imputes no iniquity — or "perversity," which is what the word means. This stands in direct connection with what follows: that in his spirit there is now no longer "guile," which is perversity. The second is the effect of the first. The non-imputation is the moral remedy. Grace sets the soul right. It enables the soul to judge sin honestly, and wins it to God, so parting it from that perversity.
Jesus once used almost these words of a man named Nathanael, when He saw him under a fig tree.
And Nathanael's "guilelessness" was the guilelessness of this Psalm, I believe, and not of mere natural disposition. (John 1:47) He had been under the fig tree in the spirit of this Psalm, as a convicted man pouring out his heart. That had freed his spirit from guile. Here we learn that a confessing spirit is a guileless spirit.
- Nothing denied. The blessing belongs to a sinner, not to a man with a clean record. The sin is real, and God covers it.
- Nothing charged. God does not pardon one fault at a time. He counts no iniquity at all, because Christ bore it.
- Nothing hidden. Guile is the cover-up, not the crime. Where a man owns his sin, the pretending stops.
- Nothing earned. Honesty is the effect of grace, not its price. God's refusal to count sin sets the soul right and wins it to Him.
- Nothing to fear. God may use the rod to correct His children, but He will never put sin to their account.
When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my groaning all the day long.
David looks back here at a time when he said nothing about his sin. The verse is his own report of what that silence cost him, in his body and in his soul.
This psalm has a name for hiding sin: guile. Older translations read "roaring" in verse 3 where the ESV has "groaning". One writer shows how the two are linked:
It is also a very miserable business. Guile only leads to groaning — for that is what the word "roaring" in verse 3 really means. In David's case the groaning came quickly. God laid His heavy hand of discipline on him by day and by night, and it withered him. It is a bad sign when guilt and guile bring no groaning. That means the sinner has stopped feeling, and perhaps that God is putting off His dealings until the coming day of reckoning. It is a happy thing when the groaning follows soon.
The same writer traces the habit of hiding back to the first man and woman:
Next comes guile. This means deceit, hypocrisy, lack of straightforwardness and honesty. It always follows guilt, always has done so from the beginning, as Genesis 3 bears witness. The moment the first man and woman became guilty, they tried to hide from God and to put the blame on someone else. Every soul of man does just the same. It is a deeply rooted instinct of our fallen race.
David does not describe a mood. He describes his skeleton aging. One writer sets the wasting bones against a struggle David would not end:
But the psalmist is not content just to declare how blessed grace is. He goes on to tell us how he reached this blessing — where grace met him and conquered him, after he had stubbornly resisted it. He tells us of the conviction that pressed on him to confession, and he would not confess. He kept silent. Yet deep in his soul he was roaring because of the turmoil, until his very bones, the most solid parts of the body, wasted away under the struggle.
David's crown gave him cover with people. It gave him none with God:
But David had been guilty of serious deceit, and refers to this in verse 3. He had kept silent, not confessing his sin to God; but God laid on his heart a virtually unbearable burden. How could his conscience rest when he had been guilty of adultery and murder? Being king, he could escape this disgrace before the people, but he could not avoid having to do with God. He felt his bones, the very framework of his body, growing old through his long, drawn-out groaning.
The pressure is God's own work, and it has an aim:
It is important to notice the work of the Spirit of God in what this soul goes through. God deals with a soul that will not submit itself fully. He brings it down into full subjection and confession. This is always the case, if the Lord's hand is on a man, until he owns the evil before God. Then comes forgiveness of the iniquity.
Meanwhile the silence brings no peace, only distance:
Oh, how true that is of a soul. Confession alone can remove this pressure. Under it there is a gnawing and a dissatisfaction, and a holding back and a distance too. You cannot help feeling it, and it is almost unbearable until confession clears away the dark cloud.
One writer argues that people tell the whole truth only when they know full pardon is on offer:
Full, absolute forgiveness — the not imputing sin at all — is what takes guile from the heart. Otherwise we run from God. We make excuses, or play the sin down, if we dare not defend it. Where full pardon is before us, we have courage to be true in heart. Who will not declare all his debts when their discharge by another is the only thing in question? Who will not tell his illness when a certain cure is available? Grace brings truth into the heart it has brought to confess its transgressions.
- Guilt breeds guile. Hiding is the oldest human reflex after sin, and silence before God is not neutral — it is deceit wearing a calm face.
- Guile breeds groaning. David's hidden sin aged his bones and drained his strength. A conscience that feels nothing is in worse danger than one that aches.
- Groaning is God's hand. The heavy hand is discipline, not abandonment. It lasts until the man owns the evil before God.
- No position exempts you. A king could manage his reputation before the people, but he could not avoid having to do with God.
- Grace ends the silence. Full forgiveness gives a person the courage to be honest. You declare your debts when someone else is paying them.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
Psalm 32 is David's own account of what happened inside him after he sinned and said nothing about it. Verse 4 describes that silence — a hand pressing down without pause, a man drying up under it, and one question: whose hand was it?
Hiding sin does not bring peace. It brings groaning, and a body worn down under God's discipline.
Hiding sin is also a miserable business. Guile only leads to groaning — that is what the word "roaring" in verse 3 really means. In David's case the groaning came quickly. God laid His heavy hand of discipline on him by day and by night, and he withered under it. He says it vividly: "my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer." It is a bad sign when guilt and guile are not followed by groaning. That means the sinner has gone numb, and perhaps that God is holding back His dealings until the coming day of reckoning. It is a good thing when the groaning comes quickly.
(An older translation reads "my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.")
David's rank let him manage the public story. It did nothing for him at night.
He had kept silent, not confessing his sin to God; but God laid on his heart a virtually unbearable burden. How could his conscience rest when he had been guilty of adultery and murder? Being king, he could slip out of this stigma before the people, but he could not escape dealing with God. His bones, the very framework of his body, felt like they were growing old through his long, drawn-out groaning. Both day and night he felt God's hand laid heavily on him (v. 4), so that his strength was dried up as "the drought of summer."
The pressure was not random misfortune. It was God working on a soul that would not yet bend.
It is important to notice the work of the Spirit of God in the process the soul is going through here. The verse says, "Your hand was heavy upon me." These are God's dealings with a soul that does not fully submit, bringing it down into full subjection and confession… This is always true. If the Lord's hand is on a man, it stays there until he recognises the evil before God. Then there is forgiveness of the iniquity.
Something inside David was still alive to God, even while his mouth stayed shut.
He takes the sentence of death in himself. Death inside was eating him away like a moth eating a garment. He had no strength of grace yet to confess the sin, but the life inside him still felt the wound it had received. His spirit felt the grief it had been put through. Yet David kept silent and did not tell out his shame, because guile was still in his spirit.
The pressing did not stop at a partial admission. It went on until everything was out in the open.
The moment a sinner is in his true place before God, the whole question is settled. As soon as his real character is fully out in the open, there is no further difficulty. He may have to pass through much painful exercise before he reaches that point This painful exercise comes from his refusal to take his true place — his refusal to bring out "all the truth" about what he is. But the moment he is brought to say, from his heart, "just as I am," the free grace of God flows down to him… How long did the exercise last? Until the whole truth came out — until everything working inside him came to the surface.
Read on its own, verse 4 sounds like abandonment. Read to the end of the psalm, the same hand that dried him up is the hand that brought him to speak.
"When I kept silence," said David, "my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me [wonderful, faithful love!]… I acknowledged my sin to You, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,' and You forgave the iniquity of my sin." What matchless grace, that answers at once this open confession of the truth before God. No — it is the grace of God that brings the heart to confess the sins, and then that same grace forgives.
- Silence. Hiding sin breeds guile, and guile only leads to groaning — the "roaring" of verse 3 is the sound of a man in pain.
- Weight. The hand pressing day and night is God's own hand at work on a soul that will not yet submit. It presses until there is full subjection and confession.
- Dryness. A king could hide the scandal from his people, but not from God. His bones wasted away and his strength dried up like land in summer heat.
- Duration. The pressure lasts until the whole truth surfaces — not a partial admission, but "just as I am" said from the heart.
- Love. The heavy hand is faithful love at work. The grace that brings the heart to confess is the same grace that forgives.
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity I covered not; I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah, and *thou* forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
David had kept silent about his sin. Verse 5 is the moment the silence breaks. Everything turns on one exchange: David stops hiding, and God forgives.
David does not use one word for his wrong but three. One writer explains two of them.
"Transgression" (not sin) means breaking a law that is known and laid down. This is where the psalmist begins. It is the first thing that would touch the conscience of a Jew, and what a blessing to know it is "forgiven." … "Sin" is then the evil root. God brings it to light in the conscience so that He may "cover" it by the blood of atonement, as here.
This is not a general prayer. David had done something for which Israel's law provided no sacrifice.
David did not do this until God sent the prophet Nathan to him. Nathan told him a story about a rich man who had mistreated a poor man, and David pronounced the sentence of death on that man. Then Nathan said, "You are the man!" So David knew that justice demanded his death, and he broke down in sober confession before God. Israel had no sacrifice provided for such a sin, as David hints in Psalm 51:16. Cast only on the mercy of God, he says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." So he could say with full confidence, "You forgave the iniquity of my sin." The word "Selah" is added again, so that we will pause and consider the marvel of God's grace in His full and free forgiveness of a repentant sinner.
Verse 5 shows what confession actually costs — and where it has to be directed.
The iniquity that a man hid with the greatest care must be dragged into the light of God's presence. He must confess his transgressions not to man merely, or first of all, but "to the Lord." This, you see, is the exact opposite of deceit. It completely reverses the old attitude and gives up all deceit and hypocrisy. It is straightforwardness and honesty in the sight of God.
So which came first here — David's honesty, or God's grace?
Matchless grace this, that responds at once to this open confession of the truth before God. No — it is the grace of God that brings the heart to the confession of the sins, and then that same grace forgives.
Read the line carefully: David says he decided to confess, and God had already forgiven. One writer notices that the sentence never quite reaches the act.
How quick this mercy is! It reminds us of the Lord's picture of His Father's love to the son who came home after wasting everything. Not even, "I did confess, and You forgave," but the forgiveness comes before the confession itself. It is like that son. Far from his father, he turned to him in his need with his words ready, asking only for a servant's place — and found his father's kiss arriving ahead of the confession.
Full forgiveness did not mean nothing more would follow. One writer keeps the two things apart, and lets neither cancel the other.
How was David's confession met? By the clear and ready response of that free grace in which our God always delights: "The LORD also has put away your sin." This was absolute grace. God fully forgave David's sin. There can be no question about this. But even as the soothing words of grace fell on David's ears at his confession, the solemn wheels of God's government were already turning in the distance.
David could not have explained how God could forgive him and still be just. One writer points to where the answer lies.
With the sacrificial work of Christ in view, God was able to forgive sinners of an earlier age long before that work took place. This is taught in Romans 3:25 and in Psalm 32:5. When David confessed his sin to God, he made use of this great benefit. He could not yet know the glorious plan of redemption in the mind and heart of God.
- Cover — David had hidden his sin away with the greatest care.
- Uncover — He stopped hiding and named it to God: no excuse, no softening, no going first to men.
- Covered — What David refused to cover, God covered, by the blood of atonement.
- Ahead — Pardon met the decision to confess, like a father's kiss arriving before the son finished speaking.
- After — The forgiveness was complete. Yet the wheels of God's government still turned. Grace and God's governing hand are two different things.
For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee at a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters they will not reach him.
David has just told how he stopped hiding his sin, confessed it, and found forgiveness. Verse 6 turns that private story outward: God forgives, so every godly person has a reason to pray, a time to pray, and a shelter when the floods come.
The verse opens by pointing back. What David has learned about God is what draws others to Him. God showing Himself this way makes the moment a time of finding.
This revelation of God stirs the thought and feeling of all who are upright and gracious-minded. It makes them look to God at the time when He reveals Himself as the forgiving God, when He can be found... Suppose they have no sense of sin at that moment. They know they are sinners, and God reveals Himself like this: His character is their delight, and their soul links itself with Him. They seek Him, not simply for forgiveness... and note, God acting like this, revealed like this, makes the time the finding time.
The word could sound like a class of superior people. In the psalm it does the opposite: it takes in everyone.
This is not all. We soon find that this mercy was no special case for David. And no one can do without such a confession, and such mercy as this psalm shows. No — "therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found." So the person who has never known this way of drawing near to God is not godly but ungodly! Such is the need of grace on the part of all.
Notice how this prayer starts. It is not a cry flung into the dark. It is asking from a settled footing.
The godly man is the sinner who knows God in grace. He finds Him in the acceptable day of salvation. So he prays with calm assurance that God hears him, not vaguely. He prays to One who has already prompted that prayer by revealing Himself as the Saviour who justifies the ungodly in his worst hour of need (Rom. 4:5). Mercy received is the proper groundwork of true Christian prayer... Do not confuse the cry of distress from a heart that does not yet know peace with true prayer. God answers such a cry readily and graciously, with His full testimony of peace and forgiveness in the gospel of His Son.
The phrase carries a warning inside a promise. If there is a time when God may be found, there is also a time when He may not.
The results of knowing God as a forgiving God follow. Because God is a forgiving God, the godly can always turn to Him in confidence, at a time when He can be found. There is a time coming when men will seek God but He will not be found. Today is the acceptable time when, on the ground of Christ's work, He may be found. But grace rejected will lead to judgment, when God will no longer be found by men, but men will be found out by God.
The second half of the verse recalls Noah's ark. Water covered everything, but it could not get in where God had shut people in.
The "rush of great waters" that we are now warned about reminds us of the ark, and of the only people the Lord saved when He shut them in. No flood could reach them, while no others could escape it. Jehovah had acted for them, so all the power of His arm and all the glory of His Name stood between those inside and the flood, pledged for their security. So He was truly their hiding place. Could any flood break through such a barrier? Now we know Christ as the fulfilment of this ark. The storms beat on Him and the floods raged, but this glorious Refuge has carried His full cargo of blessing safely to shore. So the soul in Christ can say this in triumph.
The promise is not that trouble stays away. It is being kept safe while the flood breaks in. Darby reads the psalm this way for the godly few in Israel.
Israel, the Jews, have been deeply guilty in every way. God holds out forgiveness, as in this psalm and everywhere in Moses and the prophets. They feel it; God reveals Himself like this; the godly remnant are touched by it. Sins, no doubt, are confessed, but the heart of the godly turns to God. When the flood of judgments breaks in, God preserves them. In every case, the soul that knows this goodness can count on God. God Himself, known like this, is its hiding place. In the end, songs of deliverance will be its portion.
- Cause. "Therefore" ties the verse to verse 5. God shown as forgiving draws the heart, and that is what makes the moment a time of finding.
- Found. The window is open today. Refuse the grace offered, and God will find those men out instead.
- Every. Forgiveness was no special favour to David. Anyone who has never come this way is not among the godly, and everyone needs the same grace.
- Ground. This prayer rests on mercy already received. The godly ask with calm assurance, not with a vague hope.
- Flood. Like those shut inside the ark, the sheltered stay beyond the water's reach. God Himself is their hiding place, and songs of deliverance are their portion.
Thou art a hiding-place for me; thou preservest me from trouble; thou dost encompass me with songs of deliverance. Selah.
Psalm 32 opens with the joy of a man whose sin is covered and never counted against him. By verse 7 he has found more than pardon: God Himself has become his hiding place, and fear has turned into refuge.
The instinct of a guilty conscience is to get away from God. David does the opposite. He runs into the presence he once dreaded. One writer contrasts him with everyone who tries to hide sin from God:
How awful the contrast with Israel's own sweet singer, who, despite his sins, could say by grace, "You are a hiding place for me!" — hiding in God, not from Him. He had before him One who could and would cover all his sins and count nothing against him. Our effort to cover our sins, or to escape from His presence, is useless indeed.
The same searching light that a guilty person dreads becomes the safest place there is once sin has been confessed. As another writer puts it, when a person is genuinely open before God, the light that will terrify the unrepentant "is already the hiding-place and fortress of the saint."
Verse 7 comes at the end of a fight. The man held out for a long time, found no rest, and only then owned his sin:
For a long time he had fought against this, but the Lord gave him no rest. Then he confesses his sin, and deceit is gone from his heart — impossible until then. We hide sin in the heart. Forgiveness in grace draws the godly man to God. When the great waters flood, they do not reach him. The Lord is the hiding place of the soul — He preserves, blesses, guides.
Full and absolute forgiveness — God not counting sin against us at all — is what takes the deceit out of the heart. Otherwise we run from God: we make excuses and play down our sin, even when we dare not call it right.
Pardon is not the end of it. God also shelters the person He forgives — even from himself:
God does not just forgive a sinner and leave him to himself. Instead, God becomes a sanctuary where a person can find refuge from himself and his sinful tendencies. He also finds God's presence a wonderful protection from the flood of great waters — the judgment that man's sin naturally brings on him.
Notice what the verse does not promise: an easy life. The storms did not stop. What changed was the man's relationship to God in the middle of them.
As soon as he was right with God the whole picture changed. Instead of being the object of his fear, God became the object of his confidence. He knew how to find God, and how to pray to Him. He discovered that God was his hiding place. There he would find refuge and protection when the storms and floods and troubles of this life threatened him. His sin had been dealt with, but the troubles remained.
The promise holds even when nothing outward changes:
Our circumstances may not change. Our sorrows may not be taken away. But if we bring Christ into our grief, we will be able to say with the psalmist: "you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance" (Ps. 32:7).
The last phrase sounds as if the rescued man does all the singing. One writer points out what marks this deliverance out from everything the psalm has said so far:
Something appears here with deliverance that makes it quite exceptional. Up to that point the psalm says not a word about God's feelings. The soul itself is happy, of course, once the burden of guilt is gone. But here we read of His happiness: "You surround me with songs of deliverance." God's joy gives its character to the blessings granted in deliverance. The soul rejoices in this too.
This writer is using an older translation. Where he reads "songs of deliverance," the ESV reads "shouts of deliverance."
The verse ends with a word left untranslated. It is a direction to the reader, not part of the sentence.
The word Selah occurs 71 times in the Psalms. It means "to pause," with a secondary meaning of "lift up." We can take it as a sign. As we read, we should pause, think, and then lift up our hearts in praise and prayer.
- Confess — Fighting God brought no rest. Honest confession cleared the deceit out of the heart and opened the way in.
- Hide — Flight reverses direction: not away from God, but into Him — "hiding in God, not from Him."
- Rest — God becomes a sanctuary, not just a pardon; He does not forgive and then leave a person to himself.
- Endure — The sin was dealt with, but the troubles remained. What changed is that God became the object of confidence instead of fear.
- Sing — The surrounding song is God's own joy over the delivered, and "Selah" asks us to stop and take that in.
I will instruct thee and teach thee the way in which thou shalt go; I will counsel [thee] with mine eye upon thee.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Be ye not as a horse, as a mule, which have no understanding whose trappings must be bit and bridle, for restraint, or they will not come unto thee.
Verse 8 promises God's guidance, and verse 9 warns that He can also lead a person the way a rider leads a stubborn animal. So the question is what we will be under His hand — a creature that reads a look, or one that needs a bit in its mouth.
The picture uses two animals, and they fail in opposite ways.
If we lack in this discernment, is it not because we are like the horse or the mule? (v. 9). They need a bit and bridle to control them. The horse may be too eager to rush forward, and the mule too stubborn to move when it should. So we may too easily lean on our own instincts, either too forward or too backward, instead of depending on the Lord.
Translators render the closing clause in more than one way:
But on our side, we must never assume that we have the spiritual understanding that lets us profit from the guidance He gives. We may well be just like a horse or a mule. Another rendering of the verse is, "whose trappings must be bit and bridle, for restraint, or they will not come to you." A bit and bridle are always uncomfortable and sometimes painful. The horse is often pulled up with a nasty jerk, but that is because it does not understand its master's thoughts.
Verses 8 and 9 set out two methods, and the difference between them is the state of our will. (The quote below uses an older wording of verse 8; the ESV reads, "I will counsel you with My eye upon you.")
The Lord guides us — or rather controls us — in another way, by the circumstances He arranges, so that we may not go wrong, even though we have no understanding. And we should be thankful that He does. But this is only how you treat a horse or a mule. If your will is subject to Mine, He says, "I will guide you with My eye" — but if you are not subject, I must hold you in with "bit and bridle." That is clearly a very different thing.
Many people treat shifting circumstances as God's main way of showing them the road. Commentators warn that this is not the same as being guided by God.
Whoever lets circumstances guide him always acts in the dark about the will of God. There is nothing moral in it; it is an outside force that pushes him along... The point is not to let circumstances direct you, but to let God direct you in them. That means staying near enough to God to judge at once what you should do, as soon as the circumstances arise.
Another writer puts the loss in a picture:
A Christian so guided is like a vessel at sea without rudder or compass; she is at the mercy of the waves and the winds.
The bit is not God's first choice. It becomes necessary where our own will is still at work.
Now we are often like the horse, or the mule, every one of us — and this, because our souls have not been ploughed up. When there is anything in which the will of man is at work, the Lord deals with us, as with the horse or the mule, holding us in. When every part of the heart is in contact with Himself, He guides us with His "eye."
When the bridle does come, it is mercy, not abandonment. One writer sees it in David's own life:
Among these reefs he would certainly have gone down if God had left him to his own strength. So God, no longer able to lead him by His eye, used the "bit and bridle" of Psalm 32:9 — a series of circumstances that went against the will of His servant — to keep him from a fall he could never undo.
The warning has a goal behind it, and it is not a tighter rein.
And how many of God's people have lives so little yielded to Him that circumstances must govern them, instead of the eye of God. His desire for us is not the drudgery of a stopped will, but the freedom of a changed one.
- The offer. God's first method is a look. He counsels the one who stays near enough to catch it.
- The warning. The horse rushes ahead, the mule will not move. Both run on instinct instead of dependence, so both need a bit in the mouth.
- The downgrade. Guidance by circumstances is that bit. It is real, but it works from outside and leaves you in the dark.
- The cause. God reaches for the bit where our own will is still at work. He guides a heart wholly in touch with Him by His eye.
- The mercy. Even the bridle is kindness — it held David back from ruin — but God's desire is not a stopped will, it is a changed one.
Many sorrows hath the wicked; but he that confideth in Jehovah, loving-kindness shall encompass him.
Psalm 32 opens with the joy of forgiven sin and God's promise to guide His people. Near its end it sets two lives side by side: why does sorrow fill one and mercy surround the other?
One writer counts three great themes in this psalm. The third arrives only near the end.
Before we reach the end of Psalm 32 we find mention of a third great theme — the government of God... We are not allowed to forget that God is the moral Governor of the universe. He has so ordered things that men reap what they sow even in this life. This has always been true, and it is true today. Changing ages do not affect how it works. It applies to the men of the world, and it applies in a special way to God's people. It often seems as if the man of the world escapes God's government in this life. But that is because he is travelling on to final judgment, and the crash comes then.
The verse gives the normal pattern, not a rule without exceptions. The same writer explains why three more psalms follow.
As a general rule, however, it is the wicked who practise evil and reap many sorrows as a result. And it is the godly man who trusts in the Lord, and who as a result has mercy all around him. That is what verse 10 states. It is the normal thing. Still, we live in an order of things where the abnormal often wins. So, as God's government works out, we find many complications. That is why the matter needs much fuller working out in the three psalms that follow.
One writer traces the psalm's flow: confession brings forgiveness, forgiveness brings guidance, and guidance ends in mercy all around.
All was brought out — Jehovah's only object was to bring the man to integrity of heart and truth. When confession produces this, all is forgiven... Then God guides in the way. So, because of this mercy and forgiveness, the godly come in an acceptable time. God keeps them safe in the great floods of water... In short, mercy shall surround the righteous.
A clean record is not what marks off the second group. Even in a psalm all about pardon, the same writer keeps that difference in plain view.
Notice here that forgiveness is celebrated, and the faithful remnant will need it badly. Yet the great truth that separates them from the mass of the people is still kept clear — trust, righteousness, and integrity of heart. To the wicked there are sorrows.
God does not promise the believer a life without sorrow. He promises mercy that goes all the way round him.
The wicked's life results in many sorrows (v. 10). The godly may have trial and sorrow, but God tempers it wonderfully with the great joy He gives even at times of deepest distress. We may sorrow, but not like those who have no hope. Nothing can relieve their sorrows unless they turn in faith to the Lord Jesus... It is good to know that mercy always surrounds us. It guards us from the deceitful attacks of the enemy. Indeed, His mercy protects us in the measure that we trust the Lord. So simple faith in Him brings wonderful results.
Mercy surrounds the man who walks the way God marks out for him. Another writer links this to prayer and God's watchful guidance.
Furthermore, the one who prays to God finds not only preservation, but guidance for the way. God guides in His way and with His eye upon us as One who is deeply interested in His people. Moreover God gives understanding of His mind. So we should not be like the horse or mule, which has no understanding. They are guided, but with no intelligence of their own. If we walk in the way that God would have us tread, mercy will surround us. And uprightness of heart will lead to gladness in the Lord and joy.
The same writer marks out two kinds of forgiveness. One settles a sinner's standing for ever. The other belongs to God's dealings with His own people in this life.
As Christians we know that this principle rests on the death of Christ — the precious blood. It holds true for eternal forgiveness, when a sinner draws near to God. It holds true for governmental forgiveness too, when a failing child draws near to the Father.
- Government. After grace and guidance, the psalm adds a third theme. God rules the world as its moral Governor, and people reap what they sow in this life.
- Rule. This is the normal pattern, not an unbroken one. The exceptions are real, and three more psalms take them up.
- Trust. A clean record is not what divides the two groups. Trust, righteousness and integrity of heart do, and forgiveness never blurs that line.
- Mercy. Believers still meet sorrow, but mercy rings them round. God protects them in the measure that they trust Him.
- Walk. Mercy surrounds the one who follows with understanding, not the one driven like a horse or mule. That road ends in gladness and joy.
Rejoice in Jehovah, and be glad, ye righteous; and shout for joy, all ye upright in heart.
Psalm 32 opens with a man who confesses his sins and is forgiven, and it closes with a call to shout for joy. That joy is not a mood but a result, and the call goes to two kinds of people who need explaining: "the righteous" and "the upright in heart."
The psalm moves in stages, and joy stands at the end as the result of the whole.
So we may well respond to this sweet invitation: "Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!" (v. 11). So the psalm begins with the assurance of forgiveness. Then it adds the assurance that God preserves the believer from trouble and teaches him the way he should go. The deepest joy is the result.
The word does not mean people with a clean record. It fits the man who wrote this psalm. David's sins were as bad as any recorded in the Old Testament, and God still counted him righteous.
Nothing is said of David's works; instead, he spoke of his iniquities and his sins. No man in the Old Testament records fell lower than David in his sins against God and man. Yet we learn that his sins did not exclude him from the blessing. For he describes the blessedness of the man to whom God counts righteousness without works... True, God produced in his soul repentance for those sins and faith in a pardoning God. His sins were ten thousand times more serious, because he knew God's mercy. But this chapter brings in his case to show that even these did not exclude him from the blessing of justification. The works of the best man cannot bring him into this blessing, and the sins of the worst man need not shut him out of it.
"Upright in heart" describes a person with no deceit inside. That honesty is not the price of pardon. Full pardon is what creates it.
Let us take to heart the great principle of this psalm. Full, absolute forgiveness — the not imputing sin at all — is what takes deceit out of the heart. Otherwise we run from God, we make excuses, we soften things, even if we do not dare to justify ourselves. Where full pardon is set before us, we have the courage to be true in heart. Who will not declare all his debts when the only question is that someone else will pay them? Who will not tell his illness when the cure is certain? Grace brings truth into the heart that is brought to confess its wrongdoing. He finds all the burden of his sins gone.
Gladness always has an object, and this verse names one.
Psalm 32. "Be glad," not in the forgiveness, but "in the LORD."
That distinction turns relief into worship. That worship rests on something already finished.
What should be the mark of the worship of the heavenly sanctuary? Surely praise — praise for accomplished redemption. And this sacrifice will not be missing, if our souls take in our heavenly portion. None who really worship in that sanctuary may hold back their tribute of praise... Eternal redemption is the solid basis on which all such joy rests. That redemption is found in the perfect work of Jesus — the work He Himself always presents on our behalf in heaven. "Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!"
Verse 10 sets many sorrows for the wicked against surrounding mercy for the one who trusts. The gladness commanded in verse 11 is therefore not the absence of trouble.
The result of the life of the wicked is "many sorrows" (v. 10). The godly may have trial and sorrow. Yet God gives exceeding joy even at times of deepest distress, and this wonderfully softens their sorrow... "But he who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall surround him." How good to know that mercy surrounds us at every moment and guards us from the enemy's deceitful attacks.
- Forgiveness first. The shout at the end rests on the pardon at the start. Joy is the last stage of a road that began with confession, not a feeling worked up on its own.
- Righteous by gift. God counts a man righteous without works. The best man's works cannot earn this blessing, and the worst man's sins need not shut him out.
- Upright by grace. Full pardon removes deceit from the heart. A man hides nothing once he knows that another has paid the whole debt.
- Glad in Him. The command points past the forgiveness to the Forgiver. This joy rests on redemption already accomplished, not on relief alone.
- Joy that holds. Sorrows mark the wicked. Mercy surrounds the one who trusts, so he can obey this call to gladness even in the deepest distress.