(To the chief Musician. A Psalm of David; when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba.) Be gracious unto me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness; according to the abundance of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
David prayed this after the prophet Nathan confronted him over Bathsheba and Uriah. Its first line settles how a guilty person may come to God. He asks for nothing on the basis of what he is, and everything on the basis of what God is.
A king had covered up adultery and murder. Nathan's words broke through, and grace answered David at once. But grace was not the only principle at work.
In this Psalm David is going through the deepest soul-searching after his sin with Bathsheba. The parable the prophet Nathan told him had awakened him to a true sense of it... the prophet, led by the Spirit of God, declares, "You are the man!" and then unmasks his wicked course. David, roused out of his spiritual numbness, replies, "I have sinned against the Lord." Grace meets this confession, for he hears, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die." But grace and government are two different principles. The first says, "The Lord has put away your sin." The second can only say, "The child who is born to you shall die."
David never points to the law of Moses here. One writer explains why the law had nothing to offer him.
"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love" (v. 1). David was under the law, but here he could not appeal to it. The law gave no sacrifice for such a sin as David had committed. It gave sacrifices for "sins of ignorance." But David sinned on purpose, and he knew how wicked it was. He was king, and under the law he ought to have passed the sentence of death on himself!
Notice what David does not mention in this opening line: his sorrow, his tears, his praying. The two things he names both belong to God.
David comes to God not on the ground of repentance, nor of his own prayers, nor of his own tears. You may repent, and it is a blessed thing if you do. You may pray, and surely it is blessed to pray. You may weep, yes, weep bitter, bitter tears, and this is well. But none of these is the ground on which forgiveness is known... Forgiveness does not come from Him on the ground of what we are, but on the ground of what He is.
David does not ask for a measured amount of mercy; he appeals to a supply that has no limit and no price.
God's mercy is free. To set up merit is to destroy mercy. Nothing can deserve mercy, nor force it... So do not say, "I am unworthy" — mercy is free. If God should show mercy only to those who are worthy, He would show none at all... God's mercy is an overflowing mercy; it is infinite: "Abounding in steadfast love" (Ps. 86:5). "Rich in mercy" (Eph. 2:4). "According to your abundant mercy" (Ps. 51:1). The bowl of wrath drips, but the fountain of mercy flows.
David sets "my transgressions" next to God's mercy. One writer says that is the best thing a guilty conscience can do.
The penitent places his sins side by side with the loving-kindness and tender mercy of God. This was the very best thing for him to do. The best place for a convicted conscience is the presence of divine mercy. When a convicted sinner and divine love meet, there is a speedy settlement of the question of sin. It is the joy of God to pardon sin. He delights in mercy. Judgment is His strange work... This is the order: "You are the man," "I have sinned against the Lord," "The Lord has put away your sin."
The psalm reaches past one man's failure. One writer finds in it both a picture of Judah's future and words that fit any sinner returning to God.
Like all the psalms, this psalm is prophetic. It goes far beyond the circumstances of David's life... David himself is a picture of the remnant of Judah placed under the governmental wrath of God. You can also use this psalm in preaching the gospel. It describes a sinner who returns to God like the prodigal son and says, "I have sinned against heaven and before you" (Luke 15:18). But here we are looking at the special feelings stirred in the soul of a believer who has lost fellowship through his fall, and with it the joy of his salvation.
- Exposed — Nathan said, "You are the man," and David broke. This psalm is what a discovered sinner says.
- Empty-handed — the law offered him no sacrifice for a deliberate sin. As king he should have sentenced himself to death. Mercy was his only plea.
- Ground — repentance, prayer and tears are all good. But none of them is the ground of forgiveness. That ground is what God is in Himself.
- Overflowing — David appeals to God's abundant mercy. Mercy that could be deserved would no longer be mercy.
- Settled — lay your sins beside His loving-kindness and the matter closes: "You are the man," "I have sinned," "The Lord has put away your sin."
Wash me fully from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
David prays this psalm after the prophet Nathan has confronted him and God's light has exposed his sin. Having asked God to blot out his transgressions, he now asks for something deeper — not just a record cleared, but a stain removed.
David uses three different words for wrong in verses 1 and 2. Here is what two of them mean:
Iniquity means what is crooked, warped, twisted. God had a way for David and for us, as straight as His righteous sceptre, but David and every one of us preferred a crooked way. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way." … Sin, as David used the word, means missing the mark. God set up His mark for people to aim at. Everyone who has ever entered this world is responsible to glorify God and live to His praise.
One writer sets them in order of severity:
David speaks of his transgressions in verse 1, then in verse 2 of his iniquity and his sin. Sin is the plain word. Transgression goes further, because it breaks a declared law. Iniquity goes furthest of all, and shows a will set on wickedness. Just as David, so Israel is guilty of all of these; but all mankind is just as guilty (Rom. 3:10-19). Everyone needs a thorough washing from iniquity and a cleansing from sin. All of it must go, or there is no salvation at all.
Verse 1 asked God to wipe the record clean. Verse 2 asks Him to deal with what sin has done inside the man:
David did not want only forgiveness for his sins. He needed that, no doubt, but he needed more. He needed inward cleansing from the defiling power of sin itself. The apostle says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Cleansing from unrighteousness is more than forgiveness of our sins, and David wanted both. Both depend on confessing our sins.
Another writer names the two sides of sin:
We can look at sin in two ways: as an offence against God, or as defilement to the sinner. God has His sovereign rights and claims over all His creatures. That is what makes sin a wrong done to Him, an outrage upon His majesty and glory. Sin in this aspect needs forgiveness… But sin is also, in its very essence and nature, defiling and polluting.
David could not deal with the stain himself, so he asked for the kind of washing given to filthy cloth:
He cannot undo the past, and he had no way to rid himself of the deep stain in his soul. So he pleads for a thorough washing from his iniquity and a cleansing from his sin. He felt that his iniquity had defiled the very fabric of his soul and character. A launderer beats and scrubs a filthy garment to wash it, and David felt he needed washing like that. He longed to hear the word said over him that the priest said over the cleansed and healed leper, when he declared him clean from his plague.
David was king, with a prophet and a priest at hand, and none of it helped:
To whom could he turn for this? Not to Nathan the prophet, and not to Zadok the priest. Even with a king's power he could not lift the burden of sin off himself. His only hope was in God, and here is the gospel. The light that had exposed his sin had also shown him the very thoughts and heart of God, so he looked up in his misery and cried to God.
You might expect his repentance and tears to be what won him a hearing:
David comes to God not on the ground of repentance, nor of his own prayers, nor of his own tears. You may repent, and it is a blessed thing if you do. You may pray, and surely it is blessed to pray. You may weep — yes, weep bitter, bitter tears — and this is well. But none of these is the ground on which forgiveness is known; none of these is the true ground of approach to God. Forgiveness does not come from Him on the ground of what we are, but on the ground of what He is.
- Crooked. "Iniquity" is the crooked path we choose instead of God's straight one. "Sin" is missing the mark God set for every person.
- Rising. The words climb: sin, then transgression against a declared law, then iniquity, a will settled on wickedness. All of it must go, or there is no salvation.
- Deeper. David asks for more than pardon. Forgiveness lifts the charge; washing deals with sin's defiling power inside him.
- Scrubbed. David pictures a launderer beating a filthy garment clean. He longs to hear over himself the word the priest said over a healed leper.
- Nowhere else. No prophet, priest or royal power could remove the stain. David's one hope was God, and he pleaded on the ground of what God is, not on what he himself felt.
For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is continually before me.
David wrote this psalm after the prophet Nathan confronted him. He had taken Bathsheba, and he had her husband killed. The verse gives the reason behind his plea for cleansing. It also raises two questions. What does real confession look like? And why does a forgiven man keep his sin in view?
Verse 3 opens with a word of reason. It explains why David can ask God to blot out his sin and wash him. What he leans on is not the size of his repentance but the size of God's mercy.
The psalm opens with a repentant man appealing to the grace and loving-kindness of God. He sees that with God there is an "abundance" of tender mercies, and therefore God's mercy is greater than his sin.
A man can own his sin and still come to God on the wrong ground.
David comes to God not on the ground of repentance, nor of his own prayers, nor of his own tears. You may repent, and it is a blessed thing if you do. You may pray, and surely it is blessed to pray. You may weep, yes, weep bitter, bitter tears, and this is well. But none of these is the ground on which forgiveness is known.
To know your sin here means to own it. Older translations read, "I acknowledge my transgressions." David softens nothing and blames nobody else.
This was true conviction. He made no excuses. He did not blame his circumstances. He did not point at other people. It is simply "I" and "You"; I a sinner, and You the God of truth. The secret of true restoration consists in taking our real place, as sinners, in the light of the truth of God.
Two excuses come up again and again: my circumstances, and my own weakness.
In true confession there is no question of the force of circumstances, nor of one's own weakness... If I look at the circumstances and shelter behind them, I am hiding behind lies.
David does not stop at verse 3. Two verses later he goes behind the deed to what produced it.
Often a soul will judge a particular action and go no further, but this is not yet all the truth in the heart. David judges his action: "For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me" (v. 3). But he also judges his condition: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (v. 5). It is not enough for him to judge only his sin; he judges sin in him — that which he was from birth.
The order matters: fruit first, then source, then the cry for cleansing.
So he first judges his sins in their evil fruit. Then he traces them back to their corrupt and evil source. Only then does he cry out, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
"Ever before me" describes something David could not put down.
To his conscience that guilt was terribly real. "My sin is ever before me," he said. It caused him constant misery.
Silence has its own price. One writer traces it in another psalm of David.
As long as David kept silent, God's hand was pressing on him. That pressure was there so that confession would break the silence. And when the silence is finally broken, we see it is with God he has to do. So the result of his being with God in confession, and getting pardon from God, is that he has the joy of forgiveness.
The weight is real. But God does not want the man who confesses to keep carrying it.
The Judge of sin does not want the guilty to keep bearing that burden once they acknowledge their transgression and discern their sin. With confession it leaves us and passes to Christ. It does not stay there. It ends for ever through the precious power of His shed blood.
Writers read the psalm on two levels: David's own case, and a confession still to come from a faithful group among the Jewish people.
These are the experiences of a repentant soul. They look ahead to the confession of sin by the godly Jewish remnant in the last days, when they humble themselves before God for the rejection and murder of Christ.
Even so, the psalm stays personal. It remains the experience of one repentant soul.
- Ground. The plea rests on God's loving-kindness, not on the quality of David's tears — mercy that is "greater than his sin."
- Honesty. Real confession drops circumstances and other people. It comes down to "I" and "You."
- Depth. David judges the act (v. 3), then the nature behind it (v. 5) — fruit first, then source.
- Weight. Silence keeps the weight on the conscience. Confession brings "the joy of forgiveness."
- Release. God does not intend the confessor to keep carrying the load — "with confession it departs from us to Christ."