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."
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in thy sight; that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, be clear when thou judgest.
David spoke these words after Nathan the prophet confronted him over Bathsheba and Uriah. Two things puzzle readers here: the word only, and the reason David gives for confessing — God's vindication, not his own relief.
The word "only" is the problem. David wronged real people. One writer answers the objection by showing what filled David's mind.
We now come to a verse that is a difficulty to some: "Against You... have I sinned." There is no difficulty about that. But he says, "Against You only." Had he not sinned against the woman? Had he not murdered the very man he had sinned against?... He is occupied with God, and with God only. The thought of his fellow man would pass through his mind — "My fellow man! Ah, yes! I have indeed sinned against him. But what is that compared with my sin against You?" It is sin before God, in the sight of Him who is of purer eyes than to look on iniquity. I would not ignore or cover up for a moment the man and the woman I have sinned against, or the evil I have done to my fellow man; but it is before You.
David also had no one else left to make it right with.
Of course, he knew he had sinned against Bathsheba and also against her husband (v. 14). But when he says "against You only," he puts his finger on the most vital point. He said it because he knew he had to deal with God directly about this matter. He could not now apologize to Uriah, and he had already taken Bathsheba as his wife. There was no way he could remedy what he had done, not even by confession.
David names the wrong. One writer contrasts that with vaguer admissions.
A child of God will confess sin in particular; an unsound Christian will confess sin wholesale — he will admit that he is a sinner in general. But David points with his finger to the sore: "I have done this evil." He does not say, I have done evil, but this evil.
The confession does not stop at the act.
Until there is confession of sin, and not merely of a sin, there is no forgiveness. In Psalm 51, when David was confessing his sin, he said, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." He does not merely say, I have done this particular evil. That he does say (vv. 1-4). But he also recognises the root and principle of sin... There is then positive restoration of soul.
The second half of the verse gives the purpose of the whole confession: God comes out right. One writer sets the two verdicts side by side.
It is of the greatest moral importance to see this. Whenever we justify ourselves, we condemn God. And when we condemn ourselves, we justify God. The truly broken and contrite heart will vindicate God at any cost. "Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, 'That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged'" (Rom. 3:4)... The greatest folly anyone can be guilty of is to justify himself, since God must then impute sin. But the truest wisdom is to condemn oneself utterly; for in that case God becomes the Justifier.
Justifying God costs David every excuse.
"That You may be justified." I do not soften the sin. I do not speak of the poor creature with whom I committed it, or of my reputation before men that weighed so much with me, or even of the man I destroyed to hide my sin. I stand before You in Your sight — bare and naked as the day I was born. Now there is nothing, no hope, no rest, no ground of confidence but in You... Until you know the practical meaning of this, you have some reserve there, something you are not prepared to have searched out.
One writer reads the psalm as a confession Israel has yet to make.
We point out the prophetic meaning of the Psalm. It is the future confession of Israel of their sin and especially the bloodguilt that lies on that nation... When the Jews handed the Holy One over to the Gentiles, they cried, "His blood be on us and on our children!" They will confess this bloodguilt when the Lord comes. They will look on Him whom they pierced and mourn for Him (Zech. 12:10).
- Sight. David sinned in God's sight, so God is the one party he must deal with — the others are beyond apology or repair.
- Named. In God's sight nothing stays general: he points to the sore and says "this evil," not merely that he is a sinner.
- Rooted. Owning the act is only the start. The confession goes down to the root and principle of sin. There restoration of soul begins.
- Justified. Confession clears God, not us. Condemn yourself and God becomes the Justifier; justify yourself and you condemn Him.
- Reach. The same words that broke a king shape the confession Israel will yet make over the blood of the Holy One they handed over.