by Rev. Alex. McPherson
Psalm Fifty-one
The title to this Psalm places it very accurately in David’s history. It is the inspired expression of his repentance, the beginning of which we read about in 2 Sam. 12, v. 13; “And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.” The whole sad story is to be found in the eleventh and twelfth chapters of that book. At a time when the armies of Israel were engaged against the Ammonites, David chose to remain in Jerusalem. There, ease, luxury and idleness led the king, as they have done countless others, to sensual lust, then on to the grievous sin of adultery, and beyond that again to a foul murder. David intended that his wicked deeds should be known only to Joab, but chapter eleven ends with the words, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.”
The narrative then goes on to tell how the Lord employed Nathan to bring David’s sin home to him. This was probably about a year after his great sins, and that it was not a period of absolute deadness of conscience we may judge from Psalm 32 which bears the marks of having been written just after this one. There David admits: “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.” Nathan was the agent whom God used to convince David of the hideousness of his deeds, and the repentance which immediately followed is well described in the familiar language of this Psalm.
Verse 1. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”
It is a characteristic of the saved sinner that he knows that the divine favour comes to him by way of mercy. He discounts any idea of meriting kindness from a holy and just God. The mercy of God in Christ is his one hope for escaping the punishment which his sins deserve and of obtaining that righteous status so essential to the enjoyment of God’s favour. And not only does he look to that mercy in the day that he is born again and forgiven and justified for Christ’s sake, but he looks to that mercy as often as he draws near to a holy God in prayer. Although justified by faith he remains a sinner, and thus mercy remains his constant need. It matters not whether his sins be of the nature of monstrous backsliding, as David’s were, or simply the manifold imperfections of a life spent in pressing on towards the mark of holiness. Repeated, frequent prayers for mercy are an invariable feature of the truly Christian life.
David’s sins were very great. He needed great mercy. His faith appears in his ascription of abundant mercy to the God of loving-kindness. How well he knew his God! In that law in which he often meditated, he read that God’s name, or revealed character is: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, etc.” (Exod. 34, v. 6, 7). In the extremity of his guiltiness and wretchedness, David believed that “with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.” (Psalm 130, v. 7). Knowing God’s name, he put his trust in it for renewed forgiveness. In this same direction lies the hope of every sinner. Mercy has its full revelation in Christ, and the sinner who looks to the merits of his atoning death and that alone will receive an abundant pardon.
Then, after pleading for mercy in a general way, David proceeds to specify the particular manner in which he feels the need of it. He says: “Blot out my transgressions.” The various Hebrew words for sin are not exact synonyms. This one “transgression” means “passing over a boundary,” the boundary in this case being the moral law. So that transgression is the doing of that which God has prohibited and is therefore an act of rebellion against the Lawgiver. God has said: “Thou shalt not kill; neither shalt thou commit adultery.” David had disobeyed; he had transgressed those plain commands. Now there were crimson and scarlet sins to be blotted out from the heavenly register. Have we not transgressions also; more than we can number? Except they be removed from God’s book, we shall have to give an account of them at the judgment.
Verse 2. “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”
The word “iniquity” means “that which is turned out of its proper course” and thus denotes moral crookedness or perversion. By this description sin is presented as wilful, deliberate wrong done from a bad nature. If David had supposed that years of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit had reached to the root of his depravity, he now knew better. Yet only that powerful divine agency could cleanse his wicked heart, therefore he prays: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity.” And we will pray for the same if we have discovered in some measure the truth about our hearts. God says that they are “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” What a cleansing must take place ere a sinner is made fit for heaven!
But the royal transgressor prays on: “Cleanse me from my sin.” Sin is yet another term and means “missing the mark.” The idea here is that of failure to be what one ought to be, or to do what one ought to do. A sinner is a person whose will is culpably out of harmony with the will of his Maker and Lawgiver. Where God requires love there is only the contrary, and therefore failure to realise the purpose of one’s existence. Oh the shame of it! The innumerable sins which mar our lives are all failures of duty. No success achieved in other departments of our lives can outweigh the ignominy of our constant moral failures. What reason we all have to echo David’s prayer to have all these failures washed away in Emmanuel’s blood and to be clothed with his immaculate righteousness so that the shame of our nakedness may not appear! (Rev. 3, v. 18).
Verse 3. “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.”
David confesses his sins all to be deserving of wrath. In their guilt, vileness and enslaving power they are a burden upon his spirit — ever before him. Where there is grace, sin produces inward pain, shame and sorrow which can only be relieved by confession to God and forgiveness. Is penitent confession of sin your own daily exercise, or is sin only an occasional disturber of your peace? “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ (1 John 1, v. 9, 10).