Psalms

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Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, O God, in your kindness.
In your compassion blot out my offence.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.

My offences truly I know them;
my sin is always before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned;
what is evil in your sight I have done.

That you may be justified when you give sentence
and be without reproach when you judge,
O see in guilt I was born,
a sinner was I conceived.

Indeed you love truth in the heart;
then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.
O purify me, then I shall be clean;
O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me hear rejoicing and gladness,
that the bones you have crushed may thrill.
From my sins turn away your face
and blot out all my guilt.

A pure heart create for me, O God,
put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
nor deprive me of your holy spirit.

Give me again the joy of your help;
with a spirit of fervour sustain me,
that I may teach transgressors your ways
and sinners may return to you.

O rescue me, God, my helper,
and my tongue shall ring out your goodness.
O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall declare your praise.

For in sacrifice you take no delight,
burnt offering from me you would refuse,
my sacrifice, a contrite spirit.
A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.

In your goodness, show favour to Sion:
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be pleased with lawful sacrifice,
(burnt offerings wholly consumed),
then you will be offered young bulls on your altar.

Commentary

Among the penitential psalms this one is the most important because it captures the essence of true repentance. It grasps the real depths of sin and shows the way unerringly to restore communion with God. With Romans 7 in the New Testament it has deep insight into the struggles of the human heart during a great spiritual battle. David wrote this psalm after Nathan, the prophet, had called him to account for his adultery with Bathsheba, and the murder of her husband (see 2 Samuel 11:12). The last two verses are a later addition to the psalm, when it was re-interpreted after the Exile at the time of the rebuilding of the Temple, somewhere between 539 and 445 BC.

Have mercy on me, O God, in your kindness.
In your compassion blot out my offence.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.
                                           (vv. 1-2).

Full of distress David turns imploringly to God and asks for mercy, that very special quality of loving-kindness in the heart of God which opens the way for sinners to be reconciled with Him. Mercy is that quality of “bending over backwards” by which God reaches out with forgiveness and salvation to the sinner. To this special love of God David appeals successfully. Were he not so conscious of this divine mercy he might have broken under the sheer weight of his guilt. He has such a tremendous sense of sinfulness that it does not occur to him to appeal to past integrity, as happens so often in the psalms. This time he knows that there is no hope for him outside divine mercy. Only God can blot out his sin, and cleanse his soul from its defilement. He knows that forgiveness is not enough. He must be thoroughly cleansed so that there is no recurrence of the problem. He begs God, therefore, to see him through his rehabilitation.

My offences truly I know them;
my sin is always before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned;
what is evil in your sight I have done.

That you may be justified when you give sentence
and be without reproach when you judge,
O see in guilt I was born,
a sinner was I conceived.

Indeed you love truth in the heart;
then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.
                                               (vv. 3-6).

The first step on the road to conversion is self-knowledge, and David is well and truly there. His is not the momentary sorrow of one who will go away forgetting what has happened. Instead, it is the deep shock that true self-knowledge brings, the shock of the responsibility one bears before God and one’s neighbour. Confronted in prayer with the reality of God’s presence he confesses his sin, acknowledging his rebellion before God. Yet it is obvious that he does not expect the wrath of God to come upon him, for he speaks with such simplicity, candour and truthfulness that he reveals a deep love for God in spite of his sin. He knows, too, that the depth of healing will depend on the extent to which he opens the real wound to God.

Seeing his sins, even those against his neighbour, in the wider setting, David realizes that all sin is basically rebellion against God. Obedience to God’s will in this case would have ensured the safety and freedom of Uriah and his wife. As it is, both of them have lost everything. Suddenly David becomes aware of being caught in a twofold mystery: the majesty of God, and His right to judge David for his actions on the one hand; and on the other, he sees that God has used the present pain to arouse the sinner to come to Him in his helplessness, so that mercy and forgiveness, rather than judgement, can be given. Thus it is in the recognition of his sinfulness that David comes to understand God better, both in the seriousness of His dealings with us, and in the greatness of His loving mercy. This same principle still holds good for today (see Romans 11:30-32).

On reviewing his life David realizes that “sinner” is our true title, because from our birth we entered a world of sinful and sinning humanity, a world full of good and evil. The tendency to self-will and rebellion shows early in life, and we need no schooling in this! All our other sins find their roots here, and if they are not checked, we shall become addicted to self-glorification and self-advancement, both of which the unbelieving world considers to be normal behaviour. This insight given to David by God, in prayer, is the beginning of wisdom. It is given to all who sincerely seek God. This truth about the reality of the human condition is felt, at first, to be humiliating, but ultimately it leads to our liberation, for when we throw ourselves on God’s mercy it releases His power and grace into our souls, to purify us from all sin, not just this specific sin. Like a good gardener God prefers to pull up the weeds by the roots.

O purify me, then I shall be clean;
O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me hear rejoicing and gladness,
that the bones you have crushed may thrill.
From my sins turn away your face
and blot out all my guilt.
                                   (vv. 7-9).

Comforted by God’s response in receiving him, and by the revelation just granted, David cries out again to be purified from his sin, until his soul has fully recovered from the fall. Thinking of the rights for the purification of lepers, and sinners, where they were sprinkled with the blood of the sacrificial animal using a hyssop stick, David desires the utter joy of the leper who has just been declared clean (see Leviticus 14:4-6; Luke 17:16; Mark 1:45). Joy and gladness well up in the heart of the cleansed sinner too, in the realization of the undeserved forgiveness received, and also because the burden of guilt and shame that oppressed them has been lifted.

A pure heart create for me, O God,
put a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
nor deprive me of your holy spirit.

Give me again the joy of your help;
with a spirit of fervour sustain me,
that I may teach transgressors your ways
and sinners may return to you.
                                     (vv. 10-13).

At this point David sees that forgiveness and mercy are not enough. He needs to be given strength and wisdom to face the future with a different attitude to life. He knows that he cannot sustain a life of virtue without God’s help, for he is aware of the tendency to slip back into the old habits. He needs the gift of fortitude and a steadfast spirit to enable him to persevere in doing good. Only God can transform the human heart, so David requests this now (see Jeremiah 31:31-33; Ezekiel 36:25ff).

Remembering the sad events that ended the life of King Saul, his predecessor, David now pleads with God not to remove the Holy Spirit from him (see 1 Samuel 16:14). To be cast out of God’s presence and deprived of His guidance and protection would be the ultimate punishment, which David realizes will happen if he perseveres in rebellion against God. To enjoy God’s presence is the great boast of God’s friends, since the time of Abraham to the present day. We carry the wonder of His promise, “I will be with you”, everywhere we go. This gives us access to God in prayer at any time and in any place. To be deprived of this privilege would cause unthinkable anguish in anyone who had ever known God (see Exodus 3:12; Matthew 28:20, etc.).

Only God can raise us from servile obedience based on fear to a joyful loving commitment to His will. This is what is requested now so that David can become a joyful messenger of good news to others (see Acts 4:20). It is a true conversion that turns so completely from sin to concentrate on helping to prevent others from going down the same slippery slope that caused his own downfall. David will confirm his conversion by teaching others the way of righteousness he has just learned.

O rescue me, God, my helper,
and my tongue shall ring out your goodness.
O Lord, open my lips
and my mouth shall declare your praise.

For in sacrifice you take no delight,
burnt offering from me you would refuse,
my sacrifice, a contrite spirit.
A humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.
                                        (vv. 14-17).

At this point David asks to be delivered from danger – perhaps the danger of death. He realizes that everything comes from the hand of God as pure gift, both his life and his ability to praise God again, but it is God who must open his lips so that praise can come forth, for he now knows his utter dependence on God for all his good. It was the custom to offer thanksgiving sacrifices to God at that time (see Leviticus 7:12, 22:29; Psalm 107:22, etc.), and also to make vows, but David breaks out of this mould and boldly states that the “circumcision of the heart” is more pleasing to God than all the sacrifices he could offer (see Jeremiah 4:4; Romans 2:29). He knows that our relationship with God is wholly spiritual and that conversion of heart and surrender to God are the essential elements in it. The prophets concur with this teaching; they tried to uncover for the people their underlying motivation to worship and called for the conversion of the heart as the essential element of religion (see Amos 5:21-26;
Hosea 6:6, etc.). True conversion is a lifelong commitment of surrender to God, where the greatest sacrifice we can render to God is the sacrifice of our self-will; indeed it is the only one truly pleasing to Him. Here David has picked up the essential element, offering sacrifice, and raised it to its highest spiritual peak.


In your goodness, show favour to Sion:
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will be pleased with lawful sacrifice,
(burnt offerings wholly consumed),
then you will be offered young bulls on your altar.
                                             (vv. 18-19).

It is generally agreed that these last verses were an addition to the psalm in the post-exilic era when the Temple was being rebuilt and the sacrificial cult restored. Amazingly it misinterprets the psalm. The author of the appendix wants the teaching of the psalm to be interpreted in the light of the absence of the sacrificial cult during the Exile, and expresses the hope that now, in its restoration, God will receive “right” and “proper” sacrifices. He does not realize that there is only one more sacrifice that God wants to receive, namely that of the Messiah, given for the redemption of the world. 

This psalm reveals a fundamental breakthrough in the spiritual life, one that releases us from being “religious” to being truly spiritual. It comes through radically facing one’s own sinfulness, through the gate of self-knowledge. In a general way we all acknowledge ourselves to be sinners. We may be deeply religious and yet there can be attitudes in us that prevent us from making progress, even though we may belong to a prayer group and claim to be walking in the Spirit.

God, in His mercy, has to allow us to come up against the wall of self-will, stubbornness, rebellion, and our refusal to listen to advice, before we will face our sinfulness in a radical way. He has to permit circumstances that show up our resistance to grace, our self-glorification in our so-called good deeds, and our complacency in being “good” and “religious”, unlike the rest of men. Not until we are confronted by this mass of evidence will we face the conversion that is called for. If the sight of our sinfulness merely depresses us we show that we are still not ready for the moment of grace. Only when the pain and the shame drive us into the loving arms of Jesus are we ready to discover the One who is the friend of outcasts and sinners (see Luke 5:29-32). He will receive us, but we must come before Him in truth, in humility and self-distrust. In persevering prayer God will show us the roots of sin, and reveal to us life-long habits of sin – attitudes that we have adopted and accepted as part of our
personality – that are not until now seen as sinful at all. To face our radical innate sinfulness is a great grace. Like David, we then see that we need far more than forgiveness if we are to be set free, and we, too, will ask for the deep cleansing of our souls and the purification of the heart which is so essential to the true service of God. We may also need re-education in our habits which are not changed easily. As we struggle to come free, we shall go through a stage of always seeing our sin before us as David did. Only then can we appreciate the rebellion against God that is involved in the service of the self. As we grow, God will give us insight into our real motivation in our relationships and other situations in life, thus enabling us to savour the deep sinfulness inherent in human nature. The knowledge can be so crushing at times that our health can suffer, and God alone can restore our joy by the gift of His forgiveness, healing and peace.

After many humiliating failures to overcome the all-pervasive ego, we realize that God will have to accomplish in us what we cannot do for ourselves. He will have to give us the “new heart and the new spirit” that He promised (see Ezekiel 36:25-26). He alone can give us the inner fortitude to face the struggle and see it through, and He alone can keep us walking a life of virtue. Therefore we ask Him to bring this to pass in us so that it will be all of grace, and all the glory will go to Him.  Realizing that our transgressions are many we develop a deep sense of sinfulness, and our prayer is now laced with humility and reverence (see Isaiah 59:12-13; Jeremiah 14:7-20). We know that our rebellion grieves the Holy Spirit who indwells us, so we beg God to keep us close to Him and let us experience the joy of His continuing work in us (see Isaiah 63:10-11; Ephesians 4:30). At last it dawns upon us that the relationship between God and the individual person is that between a Saviour and a sinner always. This
brings great relief, and we can get on with living off God’s divine mercy and loving-kindness, and forgetting not only our own “holiness” but ourselves altogether. With this, peace comes at last.

Now we realize how utterly dependent on God we really are. He alone can bring us true enlightenment that leads to conversion, and the circumcision of the heart. He alone can bring us true joy and peace, and put the praise of God upon our lips and in our hearts. We surrender to Him utterly, knowing that the humbled contrite heart is indeed pleasing to Him, and that the sacrifice of the surrender of the self is the only gift He asks of us. When it is given, He can use us to teach others the way of peace, and help us to rebuild His Church.

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