Psalms 51:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Have mercy upon me, O God O thou, who art the supreme Lawgiver, Governor, and Judge of the world, whom I have most highly offended many ways, and, therefore, may most justly be condemned to suffer the effects of thy severest displeasure; I cast myself down before thee, and humbly supplicate for mercy. O pity, help, and answer me in the desires I am now about to spread before thee; according to thy loving- kindness Thy known clemency and infinite compassions. For I pretend to no merit: I know my desert is everlasting destruction of body and soul; but I humbly implore the interposition of thy free grace and unmerited goodness. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies Hebrew, רחמיךְ, rachameicha, thy bowels of mercies, yearning over thy fallen, sinful, and miserable creatures. Thy mercies are infinite, and, therefore, sufficient for my relief: and such mercies, indeed, do I now need. “How reviving,” says Chandler, “is the belief and consideration of these abundant and tender compassions of God, to one in David's circumstances; whose mind laboured under the burden of the most heinous, complicated guilt, and the fear of the divine displeasure and vengeance!” Blot out מחה, mechee, deleto, absterge, destroy, wipe away, my transgressions That is, entirely and absolutely forgive them; so that no part of the guilt I have contracted may remain, and the punishment of it may be wholly remitted. The word properly signifies to wipe out, or to wipe any thing absolutely clean, as a person wipes a dish: see 2 Kings 21:13. Blot out my transgressions As a debt is blotted or crossed out of the book, when either the debtor has paid it, or the creditor has remitted it; wipe them out That they may not appear to demand judgment against me, nor stare me in the face to my confusion and terror. Give me peace with thee, by turning away thine anger from me, and taking me again into thy favour; and give me peace in my own conscience, by assuring me thou hast done so.