This Psalm is dedicated to the chief musician, so that it was intended to be sung. Yet it is not by any means a joyous piece of music. It seems more fit to be sung or sighed as a solo for the solitary penitence of a broken heart than for the united songs of believers. Yet, in God's ear, it is clear that the voice of penitence is full of music, for this penitential Psalm is dedicated to the chief musician.
Psalms 51:1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness:
No eye can spy out the tender attributes of God like an eye that is sore with weeping on account of acknowledged sin, so David prays, «Have mercy upon me O God, according to thy lovingkindness.» This word «lovingkindness» is a rich double word, and it was specially suitable just then, for he who has a broken heart bruised and broken on account of sin, needs double mercy from God.
Psalms 51:1. According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
«They are on record, and I cannot erase the terrible lines, nor canst thou erase them, O Lord, without displaying a multitude of thy tender mercies. It will need omnipotence itself to get rid of this gravure in the brass; therefore, according unto the multitude of the tender mercies blot out my transgressions.»
Psalms 51:2. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity.
«Wash me through and through, O Lord; wash me thoroughly!» A hypocrite is satisfied with the washing of his garments, but the true penitent cries, «Wash me. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity. It is almost the only thing that I can really call my own, and it is most sadly mine, O Lord, wash mine iniquity right away!»
Psalms 51:2. And cleanse me from my sin.
«If washing will not suffice, put me in the fire; but somehow, anyhow, O Lord, cleanse me from my sin!» You notice that David's prayer is not concerning the punishment of his sin, but concerning the sin itself. That is the one thing which is eating into his heart; see how many words he uses to describe it: «My sin, mine iniquity, my transgressions.» He cries to God to help him to get rid of that which is the source of all his sorrow. The thief dreads the gallows, but the penitent fears not the punishment of his sin, it is the sin itself that terrifies him.
Psalms 51:3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
«I cannot get away from it and I cannot get rid of it. It stares me in the face, it haunts me in my lying down and my rising up. I am obliged to acknowledge my sin, for it is ever before me.»
Psalms 51:4. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight:
«It is true that I have grieved others, and that I have done much injury to others by my sin; but, in all this, I have sinned most against thee. The virus the essence of my sin is that it has been committed against thee, O my God!»
Psalms 51:4. That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
«My sin was committed within thy jurisdiction, and against thy law, O Lord; and, therefore, as I am summoned to appear at thy court, I cannot disobey the summons. I am compelled to give an answer to the charge brought against me; and my answer is that I am guilty, without any extenuating circumstances that I can plead before thee, O Lord! I am guilty through and through.»
Psalms 51:5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
David does not say that by way of making an excuse for himself; but rather to aggravate his own guilt. He admits that his guiltiness is really a part of himself. He does not say, «Lord, I was acting contrary to my nature when I committed this sin. Thou knowest that it was not like me to do that.» Oh, no! but he says, «Lord, thou knowest that I was acting quite in accordance with my nature, it was just like me to fall into this terrible sin.» We have sometimes heard people say that they were surprised to find that they had been guilty of certain sins; let it not be so with you, but rather be you surprised to find yourself kept from guilt, wonder when you are preserved from sin, for the whole tendency of unrenewed human nature is towards iniquity. «In sin did my mother conceive me.»
Psalms 51:6. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
As much as to say, «Lord, that which thou desires» to see in me is not there; and though thou hast made me also to desire it, yet I fear that I have not at present gone beyond the desire, for still within me, in my secret soul, there lies a tendency to evil, and unless I keep a strict watch over myself, I soon go astray. Lord, make me inwardly clean; I cannot bear that it should be otherwise with me.»
Psalms 51:7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:
As the priest purges the unclean man by dipping the bunch of hyssop into the blood of the sacrifice, and then sprinkling him with it, so, «purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.»
Psalms 51:7. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
«That is to say, I shall be clean if thou dost wash me, O Lord! My own washings make me no cleaner; my own purgations make me fouler than I was before; but if thou wilt purge me, and if thou wilt do it with the sacrificial blood, then I shall be whiter than snow.» This is grand faith on David's part. I cannot help calling your attention to it, that he, with a sense of his sin heavy upon him, and bowed down to the very earth with the consciousness of his great guilt, yet dares to say, «Wash me,» adulterous, murderous David, «wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.» No faith brings greater glory to God than the faith of the audaciously guilty when they dare to believe that God can forgive them.
Not even the unfallen seraphim can render to God purer homage than when thou, a defiled and condemned sinner, darest to believe in the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, and so to believe as to say, with David, «Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.»
Psalms 51:8. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
If a good man ever goes astray, he may depend upon it that his sin will be very costly to him, and the better a man is, the more expensive will his sin be to him in the long run. God breaks the very bones of his children when he chastens them for their sin. I do not doubt that, many a time, their pilgrim way has been all the more weary in their later days by reason of their sins in their earlier days. There is many a pain, that shoots through old bones, that is meant to remind the old bones what they were when they were young. God will certainly chasten us for our iniquities if we are his own people.
Psalms 51:9. Hide thy face from my sins,
«Lord, do not look at them. Refuse to see them. Hide thy face, not from me, but from my sins.»
Psalms 51:9. And blot out all mine iniquities.
See how he comes back to that note again and again; he is never long away from it. There are certain tunes in which one note is constantly repeated, so is it here. David prays, «O God, put away my sin, blot out my sin, forgive my sin.» He cries for nothing else but that: «Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.» He longs for the time when not one of them shall be in existence.
Psalms 51:10-11. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
These are the groanings of a true child of God. Never has a man, without the Spirit of God within him, prayed to God in this fashion. David, therefore, notwithstanding all his sin, still had the life of God within his soul, and when Nathan came to reprove him, the sacred fire began to burn again. Here are some of the sparks of it, and some of the smoke of it, too:
«Cast me not away from thy presence.
Dismiss me not thy service, Lord.»
«Say not, I can no longer use you. You shall no longer stand in my courts, for you have disgraced my livery; get you gone from my presence.' ‘Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.'»
Psalms 51:12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
David longs for his Lord to some back to him. When God flogs his children, they still cling to him, and they cry to him. They do not wish to run away, and hide themselves from him. No, their only comfort is to weep upon their Father's bosom, and to wait for the kiss of forgiveness from his lips. So David prays, «Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.»
Psalms 51:13. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
Do you not see, brothers and sisters, that we must be in a right state of heart if we are to serve God well? We cannot teach transgressors his way, with a confident hope that they will be converted unto him, unless we ourselves possess the joy of God's salvation, and are upheld by his good Spirit. If we go to God's work out of order, we shall make a mess of it, and accomplish nothing that is really worth doing; but when God gives us his comforting grace within, and his upholdings on every hand, then shall we teach with power, and sinners shall learn to profit: «Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee.»
Psalms 51:14. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
None sing so loudly the praises of redeeming grace as those who have been forgiven great sins. There is no music, outside heaven, that has such a volume of God-glorifying praise in it as the song of the man who loves much because he has had much forgiven: «My tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.»
Psalms 51:15. O Lord, open thou my lips;
He felt as if he could not be trusted to open his own lips; and, certainly, he was not to be trusted to open his own eyes, for when he had aforetime opened them, he had looked on that which led him into sin. So now he would have God to keep his very lips, that he shall never speak again except as he shall be guided from on high: «O Lord, open thou my lips;»-
Psalms 51:15-16. And my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it:
Very naturally, David's mind began to think of the multitudes of bullocks, and lambs, and rams, that were burnt upon Jehovah's altar. There is nothing that makes a man so spiritual, and so Evangelical, as a deep sense of sin. You cannot be a sacramentarian and a ceremonialist long if you have a broken heart. Those pretty toys do very well for the kind of «miserable sinners» who do not know what either misery or sin means; but he who really has had his heart broken, on account of the guilt of his sin, cannot be content with the mere outward sacrifice, he must have that which is spiritual: «Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it:»
Psalms 51:16-17. Those delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are as broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
David has to feel that it is better to have one genuine sigh for sin than to make ten thousand bullocks shed their blood upon the sacrificial altar; and if thou art truly broken from thy sin, if thou dost really hate it, and cry to God for the pardon of it, if the Spirit of God has really given thee complete cleansing from thy guilt by the precious blood of Jesus this is better than all the material sacrifices offered in all the temples that were ever built, and overlaid with gold. «The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.»
Psalms 51:18. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
As much as though David said, «I have done great hurt to Zion, I have pulled down the walls of Jerusalem by my sin; now, Lord build them up again; undo the mischief which thy poor foolish servant has wrought by his backslidings.» So may any backsliders amongst us pray to the Lord, «Visit thy Church so graciously, Lord, that my sin may not injure her!»
Psalms 51:19. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.
Oh, yes, we are sure to bring to God the best that we have when we once get our sins forgiven. After we have looked to Christ, who is the one great sacrifice for sin, then we bring to God all that we can to show how grateful we are for his pardoning mercy.
This exposition consisted of readings from Psalms 51:1. and 142.