Blessedness consisteth in remission of sins. Confession of sins giveth ease to the conscience. God's promises bring joy.
A Psalm of David, Maschil.
Title. משׁכיל Maschil— It is thought that David in this psalm, being awakened to a fresh sense of his sin in the affair of Uriah by his son Absalom's rebellion, expresses his deep repentance for having thus heinously offended God; and therefore it is called in the Hebrew, " משׁכיל לדוד ledavid maskil, The Maschil of David; i.e. David's instruction; and in the LXX, David's συνεσις, " or his return to a right understanding of himself. Psalms with this title are generally of a moral nature, and designed to dispose the mind to attention and reflection. The Arabic title asserts, that David spoke this prophetically of the redemption of mankind; and the Syriac informs us, that it treats of the sin and fall of Adam, and contains a prophecy of Christ, by whom we are delivered from hell. And St. Paul gives great support to this assertion by his quotation, Romans 4:8. Though composed upon a particular occasion, the psalm was afterwards adapted to public use by the Jewish church, and was solemnly repeated on the great day of expiation, when the whole nation made a general confession of their sins.
Psalms 32:1. Whose sin is covered— Namely, by God, and not by man; who ought to confess and not to hide it. See Psalms 32:5. Covered from the wrath of God; who will not, upon man's repentance, and unfeigned belief in the great Mediator take any cognizance of it. This seems to be a metaphor, taken from writers who obliterate what is faulty. In whose spirit there is no guile, in the next verse, or prevarication, means, "whose sorrow for sin is sincere, and deeply affects his mind."