Psalms 51:17 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The sacrifices of God, &c.— The sacrifices of God are either, such as were fit to be offered to God in consequence of such grievous offences as David had committed, or such as God would regard, or as could be in any degree available to secure his forgiveness through the alone merit of the great Atonement. These sacrifices were a broken spirit, or a broken and contrite heart. The expressions mean in general a mind greatly depressed, humbled, and almost overwhelmed with affliction and grief, of whatever kind, or whencesover they arise. Psalms 34:17-19.; whether from poverty, as Psalms 74:21 or banishment, Psalms 147:2-3.; or captivity or imprisonment, Isaiah 61:1.; or from moral and religious causes, as in the place before us. For David unquestionably means by it, that deep sense of his offence, that affecting concern and grief of heart for the guilt he had contracted, which made him humble himself before God, and take to himself the shame which was his due; filled him with terror lest he should be deserted of God; and rendered him incapable of possessing himself in peace, till God should mercifully restore him to his favour. And it may be observed, that the second word נדכה nidkeh, which we render contrite, denotes the being bruised, or broken to pieces, as a thing is broken and bruised in a mortar: comp. Numbers 11:8 and therefore, in the moral sense, signifies such a weight of sorrow, as must wholly crush the mind, without some powerful and seasonable relief. Such a broken and contrite spirit, upon account of sins so deeply aggravated and heinous as David's were, was the only sacrifice which he possibly could offer to God, and which he knew God would not despise; i.e. would graciously regard and accept, through the merit of the grand Sacrifice. Religious men argued from the infinite goodness of God, and the promises he made to his repentant returning people, that he would forgive, upon a sincere repentance, even those more aggravated sins to which the law of Moses denounced death, and for the expiation of which it had appointed no sacrifices of atonement whatsoever. I cannot omit even Mr. Boyle's remarks upon this head: "David's amour with the wife of Uriah," says he, "and the orders he gave to destroy her husband, are two most enormous crimes; but he was so grieved for them, and shewed forth so admirable a repentance, that this is not the passage in his life wherein he contributes the least to the instruction and education of the faithful. We therein learn the frailty of the saints; and it is a precept of vigilance; we therein learn in what manner we ought to lament our sins; and it is an excellent model." Let me just add, that the wisdom and equity of the law of Moses evidently appears, in that it appointed no sacrifices to atone for such crimes; the pardoning of which would have been inconsistent with the peace and safety of civil society; such as those which David laments in this Psalm, murder and adultery. Here, the punishment prescribed by the law being death, David had no other way of escaping it than by the undeserved mercy of God: God was pleased to extend this mercy to him, to shew how acceptable the sinner's unfeigned repentance will be, through the mediation of Christ, whatever be the nature and aggravation of his offences. And if we learn from hence what the Scripture calls the deceitfulness of sin, to be cautious of the first beginning of it, and not to indulge those sensual appetites, which, when given way to, draw men insensibly into crimes that they would once have trembled at the thoughts of committing; we shall make the best and wisest improvement of this melancholy part of David's history, and be real gainers by his sins and sorrows. Chandler.