Psalm 51:1-19 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness… The prayers of the Bible are among its sublimest treasures. Prayer does not set forth merely what I am, but what I would be; it is my ideal life; it is a glimpse and a struggling after a higher mode of being. "Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." Mark the thoroughness of this desire. Not only must sin be blotted out, but the sinner himself must be washed and cleansed. There must not be merely a change of state, but a change of nature. Not only must the debt be forgiven, but all disposition to contract further debt must be eradicated. David at the outset of the psalm appeals for mercy. No penitent asks for justice. The Pharisee may, not the publican. But for sin we should never have known the merciful side of the Divine government. We should have known nothing but law. As we are indebted to the storm for the rainbow, so we are indebted to sin for the better boon of earth-encircling mercy. "I acknowledge my transgressions." Confession is a necessary basis for forgiveness, and is a convergence of right judgment, right feeling, right action. But there are many kinds of expression which are wholly unavailing. As the selfish confession of the criminal who turns king's evidence. The defiant confession of the man who glories in his crime. The careless confession made with an air of indifference and is insensible of the turpitude of his crime. But David's is far other than these. "My sin is ever before me." The point to be noted here is the distinct personal relation which every man sustains to his own sin. Try for a moment to embody sin. Personify iniquities! Let each transgression assume material manifestation. Covetousness — a lean, gaunt, spectral image; with outstretched bony fingers; with eager eyes, in which is written the expression of an insatiable hunger. Look at that and call it your sin. Unholy anger, with swollen lips and fire-lit eyes, and heaving breast; oaths and blasphemies might well burn on such lips and glare out of such eyes. That unholy anger is yours (ver. 4). "Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned." Some sins exclusively against God, others against man also; but none are exclusively against man. But whosoever sins against man sins against God. Let all oppressors heed this. While it is true, therefore, that you can sin against God without directly sinning against man, yet it is equally true that you cannot sin against God without diminishing your power to promote the highest interests of man; so that sin is an enemy in every respect — hateful to God, hurtful to man, darkening the heavens, burdening the earth! What shall be our prayer in relation to it? "Wash me throughly," etc. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: {To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.} Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. |
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