Psa. 51:0 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
The events being referenced are related in 2Samuel 11-12. It references the time that David committed adultery with the wife of Uriah, one of his mighty men, and then had him put at the front of the battle to ensure his death when he found out that the woman was pregnant.
Psa. 51:1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
Psa. 51:2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
David knows that in light of his sin, his only hope is in God’s mercy. I’ve always heard mercy defined as not getting what you deserve. That is a true definition, but Webster had another definition which seemed to go hand in hand with the Hebrew: “Disposition to exercise compassion or favor; pity; compassion; willingness to spare or to help.” Although He is righteous and just, He is also a God of love. He is ever ready to respond to a man who is sincerely repentant. David knows this; the history of his people is full of examples. God still pronounces judgment on the sin, but He is always eager for restored fellowship with the child of faith. Jeremiah tells us in the book of Lamentations that God’s mercy is directly connected to His compassion which is limitless.
Lamentations 3:22-23 “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
David wants no less than for his transgression to be blotted out, completely erased. He can’t stand the thought of anything remaining that would keep him from fellowship with God. David realizes he is helpless. Only God can wash him and make him clean again; the Hebrew clarifies that David desires spiritual cleansing.
Psa. 51:3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
David is aware that cleansing cannot happen until he admits his sin. The sacrificial system that God established for the Jewish people emphasized that truth. David is acknowledging that he didn’t just sin; he purposely transgressed. Transgression is a reference to direct rebellion and disregard of God’s law. Sin is a term that includes trespassing but also embodies the fact that we all “fall short” of perfection. David is acknowledging his specific disobedience, but he is also aware that he can never measure up on his own. He is dependent on God’s provision for him.
Guzik: “David didn’t say, ‘My punishment is ever before me,’ or ‘My consequences are ever before me.’ What bothered him was his sin. Many grieve over the consequences of sin, but few over sin itself.”
Psa. 51:4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
I’ve often thought about the first phrase in this verse. Why does David consider his sin to be only against God? Why wasn’t it also against Uriah and Bathsheba, although she participated in the sin of adultery that led to the sin of murder? I think the sin is identified as such because it is direct disobedience to God’s established law. Other people suffered because of David’s actions, but his sin was against God.
David doesn’t mince words; he calls his sin evil. In this case, the sin involved murder and is easily recognized as evil, but we (those who follow God in faith) need to identify every sin as evil. When we try to candy-coat our sin, it sets us up to more readily repeat that sin. If we recognize it as evil, we are more apt to want to avoid that sin.
How often do we think about the fact that when we sin, we sin in the sight of God. He is watching. If only we and David would think about that before we sinned.
The wording in the KJV makes it sound like God’s judgment is righteous only because David’s sin is evil. That is not the case. God’s pronouncement of judgment on David’s sin is righteous and justified—period. It’s because of evil that we understand righteousness.
Psa. 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
David knows that he was born a sinner. He is not saying that it was sinful for his mother to become pregnant and give birth to him. He knew the truth that Paul taught in his letter to the Romans.
Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned….”
Because of Adam’s sin, each and every person born into the world possesses a sin nature, a propensity to sin.
Psa. 51:6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
David is also aware that God looks on the heart, into the true essence of our being. God desires (is pleased with) truth (trustworthiness, faithfulness). David knows that wisdom comes from God.
Exodus 36:2 "And Moses called Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whose heart the LORD had put wisdom….”
Job 38:36 “Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?” (God is speaking to Job in this verse.)
This truth is supported in the New Testament in the book of James.
James 1:5 “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
Spurgeon: “Always has the Holy One of Israel estimated men by their inner nature, and not by their outward professions; to him the inward is as visible as the outward, and he rightly judges that the essential character of an action lies in the motive of him who works it.”
Psa. 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Hyssop is some type of plant that became associated with cleansing because of God’s instruction for its use in purification of the person cured of leprosy and in preparation of the ashes of the red heifer, which were used by the priests for purification from sin. David is expressing his desire to be made pure based upon the system that God had established for the Jewish people. David knows that when God purges his sin and cleanses him, he will be “whiter than snow”—just as if he had never sinned.
The New Testament affirms this truth.
1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Psa. 51:8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
David is filled with such painful remorse that he feels like all his bones have been broken. He knows that the only way he can again experience joy or gladness is through God’s forgiveness—through spiritual healing.
Courson: “This verse is a reference to what a shepherd does when a sheep strays. The shepherd breaks its legs and carries the lamb on his shoulders. As the weeks go by, the lamb develops such a close bond with the shepherd that, when its legs are healed, it never strays from the shepherd again.”
Psa. 51:9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
The Hebrew for the word hide states “to hide (by covering).” Because David is a Hebrew poet, I know he is using the poetic tool of repetition. This helps clarify the meaning of the first phrase. He is not asking God to cover His face or to avoid knowledge of David’s sin; David is asking God to cover his sin—to blot out all his iniquities. The phrase rub out is from the Hebrew word for “erase.” David wants a clean slate before the Lord—a new beginning. He knows that he can again be “whiter than snow” before God if God is the One that cleanses him.
Psa. 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
David continues to express his desire for God’s cleansing and forgiveness. The word create stood out to me. David is basically asking for a brand new heart—a heart that is pure, never tainted by sin, a heart that only God can give him. He is asking for his spirit to be restored to fellowship and peace with God. He is completely aware that his fellowship with God can only be restored by God.
It is exactly the same awareness we must have in coming to God for salvation. Salvation can only be obtained through accepting God’s provision of His Son as a gift in faith. There is nothing that we can do to earn that salvation.
Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Psa. 51:11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
David greatly feared being separated from the presence of God in His life through the departure of the Holy Spirit. He was not secure in his position before God. David’s knowledge of forgiveness was rooted in a sacrificial system that served to forgive sin through a temporary covering that would find complete efficacy with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Sacrifice provided forgiveness, but only to that point in time. The next sin would require another sacrifice.
David’s experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit was as a temporary empowerment given by God to certain people to accomplish His purposes, but it was not necessarily a permanent gifting.
Since the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, we are privileged to enjoy the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, His continual presence in our being, and all the benefits associated with that presence. The Spirit is our seal of salvation—our security.
Ephesians 1:13-14 “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”
The word sealed in verse 13 means “to stamp for security or preservation.” The earnest is a “pledge given as security for the rest” to come.
Psa. 51:12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
David knew what it was to have the joy of the LORD in his life. He no longer possessed that joy. The word for salvation includes the ideas of liberty, deliverance, prosperity and safety. Those would all be terms descriptive of a person who is walking in obedience to and fellowship with the Lord.
Being able to walk in obedience to the LORD is so liberating. You don’t have to guess at what is OK and what is not. He has given us His word just as surely as David had His word to establish what is acceptable and what is not. You don’t have to wonder whether or not you are pleasing God if you are being obedient to God. When you are walking in obedience to God, you can count on God’s deliverance in times of testing or temptation. You can count on spiritual prosperity, which is the most important. You can feel safe and secure knowing that the worst thing that could happen to you (death) is that you get to go to heaven and rejoice in His presence sooner than anticipated.
David also expresses his desire to be able to rely on God’s provision for him through the presence of the Spirit, The Source through whom God reveals His truth and provides comfort and wisdom etc.
Psa. 51:13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
The word then has been added by the translators, unnecessarily in my opinion. At no point do I get the impression that David questions that he will receive God’s complete forgiveness and cleansing. David is declaring his resolve to teach other transgressors about God’s mercy and forgiveness. A teacher is always more effective if he has had personal experience with the subject matter. David is experiencing the very depths of God’s mercy and forgiveness because of his sin. He believes his personal testimony will have a great impact on those who hear it and will result in causing other sinners to “turn back” (from the Hebrew for converted) to God.
Psa. 51:14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
In this verse David is specifically asking forgiveness for murdering Uriah. He knows that only God has the right to take a man’s life. Sad to say, David was a man of war, a man that had taken many lives under the authority that God had established over and through him. I would assume that most of those who died at his hand were “allowed” under God’s authority under King Saul or as God’s appointed authority as the king. I would assume that as a man of war one would become desensitized to the value of human life along the way. It was honorable for a warrior to die in battle, so David didn’t hesitate to put Uriah at the front of the battle when it became obvious that that was his only out. Somehow he lost sight of the fact that God saw his actions and knew that it was a deliberate act of murder.
David acknowledges God as the only One Who can deliver him from the penalty he deserved as established by God’s law. That law stated that one who killed a man was to be killed by man. God did judge David for his sin, but He judged him in mercy based on his repentance. Innocent blood was shed in judgment of David’s sin, the blood of his son.
David is not shy. He is ready to sing aloud the message of God’s righteousness. It is only fitting that a musician would want to express his feelings in song.
Spurgeon: “A great sinner pardoned makes a great singer. Sin has a loud voice, and so should our thankfulness have.”
Psa. 51:15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
“praise” = laudation, a hymn, to be clear, to shine, to make a show, to boast
I thought it was interesting that the word praise was described as a hymn, a form of musical expression. What would the song be boasting about or calling attention to? God and His attributes—His love, mercy and forgiveness. Songs are an expression of the heart. David knew that before he could sing God’s praise, he needed God to give him a clean heart.
Spurgeon: “How marvellously the Lord can open our lips, and what divine things can we poor simpletons pour forth under his inspiration! “
Psa. 51:16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
Psa. 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
These verses are a good example of why David was considered a man after God’s own heart. He was living in a culture that was dominated by sacrifices offered according to God’s own instructions. The natural thought would be that these sacrifices were pleasing to God since they represented a response of obedience. Obedience is always pleasing to God. That is the key. When the child of God sins, it is the heart of that child with which God is most concerned. The offering of sacrifices is an outward expression of repentance and the desire to be forgiven, but just because someone is going through the motions of what was expected doesn’t mean their heart is involved. In that case, it is just a ritual act with no true repentance. David is aware that it is a broken (crushed, destroyed, hurt) and contrite (broken down with grief, deeply sorrowful, thoroughly penitent) heart in which God delights.
Psa. 51:18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
David has unburdened his heart before the LORD and now asks for His blessings on his beloved city and its people. As I looked at the Hebrew, I got a sense that David was asking for spiritual healing for his people and his city. As he repented of his own sin, he could also clearly recognize the sins of his people. “Do good” had reference to “making well, sound and acceptable” among other things. The word build made reference to repairing. Maybe David is thinking more about spiritual walls of protection than the physical walls David is asking for God to do whatever is necessary to bring Jerusalem and its people into right standing before God—a people that will bring Him delight.
Psa. 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.
If the people of Jerusalem repent of their sin and turn back to God, God can again take delight in their sacrifices and burnt offerings. When their obedience to God is reflective of a heart desiring to please God, the sacrifices and offerings become actions that demonstrate dependence and faith in God to provide for them—an attitude of heart that delights the Almighty.
Psalms 52:0 ¶ To the chief Musician, Maschil, A Psalm of David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, and said unto him, David is come to the house of Ahimelech.
This is yet another of the psalms of David. We are told that he wrote it after Doeg the Edomite told Saul about David going to see Ahimelech when he was fleeing from Saul. The narrative of this incident is recorded in 1Samuel 21-22.
Maschil = instructive; a didactic poem, a poem with a moral instruction
Some say David’s subject was Saul, but I tend to think it was Doeg, as referenced in the preface. Consider Coffman’s comments: “Doeg did indeed speak with `a lying tongue'; he concealed from Saul the fact that Abimelech was truly loyal to King Saul and that his helping David was no act of treason whatever. That type of report by Doeg was as malicious and unprincipled a lie as any man ever told, despite the fact of what he said having been true. The falsehood consisted in the implications of what he slanderously reported. It was like the Mate who had charge of the ship's log during a brief illness of the Captain; and he wrote, ‘The Captain was sober today.’"
Psalms 52:1 ¶ Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually.
Psalms 52:2 Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.
Psalms 52:3 Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah.
David is basically saying that no matter how much power a wicked man might wield, it in no way negates the goodness of God. This is a truth that many have a hard time processing. Many presume that because the LORD allows evil men to prosper, He must not be good. They totally refuse to accept that evil is a consequence of the sin of man when Adam, the father of all humans, chose to rebel against God in the very beginning. All men are born with a propensity to sin.
David describes Doeg as a man with a wicked tongue that spoke with deceit that was as effective as a razor cut in accomplishing his objective. He chose evil over good and lying over truth telling. Why? Because he was out for number one, anything that might increase his influence and standing with King Saul; and he didn’t care who got hurt in the process. In fact, he was willing to kill 85 innocent priests at the order of Saul because of his lie; he even went beyond what Saul commanded by killing most of the men, women and children living in Nob.
That is still characteristic of wicked people today. It is so evident in headlines throughout the world—currently on prominent display in American politics and broadcast media.
Spurgeon: “The tyrant's fury cannot dry up the perennial stream of divine mercy. If priests be slain their Master lives. If Doeg for a while triumphs the Lord will outlive him, and right the wrongs which he has done.”
Constable: “David stressed the fact that the treacherous really love their destructive activity. To destroy is bad enough, but to love to do it is worse.”
Selah – A pause, a time for meditation
Psalms 52:4 Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue.
Psalms 52:5 God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, he shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living. Selah.
The psalmist describes Doeg as a man that loves to destroy people with a deceitful tongue. He declares that God will just as surely destroy Doeg and forever remove him from the land of the living.
Though David may have been thinking of physical life, I think the bigger truth is in reference to spiritual life. No one who dies without saving faith in the LORD will enjoy eternal life; their future is one of eternal destruction.
Matthew 7:13–14 “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
2 Thessalonians 1:7–9 “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Spurgeon: “There are words that, like boa constrictors, swallow men whole, or like lions, rend men to pieces; these words evil minds are fond of.”
Psalms 52:6 ¶ The righteous also shall see, and fear, and shall laugh at him:
Psalms 52:7 Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.
I think the CJB is a bit easier to understand: “The righteous will see and be awestruck; they will jeer at him, saying, “This fellow would not make God his refuge, but trusted in his own great wealth, relying on his evil plots.”
In light of the previous verses, I believe David is referring to the response of the righteous at the judgment of God against wicked Doeg, a man of great wealth that trusted in self rather than in God. I could not find that scripture records what happened to Doeg.
Psalms 52:8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.
Psalms 52:9 I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.
In contrast, David compares himself to a green olive tree in the house of God that trusts in the mercy, kindness and love (from the Hebrew) of God, and will continue to do so forever. He is healthy and flourishing in his relationship with God. This is quite a declaration of belief considering the fact that David was on the run for his life from Saul at the time.
In verse 9 it sounds like David is praising God for His judgment against Doeg, but it could be that he is praising God generally for all that He has done on David’s behalf. The Hebrew for “wait” makes reference to expectation and patient waiting. I think he is saying that he is determined to wait upon the LORD who is always good to His saints (even when circumstances tempt one to believe otherwise), those that place their trust in Him.