1 Blessed he whose transgression is taken away, whose sin is
covered,
2 Blessed the man to whom Jehovah reckons not iniquity,
In whose spirit is no guile.
3 When I kept silence, my bones rotted away,
Through my roaring all the day.
4 For day and night Thy hand weighed heavily upon me;
My sap was turned [as] in droughts of summer. Selah.
5 My sin I acknowledged to Thee, and my iniquity I covered not,
I said, I will confess because of my transgressions to Jehovah,
And Thou--Thou didst take away the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
6 Because of this let every one beloved [of Thee] pray to Thee in a
time of finding;
Surely when great waters are in flood, to him they shall not
reach.
7 Thou art a shelter for me; from trouble wilt Thou preserve me,
[With] shouts of deliverance wilt encircle me. Selah.
8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou
shouldest go;
I will counsel thee, [with] mine eye upon thee.
9 Be not ye like horse, like mule, without understanding,
Whose harness to hold them in is bit and bridle,
Else no coming near to thee.
10 The wicked has many sorrows,
And he who trusts in Jehovah--with loving-kindness will He
encircle him.
11 Rejoice in Jehovah, and exult, ye righteous;
And shout joyfully, all ye upright of heart.
One must have a dull ear not to hear the voice of personal experience in
this psalm. It throbs with emotion, and is a burst of rapture from a
heart tasting the sweetness of the new joy of forgiveness. It is hard
to believe that the speaker is but a personification of the nation, and
the difficulty is recognised by Cheyne's concession that we have here
"principally, though not exclusively, a national psalm." The old opinion
that it records David's experience in the dark time when, for a whole
year, he lived impenitent after his great sin of sense, and was then
broken down by Nathan's message and restored to peace through pardon
following swiftly on penitence, is still defensible, and gives a fit
setting for this gem. Whoever was the singer, his song goes deep down to
permanent realities in conscience and in men's relations to God, and
therefore is not for an age, but for all time. Across the dim waste of
years, we hear this man speaking our sins, our penitence, our joy; and
the antique words are as fresh, and fit as close to our experiences, as
if they had been welled up from a living heart to-day. The theme is the
way of forgiveness and its blessedness; and this is set forth in two
parts: the first (vv. 1-5) a leaf from the psalmist's autobiography, the
second (ver. 6 to end) the generalisation of individual experience and
its application to others. In each part the prevailing division of
verses is into strophes of two, each containing two members, but with
some irregularity.
The page from the psalmist's confessions (vv. 1-5) begins with a burst
of rapturous thankfulness for the joy of forgiveness (vv. 1, 2),
passes to paint in dark colours the misery of sullen impenitence (vv.
3, 4), and then, in one longer verse, tells with glad wonder how
sudden and complete was the transition to the joy of forgiveness by
the way of penitence. It is a chart of one man's path from the depths
to the heights, and avails to guide all.
The psalmist begins abruptly with an exclamation (Oh, the blessedness,
etc.). His new joy wells up irrepressibly. To think that he who had gone
so far down in the mire, and had locked his lips in silence for so long,
should find himself so blessed! Joy so exuberant cannot content itself
with one statement of its grounds. It runs over in synonyms for sin and
its forgiveness, which are not feeble tautology. The heart is too full
to be emptied at one outpouring, and though all the clauses describe the
same things, they do so with differences. This is true with regard to
the words both for sin and for pardon. The three designations of the
former present three aspects of its hideousness. The first, rendered
("transgression,") conceives of it as rebellion against rightful
authority, not merely breach of an impersonal law, but breaking away
from a rightful king. The second ("sin") describes it as missing a mark.
What is in regard to God rebellion is in regard to myself missing the
aim, whether that aim be considered as that which a man is, by his very
make and relations, intended to be and do, or as that which he proposes
to himself by his act. All sin tragically fails to hit the mark in both
these senses. It is a failure as to reaching the ideal of conduct, "the
chief end of man," and not less so as to winning the satisfaction sought
by the deed. It keeps the word of promise to the ear, and breaks it to
the hope, ever luring by lying offers; and if it gives the poor delights
which it holds out, it ever adds something that embitters them, like
spirits of wine methylated and made undrinkable. It is always a blunder
to do wrong. The last synonym ("iniquity") means crookedness or
distortion, and seems to embody the same idea as our words "right" and
"wrong," namely the contrast between the straight line of duty and the
contorted lines drawn by sinful hands. What runs parallel with law is
right; what diverges is wrong. The three expressions for pardon are also
eloquent in their variety. The first word means taken away or lifted
off, as a burden from aching shoulders. It implies more than holding
back penal consequences; it is the removal of sin itself, and that not
merely in the multitudinousness of its manifestations in act, but in the
depth of its inward source. This is the metaphor which Bunyan has made
so familiar by his picture of the pilgrim losing his load at the cross.
The second ("covered") paints pardon as God's shrouding the foul thing
from His pure eyes, so that His action is no longer determined by its
existence. The third describes forgiveness as God's not reckoning a
man's sin to him, in which expression hovers some allusion to cancelling
a debt. The clause "in whose spirit is no guile" is best taken as a
conditional one, pointing to sincerity which confesses guilt as a
condition of pardon. But the alternative construction as a continuation
of the description of the forgiven man is quite possible; and if thus
understood, the crowning blessing of pardon is set forth as being the
liberation of the forgiven spirit from all "guile" or evil. God's kiss
of forgiveness sucks the poison from the wound.
Retrospect of the dismal depth from which it has climbed is natural to a
soul sunning itself on high. Therefore on the overflowing description of
present blessedness follows a shuddering glance downwards to past
unrest. Sullen silence caused the one; frank acknowledgment brought the
other. He who will not speak his sin to God has to groan. A dumb
conscience often makes a loud-voiced pain. This man's sin had indeed
missed its aim; for it had brought about three things: rotting bones
(which may be but a strong metaphor or may be a physical fact), the
consciousness of God's displeasure dimly felt as if a great hand were
pressing him down, and the drying up of the sap of his life, as if the
fierce heat of summer had burned the marrow in his bones. These were the
fruits of pleasant sin, and by reason of them many a moan broke from his
locked lips. Stolid indifference may delay remorse, but its serpent fang
strikes soon or later, and then strength and joy die. The Selah
indicates a swell or prolongation of the accompaniment, to emphasise
this terrible picture of a soul gnawing itself.
The abrupt turn to description of the opposite disposition in ver. 5
suggests a sudden gush of penitence. As at a bound, the soul passes from
dreary remorse. The break with the former self is complete, and effected
in one wrench. Some things are best done by degrees; and some, of which
forsaking sin is one, are best done quickly. And as swift as the resolve
to crave pardon, so swift is the answer giving it. We are reminded of
that gospel compressed into a verse, "David said unto Nathan, I have
sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath
put away thy sin." Again the three designations of sin are employed,
though in different order; and the act of confession is thrice
mentioned, as that of forgiveness was. The fulness and immediateness of
pardon are emphatically given by the double epithet "the iniquity of thy
sin" and by the representation that it follows the resolve to confess,
and does not wait for the act. The Divine love is so eager to forgive
that it tarries not for actual confession, but anticipates it, as the
father interrupts the prodigal's acknowledgment with gifts and welcome.
The Selah at the end of ver. 5 is as triumphant as that at the close of
ver. 4 had been sad. It parts the autobiographical section from the more
general one which follows.
In the second part the solitary soul translates its experience into
exhortations for all, and woos men to follow on the same path, by
setting forth in rich variety the joys of pardon. The exhortation
first dwells on the positive blessings associated with penitence (vv.
6, 7), and next on the degradation and sorrow involved in obstinate
hard-heartedness (vv. 8-10). The natural impulse of him who has known
both is to beseech others to share his happy experience, and the
psalmist's course of thought obeys that impulse, for the future "shall
pray" (R.V.) is better regarded as hortatory "let ... pray." "Because
of this" does not express the contents of the petitions, but their
reason. The manifestation of God as infinitely ready to forgive should
hearten to prayer; and, since God's beloved need forgiveness day by
day, even though they may not have fallen into such gross sin as this
psalmist, there is no incongruity in the exhortation being addressed
to them. "He that is washed" still needs that feet fouled in muddy
ways should be cleansed. Every time of seeking by such prayer is a
"time of finding"; but the phrase implies that there is a time of not
finding, and, in its very graciousness, is heavy with warning against
delay. With forgiveness comes security. The penitent, praying,
pardoned man is set as on a rock islet in the midst of floods, whether
these be conceived of as temptation to sin or as calamities. The
hortatory tone is broken in ver. 7 by the recurrence of the personal
element, since the singer's heart was too full for silence; but there
is no real interruption, for the joyous utterance of one's own faith
is often the most winning persuasive, and a devout man can scarcely
hold out to others the sweetness of finding God without at the same
time tasting what he offers. Unless he does, his words will ring
unreal. "Thou art a shelter for me" (same word as in xxvii. 5, xxxi.
20), is the utterance of trust; and the emphasis is on "my." To hide
in God is to be "preserved from trouble," not in the sense of being
exempt, but in that of not being overwhelmed, as the beautiful last
clause of v. 7 shows, in which "shouts of deliverance" from trouble
which had pressed are represented by a bold, but not harsh, metaphor
as ringing the psalmist round. The air is filled with jubilant voices,
the echoes of his own. The word rendered "songs" or preferably
"shouts" is unusual, and its consonants repeat the last three of the
preceding word ("shalt preserve me"). These peculiarities have led to
the suggestion that we have in it a "dittograph." If so, the remaining
words of the last clause would read, "Thou wilt compass me about with
deliverance," which would be a perfectly appropriate expression. But
probably the similarity of letters is a play upon words, of which we
have another example in the preceding clause where the consonants of
the word for "trouble," reappear in their order in the verb "wilt
preserve." The shout of joy is caught up by the Selah.
But now the tone changes into solemn warning against obstinate disregard
of God's leading. It is usual to suppose that the psalmist still speaks,
but surely "I will counsel thee, with mine eye upon thee," does not fit
human lips. It is to be observed, too, that in ver. 8 a single person is
addressed, who is most naturally taken to be the same as he who spoke
his individual faith in ver. 7. In other words, the psalmist's
confidence evokes a Divine response, and that brief interchange of
clinging trust and answering promise stands in the midst of the appeal
to men, which it scarcely interrupts. Ver. 9 may either be regarded as
the continuance of the Divine voice, or perhaps better, as the
resumption by the psalmist of his hortatory address. God's direction as
to duty and protection in peril are both included in the promise of ver.
8. With His eye upon His servant, He will show him the way, and will
keep him ever in sight as he travels on it. The beautiful meaning of the
A.V., that God guides with a glance those who dwell near enough to Him
to see His look, is scarcely contained in the words, though it is true
that the sense of pardon binds men to Him in such sweet bonds that they
are eager to catch the faintest indications of His will, and "His looks
command, His lightest words are spells."
Vv. 9, 10, are a warning against brutish obstinacy. The former verse
has difficulties in detail, but its drift is plain. It contrasts the
gracious guidance which avails for those made docile by forgiveness
and trust with the harsh constraint which must curb and coerce mulish
natures. The only things which such understand are bits and bridles.
They will not come near to God without such rough outward constraint,
any more than an unbroken horse will approach a man unless dragged by
a halter. That untamableness except by force is the reason why "many
sorrows" must strike "the wicked." If these are here compared to "bit"
and "bridle," they are meant to drive to God, and are therefore
regarded as being such mercies as the obstinate are capable of
receiving. Obedience extorted by force is no obedience, but approach
to God compelled by sorrows that restrain unbridled licence of tempers
and of sense is accepted as a real approach and then is purged into
access with confidence. They who are at first driven are afterwards
drawn, and taught to know no delight so great as that of coming and
keeping near God.
The antithesis of "wicked" and "he that trusteth in Jehovah" is
significant as teaching that faith is the true opposite of sinfulness.
Not less full of meaning is the sequence of trust, righteousness, and
uprightness of heart in vv. 10, 11. Faith leads to righteousness, and
they are upright, not who have never fallen, but who have been raised
from their fall by pardon. The psalmist had thought of himself as
compassed with shouts of deliverance. Another circle is cast round him
and all who, with him, trust Jehovah. A ring of mercies, like a fiery
wall, surrounds the pardoned, faithful soul, without a break through
which a real evil can creep. Therefore the encompassing songs of
deliverance are continuous as the mercies which they hymn, and in the
centre of that double circle the soul sits secure and thankful.
The psalm ends with a joyful summons to general joy. All share in the
solitary soul's exultation. The depth of penitence measures the height
of gladness. The breath that was spent in "roaring all the day long"
is used for shouts of deliverance. Every tear sparkles like a diamond
in the sunshine of pardon, and he who begins with the lowly cry for
forgiveness will end with lofty songs of joy and be made, by God's
guidance and Spirit, righteous and upright in heart.