and cleansing of garments as fullers wash and cleanse their cloths. 2
Kings xviii. 7; Exod. xix. 10; Levit. xvii. 15.—_Samuel Chandler._
_Verse 2.—“Wash me throughly from mine iniquity.”_ No other washing will
do it but _lava tu_, wash thou; so foul, as it will need his washing
_throughly_.—_Samuel Page, in “David’s Broken Heart,” 1646._
_Verse 2.—“Wash me throughly.”_ Heb. _multiply to wash me_; by which
phrase he implies the greatness of his guilt, and the insufficiency of
all legal washings, and the absolute necessity of some other and better
thing to wash him, even of God’s grace, and the blood of
Christ.—_Matthew Pool._
_Verse 2.—“Wash me ... cleanse me.”_ But why should David speak so
superfluously? use two words when one would serve? For if we be
cleansed, what matter is it whether it be by washing or no? Yet David
had great reason for using both words; for he requires not that God
would cleanse him by miracle, but by the ordinary way of cleansing, and
this was washing; he names therefore washing as the means, and cleansing
as the end: he names washing as the work a-doing, and cleansing as the
work done; he names washing as considering the agent, and cleansing as
applying it to the patient; and indeed, as in the figure of the law
there was not, so in the verity of the gospel there is not any ordinary
means of cleansing, but only by washing; and therefore out of Christ our
Saviour’s side there flowed water and blood.—_Sir Richard Baker._
_Verse 2.—“Cleanse me from my sin.”_ Observe, it is from the guilt, and
not from the punishment, that he thus asks deliverance. That the sword
should never depart from his house; that the sin, begun, not only
secretly even in its full accomplishment, but far more secretly in the
recesses of David’s heart, should be punished before all Israel and
before the sun; that the child so dear to David should be made one great
punishment of his offence; these things, so far as this Psalm is
concerned, might, or might not be. It is of the offence against God; of
the defiling, although it were not then so expressly declared, God’s
temple by impurity, that David speaks.—_Ambrose, in J. M. Neale’s
Commentary._
_Verse 2.—“Sin.”_ The original word signifies to miss an aim, as an
archer does who shoots short of his mark, beyond, or beside it. It is
also used for treading aside, or tripping, in the act of walking. In a
spiritual sense it denotes deviation from a rule, whether by omission or
commission.—_Thomas T. Biddulph, A.M., in Lectures on the Fifty-first
Psalm, 1835._
_Verse 2._—Sin is filthy to think of, filthy to speak of, filthy to hear
of, filthy to do; in a word, there is nothing in it but
vileness.—_Archibald Symson._
_Verse 3.—“For I acknowledge my transgressions,”_ etc. To _acknowledge
our transgressions_, there is confession; and _to have our sin ever
before us_, there is conviction and contrition. To acknowledge our
transgressions, I say, is to confess our sins; to call them to mind, to
bring them back to our remembrance what we can; to own them with shame,
and to declare them with sorrow; to reckon them up one by one, to give
in a particular account of them, as far as our memory will serve, and to
spread them before the Lord, as Hezekiah did Rabshakeh’s letter, and in
an humble sense of our own vileness to implore his goodness, that he
would multiply his mercies over us, as we have multiplied our
transgressions against him, in the free and full forgiveness of them
all. _To have our sin ever before us_, is throughly to be convinced of
it, to be continually troubled in mind about it, to be truly humbled
under the sense of it, and to be possest of those dreads and terrors of
conscience which may never let us rest or enjoy any quiet within our own
breast till we have reconciled ourselves to a gracious God for it.—_Adam
Littleton._
_Verse 3.—“I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before
me.”_ There cannot be _agnitio_ if there be not _cognitio peccati_, an
acknowledging, unless there precede a knowledge of sin. David puts them
together. If our sins be not before us, how can we set them before God?
And therefore, to the right exercise of this duty, there is required a
previous examination of our hearts, inspection into our lives, that we
may be enabled to see our sins. He that hath not yet asked himself that
question, _Quid feci?_ What have I done? can never make the confession,
_sic feci_, thus and thus have I done; and in this respect I would,
though not require, yet advise it as a pious and prudent practice, and
that which I doubt not but many Christians have found benefit by, to
keep a constant daily catalogue, as of mercies received, so of sins
committed.—_Nathanael Hardy._
_Verse 3.—“I,” “my,” “my.”_ David did not think it sufficient to
acknowledge that the whole human race were sinners; but as if he stood
alone in the world, and was the only offender in it, he says, “I
acknowledge _my_ transgressions; and _my_ sin is ever before
me.”—_Charles de Coetlogon._
_Verse 3._—“MY _sin_.” David owneth his sin, and confesseth it his own.
Here is our natural wealth: what can we call our own but sin? Our food
and raiment, the necessaries of life, are borrowings. We came hungry and
naked into the world, we brought none of these with us, and we deserved
none of them here. Our sin came with us, as David after confesseth. We
have right of inheritance in sin, taking it by traduction and
transmission from our parents; we have right of possession. So Job:
“Thou makest me to possess the sins of my youth.”—_Samuel Page._
_Verse 3._—“_My_ SIN.” It is sin, as sin, not its punishment here, nor
hereafter, not simply any of its evil consequences; but sin, the sin
against God, the daring impiety of my breaking the good and holy law of
this living, loving God.—_Thomas Alexander, D.D., in “The Penitent’s
Prayer,” 1861._
_Verse 3.—“Ever before me.”_ Sorrow for sin exceeds sorrow for
suffering, in the continuance and durableness thereof: the other, like a
landflood, quickly come, quickly gone; this is a continual dropping or
running river, keeping a constant stream. “_My sins_,” saith David,
“_are ever before me_;” so also is the sorrow for sin in the soul of a
child of God, morning, evening, day, night, when sick, when sound,
feasting, fasting, at home, abroad, ever within him. This grief begins
at his conversion, continues all his life, ends only at his
death.—_Thomas Fuller._
_Verse 3.—“Before me.”_ _Coram populo_, before the people; shame to him:
_coram ecclesia_, before the church; grief to them: _coram inimicis_,
before the enemies; joy to them: _coram Deo_, before God; anger against
him: _coram Nathane_, before Nathan; a chiding. But if any hope of
repentance and amendment, it is in _peccatum meum coram me_, _my sin
before me_. Here is the distress of a sinner, he never discerneth how
unhappy he is, till his sin is before him.—_Samuel Page._
_Verse 4.—“Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in
thy sight.”_ This verse is differently expounded by different persons,
and it has ever been considered, that this one little point is the
greatest difficulty that is met with in the whole Psalm. Although,
therefore, I leave it to others to go according to their own
interpretations, yet I have a good hope that I shall be enabled to give
thee true and genuine meaning of the text. This, then, I would first of
all advise the reader to do—to bear in mind that which I observed at the
beginning of the Psalm, that David is here speaking in the person of all
the saints, and not in his own person only, nor in his own person as an
adulterer. Although I do not say it might not be, that it was this fall
which, as a medium, brought him under the knowledge of himself and of
his whole human nature, and made him think thus: “Behold! I, so holy a
king, who have with so much pious devotedness observed the law and the
worship of God, have been so tempted and overcome by the inbred evil and
sin of my flesh, that I have murdered an innocent man, and have for
adulterous purposes taken away his wife! And is not this an evident
proof that my nature is more deeply infected and corrupted by sin than
ever I thought it was? I who was yesterday chaste am to-day an
adulterer! I who yesterday had hands innocent of blood, am to-day a man
of blood-guiltiness!” And it might be that in this way he derived the
feeling sense of his entire sinfulness, from his fall into adultery and
murder, and from thence drew this conclusion—that neither the tree nor
the fruits of human nature were good, but that the whole was so deformed
and lost by sin, that there was nothing sound left in the whole of
nature. This I would have the reader bear in mind first of all, if he
desire to have the pure meaning of this passage. In the next place, the
grammatical construction is to be explained, which seems to be somewhat
obscure. For what the translator has rendered by the _preterperfect_,
ought to be the _present_: “_Against thee only do I sin_;” that is, I
know that before thee I am nothing but a sinner; or, before thee I do
nothing but evil continually; that is, my whole life is evil and
depraved on account of sin. I cannot boast before thee of merit or of
righteousness, but am evil altogether, and in thy sight this is my
character—I do evil. I have sinned, I do sin, and shall sin to the end
of the chapter.—_Martin Luther._
_Verse 4.—“Against thee, thee only have I sinned.”_ Is there not matter
here to make us at a stand? For, to say, “Against thee have I sinned,”
is most just and fit; but to say, “_Against_ THEE ONLY _I have sinned_,”
seems something hard. It had perhaps been a fit speech in the mouth of
our first parent Adam; he might justly have said to God, “_Against thee
only have I sinned_,” who never sinned against any other; but for us to
say it, who commit sins daily against our neighbours, and especially for
David to say it, who had committed two notorious sins against his
neighbour and faithful friend Uriah, what unfitter speech could possibly
be devised? But is it not that these actions of David were great wrongs
indeed, and enormous iniquities against Uriah; but can we properly say
they were _sins_ against Uriah? For what is sin, but a transgression of
God’s law? And how then can sin be committed against any but against him
only whose law we transgress? Or is it, that it may justly be said,
“_Against thee only have I sinned_,” because against others perhaps in a
base _tenure_, yet only against God in _capite_? Or is it, that David
might justly say to God, “_Against thee only_ have I sinned;” because
from others he might appeal, as being a king and having no superior; but
no appealing from God, as being King of kings and supreme Lord over all?
Or is it that we may justly say, “_Against thee, thee only, have I
sinned_,” seeing that Christ hath taken and still takes all our sins
upon him; and every sin we commit is as a new burthen laid upon his
back, and upon his back only? Or is it, lastly, that I may justly say,
“_Against thee, thee only, have I sinned_,” because in thy sight only I
have done it? For from others, I could hide it, and did conceal it? But
what can be hidden from thy All-seeing eye? And yet if this had been the
worst, that I had sinned only against thee, though this had been bad
enough, and infinitely too much, yet it might perhaps have admitted
reconcilement; but to do this evil, “_in thy sight_,” as if I should
say, I would do it though thou stand thyself and look on, and as if in
defiance; what sin so formidable? what sin can be thought of so
unpardonable? A sin of infirmity may admit apology; a sin of ignorance
may find out excuse; but a sin of defiance can find no defence.—_Sir
Richard Baker._
_Verse 4.—“Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.”_ There is a godly
sorrow which leads a man to life; and this sorrow is wrought in a man by
the Spirit of God, and in the heart of the godly; that he mourns for sin
because it has displeased God, who is so dear and so sweet a Father to
him. And suppose he had neither a heaven to lose, nor a hell to gain,
yet he is sad and sorrowful in heart because he has grieved God.—_John
Welch, 1576-1622._
_Verse 4._—“_Have_ I _sinned_.” _Me, me, adsum, qui feci_: Here, here am
I that did it. I whom thou tookest from following the ewes great with
lambs, whose sheep-hook thou hast changed for a sceptre, whose sheep for
thine own people Israel, upon whose head thou hast set a crown of pure
gold. I whom thou didst lately invest in the full monarchy of thy
people; to whom thou gavest the possession of Jerusalem from the
Jebusites; I who settled peace, religion, and courts of justice in
Jerusalem, that thou mightest be served and honoured, and I would fain
have built thee an house there; _Ego_, I, to whom God committed the
trust of government to rule others, the trust of judgment to punish
others, as king over his inheritance. I, to whom God committed the care
of others’ souls to guide them by his word, to direct them by good
counsel, to allure them by his gracious promises, to terrify them by his
threatenings, as the Lord’s holy prophet. I, who both ways as king and
prophet should have been an example of holiness and righteousness to all
Israel. Nathan said, _Tu es homo_, thou art the man, in just accusation,
and now David saith, _Ego sum homo_, I am the man, in humble
confession.—_Samuel Page._
_Verse 4.—“I have done this evil.”_ We may find this in experience, that
there be many who will not stick at a general speech that they be
sinners, and yet will scarcely be known of one special evil to account
for. If you fall with them into the several commandments, they will be
ready to discover a conceit that there is scarce one that they are
faulty in. In the first commandment they acknowledge no God but one; in
the second, they do not worship images; in the third, they swear as
little as any, and never but for the truth; in the fourth they keep
their church on Sundays as well as most; in the second table, there is
neither treason, nor murder, nor theft, nor whoredom, nor the like gross
sin, but concerning it they are ready to protest their innocency. He
that shall hear them in particular, I do not see how he shall believe
them in the general, when they say they be sinners; for when you arraign
them at the several commandments they are ready to plead _not guilty_ to
them all. So long as men are thus without sense and apprehension of
particulars, there is no hope of bringing them ever unto good. Happy is
he that is pricked to the heart with the feeling of “_this evil_.” The
truth of repentance for that one, will bring him to a thorough
repentance for his whole estate. _This one evil_ throughly understood,
brought David on his knees, brake his heart, melted his soul, made him
cry for pardon, beg for purging, and importune the Lord for a free
spirit to establish him.—_Samuel Hieron, in “David’s Penitentiall Psalme
opened,” 1617._
_Verse 4.—“In thy sight.”_ David was so bent upon his sin, as that the
majesty and presence of God did not awe him at all: this is a great
aggravation of sin, and which makes it to be so much the more heinous.
For a thief to steal in the very sight of the judge, is the highest
piece of impudence that may be; and thus it is for any man to offend in
the sight of God and not to be moved with it.—_Thomas Horton._
_Verse 4.—“That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be
clear when thou judgest.”_ But hath not David a defence for it here, and
that a very just one? For, in saying, “Against thee, thee only, have I
sinned, _that thou mightest be justified in thy saying_,” doth he not
speak as though he had sinned to do God a pleasure? therefore sinned
that God might be justified? And what can be more said for justifying of
God? But far is it from David to have any such meaning; his words import
not a lessening but an aggravating of his sin, as spoken rather thus:
Because a judge may justly be taxed of injustice if he lay a greater
punishment upon an offender than the offence deserves; therefore to
clear thee, O God, from all possibility of erring in this kind, I
acknowledge my sins to be so heinous, my offences so grievous, that thou
canst never be unmerciful in punishing though thy punishing should be
never so unmerciful. For how can a judge pass the bounds of equity where
the delinquent hath passed all bounds of iniquity? and what error can
there be in thy being severe when the greatness of my fault is a
justification of severity? That thou canst not lay so heavy a doom upon
me, which I have not deserved? Thou canst not pronounce so hard a
sentence against me, which I am not worthy of. If thou judge me to
torture, it is but mildness; if to die the death, it is but my due; if
to die everlastingly, I cannot say it were unjust.—_Sir Richard Baker._
_Verse 5.—“Behold I was shapen in iniquity,”_ etc. He said not, “Behold,
this evil have I done,” but “_Behold I was conceived in sin_,” etc. He
says not, “Behold, _I_, David,” a king, that have received such-and-such
mercies from God, who would have given me more (as God told him), who
had that entire communion with him, and graces from him, I, even I, have
done this evil. No; he keeps it in till he came to this, and then his
heart could hold no longer: “_Oh, behold I was conceived in sin._” His
debasement was at his _auge_ here. And to whom is it he uttered this
_behold_? What, to man? No; his meaning is not to call on men, _q.d._, O
ye sons of men, behold! That is but his secondary aim, arising out of
his having penned it, and delivered it unto the church; but when he
uttered it, it was to God, or rather afore God, and yet not as calling
on God to behold, for that needed not. David had elsewhere said, “God
looked down,” etc., “and beheld the sons of men,” when speaking of this
very corruption. He therefore knew God beheld it sufficiently; but he
utters it afore God, or, as spoken of himself between God and himself,
thereby to express his own astonishment and amazement at the sight and
conviction of this corruption, and at the sight of what a monster he saw
himself to be in the sight of God in respect of this sin. It was a
_behold_ of astonishment at himself, as before the great and holy God;
and therefore it was he seconds and follows it with another _behold_
made unto God: “_Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts._” And
it is as if he had said in both, Oh, how am I in every way overwhelmed,
whilst with one eye cast on myself I see how infinitely corrupt I am in
the very constitution of my nature; and with the other eye I behold and
consider what an infinite holy God thou art in thy nature and being, and
what an holiness it is which thou requirest. I am utterly overwhelmed in
the intuition of both these, and able to behold no more, nor look up
unto thee, O holy God!—_Thomas Goodwin._
_Verse 5.—“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,”_ etc. We are not to
suppose that David here reflects upon his parents as the medium of
transmitting to him the elements of moral evil; and that by the
introduction of the doctrine of original sin he intended to extenuate
the enormity of his own crimes. On the contrary, we are to regard him as
afflicting himself by the humbling consideration that his very nature
was fallen, that his transgressions flowed from a heart naturally at
enmity with God; that he was not a sinner by accident, but by a
depravity of purpose extending to the inmost desires and purposes of the
soul; that there was “a law in his members, warring against the law of
his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin and death”
(Rom. vii. 23); and that he was one of a race of guilty beings, none of
whom could plead an exemption from an evil heart of unbelief, ready at
all times to depart from the living God. Till we see sin in the fountain
of the heart, we shall never truly mourn over it in the life and
conversation.—_John Morison._
_Verse 5.—“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity.”_ He is not low enough down
yet, he must come lower. It is not enough for him to confess that the
water is filthy at the pool; he goes back to the source, and confesses
that the whole river is polluted up to its head. The source is unclean;
the very spring wells forth foul waters.—_Thomas Alexander._
_Verse 5.—“I was shapen in iniquity.”_ I shall not easily be persuaded
to think that parents, who are sinners themselves and too much under the
influence of bad affections and passions, will be very likely to produce
children without transmitting to them some of those disorders and
corruptions of nature with which they themselves are infected. And if
this be a difficulty, I would beg leave to observe that it is a
difficulty which affects natural as well as revealed religion. Since we
must take human nature as it is, and if it be really in a state of
disorder and corruption, and cannot be otherwise, considering the common
law of its production, the difficulty must have been as ancient as the
first man that was born; and therefore can be no objection against the
truth of revelation, but it must be equally so against natural religion,
which must equally allow the thing, if it be in reality a fact, with
revelation itself.—_Samuel Chandler._
_Verse 5._—Infants are no innocents, being born with original sin; the
first sheet wherein they are wrapped is woven of sin, shame, blood, and
filth. Ezek. xvi. 4, etc. They are said to sin as they were in the loins
of Adam, just as Levi is said to pay tithes to Melchisedek, even in the
loins of his forefather Abraham (Heb. vii. 9, 10); otherwise infants
would not die, for death is the wages of sin (Rom. vi. 23); and the
reign of death is procured by the reign of sin, which hath reigned over
all mankind except Christ. All are sinners, infected with the guilt and
filth of sin; the rot (according to the vulgar saying) overrunneth the
whole flock. Hence David reflects upon original sin as the cause of all
his actuals, saying, “_Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did
my mother conceive me._” Thus man’s malady begins betimes, even in our
conception: this subtle serpent sowed his tares very early, so that we
are all “born in sin.” John ix. 34.—_Christopher Ness’s “Divine Legacy,”
1700._
_Verse 5._—Notwithstanding all that Grotius and others have said to the
contrary, I believe David to speak here of what is commonly called
_original sin_; the propensity to evil which every man brings into the
world with him, and which is the fruitful source whence all
transgression proceeds.—_Adam Clarke._
_Verse 6.—“Behold.”_ Before he entereth on any of the parts of the verse
he useth the particle of admiration, “_Behold_;” which he never useth
but in some remarkable manner, thereby the more to raise us up to the
contemplation of such great matters to be told.—_Archibald Symson._
_Verse 6.—“Thou desirest truth in the inward parts.”_ Thou lovest
_truth_, not shadows or images, but realities; thou lovest truth _in the
inward parts_, inside truth, a true heart, a pure conscience: he is a
Christian who is one inwardly. Rom. ii. 29.—_John Ball._
_Verse 6.—“Truth in the inward parts.”_ A great French pear is called
_le bon Chretien_, the good Christian, because they say it is never
rotten at the core.—_George Swinnock._
_Verse 6.—“In the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.”_
Piscator, in his annotations on this Psalm, puts this sense upon it,
that David should bless God for having made him to know this special
wisdom in this hidden thing or matter, and had brought the knowledge
thereof home, as a point of saving wisdom, to the hidden man of his
heart, so as to see fully and clearly this native corruption as the
cause of all sin, and on that account to cause him to lay it to
heart.—_Thomas Goodwin._