Psalm 32

Psalms 32

(v. 1,2) The happiness of a pardoned sinner.

(v. 3-7) The misery that went before, and the comfort that followed the confession of sins.

(v. 8-11) Sinners instructed, believers encouraged.

(v. 1,2) The happiness of a pardoned sinner.

Psa 32:1: Verses 1-2. Sin is the cause of our misery; but the true believer's transgressions of the Divine law are all forgiven, being covered with the atonement. Christ bare his sins, therefore they are not imputed to him. The righteousness of Christ being reckoned to us, and we being made the righteousness of God in him, our iniquity is not imputed, God having laid upon him the iniquity of us all, and made him a sin-offering for us. Not to impute sin, is God's act, for he is the Judge. It is God that justifies. Notice the character of him whose sins are pardoned; he is sincere, and seeks sanctification by the power of the Holy Ghost. He does not profess to repent, with an intention to indulge in sin, because the Lord is ready to forgive. He will not abuse the doctrine of free grace. And to the man whose iniquity is forgiven, all manner of blessings are promised.

(Psa 32:1 NIV) Of David. A maskil. Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

(Psa 32:2 NIV) Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

(v. 3-7) The misery that went before, and the comfort that followed the confession of sins.

Psa 32:3: Verses 3-7. It is very difficult to bring sinful man humbly to accept free mercy, with a full confession of his sins and self-condemnation. But the true and only way to peace of conscience, is, to confess our sins, that they may be forgiven; to declare them that we may be justified. Although repentance and confession do not merit the pardon of transgression, they are needful to the real enjoyment of forgiving mercy. And what tongue can tell the happiness of that hour, when the soul, oppressed by sin, is enabled freely to pour forth its sorrows before God, and to take hold of his covenanted mercy in Christ Jesus! Those that would speed in prayer, must seek the Lord, when, by his providence, he calls them to seek him, and, by his Spirit, stirs them up to seek him. In a time of finding, when the heart is softened with grief, and burdened with guilt; when all human refuge fails; when no rest can be found to the troubled mind, then it is that God applies the healing balm by his Spirit.

(Psa 32:3 NIV) When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

(Psa 32:4 NIV) For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah

(Psa 32:5 NIV) Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"-- and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

(Psa 32:6 NIV) Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him.

(Psa 32:7 NIV) You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah

(v. 8-11) Sinners instructed, believers encouraged.

Psa 32:8: Verses 8-11. God teaches by his word, and guides with the secret intimations of his will. David gives a word of caution to sinners. The reason for this caution is, that the way of sin will certainly end in sorrow. Here is a word of comfort to saints. They may see that a life of communion with God is far the most pleasant and comfortable. Let us rejoice, O Lord Jesus, in thee, and in thy salvation; so shall we rejoice indeed.

(Psa 32:8 NIV) I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.

(Psa 32:9 NIV) Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.

(Psa 32:10 NIV) Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him.

(Psa 32:11 NIV) Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!

PSALM 32 - Daily Study Bible, G. Knight

Renewal Even from Guilt

Psalm 32:1–11

A Psalm of David. A Maskil.

1Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

2Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3When I declared not my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

4For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

5I acknowledged my sin to thee, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Selah

6Therefore let every one who is godly offer prayer to thee; at a time of distress, in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him.

7Thou art a hiding place for me, thou preservest me from trouble; thou dost encompass me with deliverance. Selah

8I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; will counsel you with my eye upon you.

9Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not keep with you.

10Many are the pangs of the wicked; but steadfast love surrounds him who trusts in the Lord.

11Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

A Maskil. We are not sure what this word means. Its root has to do with teaching. Perhaps the old Hebrew editors, when placing this psalm in their “hymn book”, saw how the godly (verse 6) have something most important to learn about the relationship between confession and forgiveness.

Blessedness. To experience forgiveness is sheer blessedness, that is, to have one’s rebellious acts against God’s hesed “taken away”, and one’s ordinary stupid sins “covered over”. The two verbs are rhymed in this verse. Both of them give us a picture of what God does. In Zech. 5:5–11 we see Wickedness being pushed into a barrel and the lid slapped down upon her (not upon her sins!). Then two more women, with wings like storks, pick up the barrel and fly off with it to the land of Shinar, the land of the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:2). That is the one picture. The other is that of “covering over”, and it comes from the way in which certain sacrifices did just that. The sacrificer had first laid his hands on the head of the beast that went up to God in smoke, in order to identify himself with it. He went up in smoke, then, not just his sins. But God lays his hands over the sinner and his deeds saying, “I can’t even see them now.” Surely that is grace!

We have four words here used to describe our human sin: (a) Rebellion—against God’s covenant love, or “transgression” in the RSV, unfortunately. (b) The word sin in the RSV; it means really “missing out on the true goal of life”. (c) Iniquity or crookedness of character. (d) Deceit, or laziness, or perversion of the spirit. Surely that suffices!

Stubbornness. But this poet, at verse 3, —was it David himself?—expected to receive what the Christian martyr Bonhoeffer described as “cheap grace”. There is the famous story of the philosopher Heinrich Heine, in the eighteenth century, who was visited by a friend when he was dying. “Do you believe that God has forgiven your sins?” the friend asked him. To which Heine made the famous reply: “Dieu me pardonnera; c’est son métier!”—“God will forgive me; that’s his job!” But David has discovered here that God had not forgiven him, and that he is still guilty in God’s sight. Moreover, since body and soul are all one, even his body is showing the effect of his state of unforgivenness. And this physical exhaustion he was undergoing was God’s doing! Consequently he was, quite literally, now “worried sick”, as we say today. Does Selah here suggest that we pause and try to understand what this painful condition means?

Confession. Finally, at verse 5, David has a conversation with himself. That is sometimes a valuable thing to do. He decides at last to confess to God the reason for this festering self-loathing he is undergoing, and not to hide (the word used of God’s action in verse 1, viz. where it is rendered “covered”) anything at all from God’s eyes; and then, in making his confession, he repeats all the words for sin he has used at verses 1–2! Then, he says, with emphasis, thou didst forgive the guilt (or remove the penalty) of my sin!

Then comes another Selah. What are we meant to contemplate in the pause that follows? It is surely this, that forgiveness and the removal of guilt are two different things. To take an extreme case—I may murder a man and then turn to God and ask his forgiveness even for such a terrible deed. But the dreadful reality is that I cannot undo what I have done. David himself knew all about this horror. He had given orders that one of his faithful army officers was to be sent to a point of danger where it was inevitable that he would be killed, as he was (2 Sam. 11:14–15)! I cannot face the dead man’s wife and excuse myself to her by saying that God has forgiven me. Forgiveness for the sinful act is clearly not enough. Involved in it also is reparation. God offers to remove from my heart the guilt of my deed, the sense of horror, of self-loathing, of alienation from the murdered man’s wife—in fact to wipe clean the whole horrible situation, and to let me begin again, a new man. But first, I must confess it!

Since (verse 6) that is what the removal of guilt, the penalty of iniquity, implies, David calls upon every one of the covenant people (the godly) to pray to God when all hell breaks loose within their hearts, when the chaotic flood that flows under the earth and which represents the powers of evil seeks to drown them. It is the prayer that Jesus has taught us in four simple words: “Deliver us from evil.” God does just this by (a) being our hiding-place from trouble, and (b) by placing his saving arms around us, so to speak, whether the evil comes at us from beyond us or from below us.

Now comes the word used in the psalm’s heading. Let me instruct and teach you the way. Who is the speaker here? Is it the psalmist still, now that God has rescued him and heard his guilt-laden confession? The way in that case does not mean “following the moral law”, even the Law of Moses. It is turning back to the Father, like the Prodigal Son did, and saying, “Father, I have sinned…” Not to come home and tell him all one has done is completely stupid. An animal cannot feel the blessedness of relief at freedom from guilt; a man or woman can. Fancy living your life with a stone in your heart when there is a way to have it removed, a way by which one’s whole life can be renewed.

The two ways. And how they contrast! There are the pangs of the wicked, says the psalmist, and there is accepting the hesed of God.

The temple musicians now take up the theme of the poet and turn the whole preceding ten verses into a congregational hymn. “Be glad in the Lord” they sing, not in one’s experience of renewal, not in the new sense of relief that is so amazing, but in the Lord. Keep your priorities right, is what they are saying.