Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 51

Have mercy upon me, O God — This is the utterance of a full heart; a heart crushed and broken by the consciousness of sin. The psalmist had been made to see his great guilt; and his first act is to cry out for mercy. There is no attempt to excuse his sin, or to apologize for it; there is no effort to vindicate his conduct; there is no complaint of the righteousness of that holy law which condemned him. It was guilt that was before his mind; guilt only; deep and dreadful guilt. The appeal properly expresses the state of a mind that is overwhelmed at the remembrance of crime, and that comes with earnestness to God to plead for pardon.

The only hope of a sinner when crushed with the consciousness of sin is the mercy of God; and the plea for that mercy will be urged in the most earnest and impassioned language that the mind can employ. Accordingly to your lovingkindness. On the meaning of the word used here, see the notes at Psalms 36:7.

• The ground of his hope was the compassion of God.
• The measure of that hope was His boundless beneficence; or, in other words, he felt that there was need of all the compassion of a God.

His sin was so great, his offense was so aggravated, that he could have no hope but in a Being of infinite compassion, and he felt that the need of mercy in his case could be measured and covered only by that infinite compassion.

According to the multitude of your tender mercies — The same idea occurs here also. The psalmist fixed his eye on the vastness of the divine mercy; on the numberless acts of that mercy toward the guilty; here he found his hope, and here alone. Every instance of extraordinary mercy which had occurred in the world furnished him now with an argument in his appeal to God; was an encouragement to him in that appeal; was a ground of hope that his appeal would not be rejected. So to us: every instance in which a great sinner has been forgiven is evidence that we may be forgiven also, and is an encouragement to us to come to God for pardon. See the notes at 1 Timothy 1:16.

Blot out my transgressions — In allusion to an account that is kept, or a charge made, when such an account is wiped away, erased, or blotted out. Compare Exodus 32:32-33; see the notes at Isaiah 43:25; notes at Isaiah 44:22; notes at Colossians 2:14. Never was a more earnest appeal made by a sinner than that which is made in this verse; never was there a more sincere cry for mercy.

It shows us where we should begin in our prayers when we are pressed down with the consciousness of sin: with a cry for mercy, and not an appeal to justice.

It shows us what is to be the ground and the measure of our hope: the mere compassion of an infinitely benevolent God.

It shows us the place which we must take, and the argument on which we must rely: a place among sinners, and an argument that God has been merciful to great sinners, and that therefore He may be merciful to us.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity — literally, “Multiply to wash me.” The word rendered “thoroughly” is a verb, either in the infinitive or imperative mood, and suggests the idea of “multiplying” or “increasing.” The reference is to that which might need constant or repeated washings to remove a stain, with the adverbial sense denoting intensity or thoroughness. On the word “wash” as applicable to sin, see the notes at Isaiah 1:16.

And cleanse me from my sin — Remove it entirely. Make me wholly pure. See the notes at Isaiah 1:16. In what manner he hoped that this would be done is shown in the following portions of the psalm. It was:

1. by forgiveness of the past (Psalms 51:9); and
2. by making the heart pure and holy through the renewing and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit (Psalms 51:10–11).

For I acknowledge my transgressions - literally, I know, or make known. That is, he knew that he was a sinner, and he did not seek to cloak or conceal that fact. He came with the knowledge of it himself; he was willing to make acknowledgment of it before God. There was no attempt to conceal it; to excuse it. Compare the notes at (Psalms 32:5). The word for does not imply that he referred to his willingness to confess his sins as an act of merit, but it indicates a state of mind which was necessary to forgiveness, and without which he could not hope for pardon.

And my sin is ever before me - That is, it is now constantly before my mind. It had not been so until Nathan brought it vividly to his recollection (2 Samuel 12:1 and following); but after that it was continually in his view. He could not turn his mind from it. The memory of his guilt followed him; it pressed upon him; it haunted him. It was no wonder that this was so. The only ground of wonder in the case is that it did not occur before Nathan made that solemn appeal to him, or that he could have been for a moment insensible to the greatness of his crime.

The whole transaction, however, shows that people may be guilty of enormous sins, and have for a long time no sense of their criminality; but that when the consciousness of guilt is made to come home to the soul, nothing will calm it down. Everything reminds the soul of it; and nothing will drive away its recollection. In such a state the sinner has no refuge - no hope of permanent peace - but in the mercy of God.

Against you, you only, have I sinned - That is, the sin, considered as an offense against God, now appeared to him so enormous and so aggravated, that, for the moment, he lost sight of it considered in any other of its bearings. It was a sin, as all other sins are, primarily and mainly against God; it derived its chief enormity from that fact.

We are not to suppose that David did not believe and notice that he had done wrong to people, or that he had offended against human laws, and against the well-being of society. His crime against Uriah and his family was of the deepest and most aggravated character, but still the offense derived its chief heinousness from the fact that it was a violation of the law of God. The state of mind here illustrated is that which occurs in every case of true penitence.

It is not merely because what has been done is a violation of human law; it is not that it brings us to poverty or disgrace; it is not that it exposes us to punishment on earth from a parent, a teacher, or civil ruler; it is not that it exposes us to punishment in the world to come: it is that it is of itself, and apart from all other relations and consequences, an offense against God; a violation of His pure and holy law; a wrong done against Him, and in His sight.

Unless there is this feeling, there can be no true penitence. And unless there is this feeling, there can be no hope of pardon, for God forgives offenses only as committed against Himself—not as involving us in dangerous consequences or as committed against our fellow men.

And done this evil in your sight - Or, when Your eye was fixed on me. (Compare the notes at Isaiah 65:3). God saw what he had done; and David knew, or might have known, that the eye of God was upon him in his wickedness.

It was to him then a great aggravation of his sin that he had dared to commit it when he knew that God saw everything. The presence of a child—or even of someone with very limited understanding—would restrain people from many acts of sin which they would venture to commit if alone; how much more should the fact that God is always present, and always sees all that is done, restrain us from open and from secret transgression.

That you might be justified when you speak - That Your character might be vindicated in all that You have said; in the law which You have revealed; in the condemnation of the sin in that law; and in the punishment which You may appoint.

That is, he acknowledged his guilt. He did not seek to apologize for it, or to vindicate it. God was right, and he was wrong.

The sin deserved all that God in His law had declared it to deserve; it deserved all that God by any sentence which He might pass upon him would declare it to deserve. The sin was so aggravated that any sentence which God might pronounce would not be beyond what it justly deserved.

And be clear when you judge - Be regarded as right, holy, pure, in the judgment which You may appoint. (See this more fully explained in the notes at Romans 3:4).

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity - The object of this important verse is to express the deep sense David had of his depravity. That sense was derived from the fact that this was not a sudden thought, a mere outward act, or an offence committed under the influence of strong temptation, but that it was the result of an entire corruption of his nature—of a deep depravity of heart, running back to the very beginning of his being. The idea is that he could not have committed this offence unless he had been thoroughly corrupt, and always corrupt.

The sin was as heinous and aggravated as if in his very conception and birth there had been nothing but depravity. He looked at his sin, and he looked back to his own origin, and he inferred that the one demonstrated that in the other there was no good thing, no tendency to goodness, no germ of goodness, but that there was evil, and only evil; as when one looks at a tree and sees that it bears sour or poisonous fruit, he infers that it is in the very nature of the tree, and that there is nothing else in the tree, from its origin, but a tendency to produce just such fruit.

Of course, the idea here is not to cast reflections on the character of his mother, or to refer to her feelings in regard to his conception and birth, but the design is to express his deep sense of his own depravity; a depravity so deep as to demonstrate that it must have had its origin in the very beginning of his existence.

The word rendered I was shapen—חוללתי (chôlaletiy)—is from a word—חול (chûl)—which means properly, “to turn around, to twist, to whirl;” and then it comes to mean “to twist oneself with pain, to writhe;” and then it is used especially with reference to the pains of childbirth (Isaiah 13:8; Isaiah 23:4; Isaiah 26:18; Isaiah 66:7–8; Micah 4:10).

That is the meaning here. The idea is simply that he was born in iniquity; or that he was a sinner when he was born; or that his sin could be traced back to his very birth—as one might say that he was born with a love of music, or with a love of nature, or with a sanguine, a phlegmatic, or a melancholy temperament.

There is not in the Hebrew word any idea corresponding to the word shapen, as if he had been formed or moulded in that manner by divine power. Instead, the entire meaning of the word is exhausted by saying that his sin could be traced back to his very birth. It was so deep and aggravated that it could be accounted for—or that he could express his sense of it—in no other way than by saying that he was born a sinner.

How that occurred, or how it was connected with the first apostasy in Adam, or how the fact that he was born this way could be vindicated, is not intimated, nor is it alluded to. There is no statement that the sin of another was imputed to him, or that he was responsible for the sin of Adam, or that he was guilty on account of Adam’s sin, for on these points the psalmist makes no assertion.

It is worthy of remark, further, that the psalmist did not endeavor to excuse his guilt on the ground that he was born in iniquity; nor did he allude to that fact with any purpose of exculpating himself.

The fact that he was born this way only deepened his sense of his own guilt, or showed the enormity of the offence which was the regular result or outbreak of that early depravity. The points, therefore, which are established by this expression of the psalmist, so far as the language is designed to illustrate how human nature is conceived, are:

1. that people are born with a propensity to sin; and
2. that this fact does not excuse us in sin, but rather tends to aggravate and deepen our guilt.

The language goes no further than this in regard to the question of original sin or native depravity. The Septuagint agrees with this interpretation: ἰδοὺ γὰρ ἐν ἀνομίαις συνελήφθην (idou gar en anomiais sunelēphthēn). So the Vulgate: in iniquitatibus conceptus sum.

And in sin did my mother conceive me - Margin, as in Hebrew, warm me. This language simply traces his sin back to the time when he began to exist. The previous expression traced it to his birth; this expression goes back to the very beginning of life, when there were the first indications of life. The idea is, “as soon as I began to exist I was a sinner; or, I had then a propensity to sin—a propensity, the sad proof and result of which is that enormous act of guilt which I have committed.”