John Calvin Commentary Psalms 51

Have mercy upon me. David begins, as I have already remarked, by praying for pardon; and his sin having been of an aggravated description, he prays with unusual earnestness. He does not satisfy himself with one petition. Having mentioned the loving-kindness of the Lord, he adds the multitude of his compassions, to suggest that mercy of an ordinary kind would not suffice for so great a sinner.

Had he prayed God to be favorable, simply according to his clemency or goodness, even that would have amounted to a confession that his case was a bad one; but when he speaks of his sin as remissible only through the countless multitude of the compassions of God, he represents it as particularly atrocious.

There is an implied antithesis between the greatness of the mercies sought for and the greatness of the transgression which required them. Still more emphatic is the expression which follows, multiply to wash me. Some take הרבה, herebeh, for a noun, but this is too great a departure from the idiom of the language. The sense, on that supposition, would indeed remain the same: that God would wash him abundantly and with multiplied washing; but I prefer that form of expression which agrees best with the Hebrew idiom. This, at least, is certain from the expression which he employs: that he felt the stain of his sin to be deep and to require multiplied washings. Not as if God could experience any difficulty in cleansing the worst sinner, but the more aggravated a man’s sin is, the more earnest naturally are his desires to be delivered from the terrors of conscience.

The figure itself, as all are aware, is one of frequent occurrence in Scripture. Sin resembles filth or uncleanness, as it pollutes us and makes us loathsome in the sight of God, and the remission of it is therefore aptly compared to washing. This is a truth which should both commend the grace of God to us and fill us with detestation of sin. Insensible, indeed, must that heart be which is not affected by it!

For I know my sins. He now reveals his reason for imploring pardon with such vehemence: namely, the painful distress his sins caused him, which could only be relieved by his obtaining reconciliation with God. This proves that his prayer did not proceed from insincerity, as many will be found highly commending God's grace, although, in reality, they care little about it, having never felt the bitterness of being exposed to His displeasure.

David, on the contrary, declares that he experiences constant mental anguish because of his sin, and that it is this which gives such earnestness to his prayers. From his example we may learn who can truly be said to seek reconciliation with God in a proper manner.

They are those whose consciences have been wounded by a sense of sin, and who can find no rest until they have obtained assurance of His mercy. We will never seriously ask God for pardon until we have gained such a view of our sins as inspires us with fear.

The more content we are in our sins, the more we provoke God to punish them severely. If we really desire absolution from His hand, we must do more than confess our guilt in words; we must conduct a rigorous and thorough scrutiny into the nature of our transgressions.

David does not simply say that he will confess his sins to other people, but declares that he has a deep inward feeling of them, a feeling that filled him with the keenest anguish. His spirit was very different from that of the hypocrite, who displays complete indifference to this subject or, when it intrudes upon him, tries to bury the memory of it.

He speaks of his sins in the plural. His transgression, although it sprang from one root, was complicated, including adultery, as well as treachery and cruelty; nor had he betrayed only one man, but the whole army which had been summoned to the battlefield in defense of the Church of God. He accordingly recognizes many particular sins as wrapped up in it.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned. It is the opinion of some that he here alludes to the circumstance that his sin, although committed against man, was concealed from every eye but God's. No one was aware of the double wrong he had inflicted on Uriah, nor of the reckless manner in which he had exposed his army to danger. Since his crime was thus unknown to men, it might be said to have been committed exclusively against God.

According to others, David here intimates that, however deeply he was conscious of having injured men, he was chiefly distressed because he had violated the law of God. But I understand his meaning to be this: even if all the world should pardon him, he felt that God was the Judge whom he had to answer to. Conscience summoned him to God's bar, and the voice of man could offer him no relief, however much others might be disposed to forgive, excuse, or flatter.

His eyes and his whole soul were directed to God, regardless of what man might think or say about him. For one who is so overwhelmed by the dreadfulness of being liable to God's sentence, no other accuser is needed. God is to him in place of a thousand.

There is every reason to believe that David, to prevent the flatteries of his court from soothing his mind into a false peace, recognized God's judgment on his offense. He felt that this judgment was, in itself, an intolerable burden, even if he were to escape all trouble from other people.

This will be the practice of every true penitent. It matters little to obtain acquittal at the bar of human judgment, or to escape punishment through the connivance of others, if we suffer from an accusing conscience and an offended God. And perhaps there is no better remedy against self-deception regarding our sins than to turn our thoughts inward, concentrate them on God, and lose every self-satisfied thought in a keen awareness of His displeasure.

Through a forced interpretation, some suggest reading the second clause of this verse, That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, as connected with the first verse of the psalm, arguing that it cannot refer to the immediately preceding sentence. But aside from the fact that this disrupts the order of the verses, what sense could anyone make of the prayer if it then read, have mercy upon me, that thou mayest be clear when thou judgest? Any doubt about the meaning of these words, however, is completely removed by the context in which Paul quotes them in his Epistle to the Romans.

“For what if some did not believe? Shall God be unjust? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mayest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.” (Romans 3:3–4)

Here these words are quoted as proof of the doctrine that God’s righteousness is evident even in men's sins, and His truth in their falsehood. To clearly understand their meaning, we must reflect on the covenant God had made with David.

Since the salvation of the whole world had, in a certain sense, been entrusted to him by this covenant, the enemies of religion might take the opportunity of his fall to exclaim: “Here is the pillar of the Church gone, and what is now to become of the miserable remnant whose hopes rested on his holiness? Once, nothing could be more conspicuous than the glory that distinguished him, but mark the depth of disgrace to which he has been reduced! Who, after such a shameful fall, would look for salvation from his seed?”

Aware that such attempts might be made to challenge God's righteousness, David takes this opportunity to justify it and to charge himself with the entire guilt of the matter.

He declares that God was justified when He spoke—not when He spoke the promises of the covenant (although some have understood the words this way), but rather, God would be justified even if He had pronounced the sentence of condemnation against him for his sin, as He might have done were it not for His free mercy.

Two forms of expression are used here that have the same meaning: that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Since Paul, in the quotation already referred to, altered the latter clause and may even seem to have given a new interpretation to the meaning of the verse, I will briefly show how the words were applicable for the purpose for which he cited them.

He cites them to prove that God’s faithfulness remained unaffected by the fact that the Jews had broken His covenant and fallen from the grace He had promised. Now, at first glance, it may not be clear how they contain the alleged proof. But their suitability will be immediately clear if we reflect on the circumstance to which I have already referred.

When such a great pillar in the Church as David—so illustrious both as a prophet and a king—fell, we cannot help but believe that many were shaken and staggered in their faith in the promises. Many must have been inclined to conclude, considering the close relationship God had established with David, that God was somehow implicated in David's fall.

David, however, rejects an insinuation so damaging to God's honor. He declares that even if God were to cast him headlong into everlasting destruction, his mouth would be shut, or opened only to acknowledge God's unimpeachable justice.

The only way the apostle departs from the passage in his quotation is in using the verb to judge in a passive sense, and reading, that thou mightest overcome, instead of, that thou mightest be clear. In this, he follows the Septuagint, and it is well known that the apostles did not aim for word-for-word precision in their Old Testament quotations.

It is sufficient for us to be satisfied that the passage serves the purpose for which the apostle cited it. The general doctrine taught by this passage is that whatever sins men commit are entirely their own responsibility and can never call into question the righteousness of God.

Men are always ready to criticize His administration when it does not align with the judgment of sense and human reason. But if God should at any time raise people from deep obscurity to the highest honor, or, conversely, allow people who occupied a very prominent position to be suddenly cast down from it, we should learn from the example set before us here to judge God's actions with sobriety, modesty, and reverence. We should also be content that His way is holy, and that God's works, as well as His words, are marked by unfailing righteousness.

The conjunction in the verse, that-that thou mayest be justified, indicates not so much cause as consequence. Properly speaking, it was not David's fall that caused the glory of God’s righteousness to appear. And yet, although men, when they sin, seem to obscure His righteousness, it emerges from that vile attempt brighter than ever, for it is God's unique work to bring light out of darkness.

Behold, I was born in iniquity, etc. He now proceeds further than the mere acknowledgement of one or of many sins, confessing that he brought nothing but sin with him into the world, and that his nature was entirely depraved. He is thus led by the consideration of one offense of peculiar atrocity to the conclusion that he was born in iniquity, and was absolutely destitute of all spiritual good.

Indeed, every sin should convince us of the general truth of the corruption of our nature. The Hebrew word יחמתני, yechemathni, signifies literally, has warmed herself of me, from יחם, yacham, or חמם, chamam, to warm; but interpreters have very properly rendered it has conceived me. The expression intimates that we are cherished in sin from the first moment that we are in the womb.

David, then, is here brought, by reflecting on one particular transgression, to cast a retrospective glance upon his whole past life, and to discover nothing but sin in it. And let us not imagine that he speaks of the corruption of his nature merely as hypocrites will occasionally do, to excuse their faults, saying, “I have sinned, it may be, but what could I do? We are men, and prone by nature to everything which is evil.” David has recourse to no such stratagems for evading the sentence of God, and refers to original sin with the view of aggravating his guilt, acknowledging that he had not contracted this or that sin for the first time lately, but had been born into the world with the seed of every iniquity.

The passage affords a striking testimony in proof of original sin entailed by Adam upon the whole human family. It not only teaches the doctrine, but may assist us in forming a correct idea of it. The Pelagians, to avoid what they considered the absurdity of holding that all were ruined through one man’s transgression, long ago maintained that sin descended from Adam only through force of imitation.

But the Bible, both in this and other places, clearly asserts that we are born in sin, and that it exists within us as a disease fixed in our nature. David does not charge it upon his parents, nor trace his crime to them, but places himself before the Divine tribunal, confesses that he was formed in sin, and that he was a transgressor before he saw the light of this world.

It was therefore a gross error in Pelagius to deny that sin was hereditary, descending in the human family by contagion.

The Papists, in our own day, grant that the nature of man has become depraved, but they extenuate original sin as much as possible, and represent it as consisting merely in an inclination to that which is evil. They also restrict its seat to the inferior part of the soul and the gross appetites; and while nothing is more evident from experience than that corruption adheres to men through life, they deny that it remains in them after baptism.

We have no adequate idea of the dominion of sin unless we conceive of it as extending to every part of the soul, and acknowledge that both the mind and heart of man have become utterly corrupt. The language of David sounds very differently from that of the Papists: I was formed in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. He says nothing of his grosser appetites, but asserts that sin cleaved by nature to every part of him without exception.

Here the question has been raised: How is sin transmitted from parents to children? This question has led to another regarding the transmission of the soul, with many denying that corruption can be derived from the parent to the child, except on the supposition that one soul is begotten from the substance of another.

Without entering into such mysterious discussions, it is enough for us to hold that Adam, upon his fall, was despoiled of his original righteousness, his reason darkened, and his will perverted. Being reduced to this state of corruption, he brought children into the world resembling himself in character.

Should any object that generation is confined to bodies, and that souls can never derive anything in common from one another, I would reply that Adam, when he was endowed at his creation with the gifts of the Spirit, did not act merely as a private individual but represented all mankind. They may be considered as having been endowed with these gifts in his person. From this view, it necessarily follows that when he fell, we all forfeited along with him our original integrity.

Behold, thou hast desired truth, etc. This verse confirms the remark we already made: that David was far from seeking to invent an apology for his sin when he traced it back to the period of his conception. Instead, he intended by this to acknowledge that from his very infancy, he was an heir of eternal death.

He thus represents his whole life as having been liable to condemnation. He is so far from imitating those who arraign God as the author of sin, and impiously suggest that God might have given humanity a better nature, that in the verse now before us, he contrasts God’s judgment with our corruption. This insinuates that every time we appear before God, we are certain of being condemned, since we are born in sin, while He delights in holiness and uprightness.

He goes further and asserts that to meet God's approval, it is not enough for our lives to be conformed to the letter of His law unless our heart is clean and purified from all guile. He tells us that God desires truth in the inward parts, intimating to us that secret, as well as outward and gross sins, arouse His displeasure.

In the second clause of the verse, he aggravates his offense by confessing that he could not plead the excuse of ignorance. He had been sufficiently instructed by God in his duty. Some interpret בסתום, besathum, as if he here declared that God had revealed secret mysteries to him, or things hidden from human understanding. He seems rather to mean that wisdom had been revealed to his mind in a secret and intimate manner.

One part of the verse corresponds to the other. He acknowledges that it was not a mere superficial acquaintance with divine truth which he had enjoyed, but that it had been closely brought home to his heart. This rendered his offense all the more inexcusable. Though privileged so highly with the saving knowledge of the truth, he had plunged into the commission of brutish sin and, by various acts of iniquity, had almost ruined his soul.

We have thus set before us the spiritual process of the Psalmist at this time. First, we have seen that he is brought to a confession of the greatness of his offense. This leads him to a sense of the complete depravity of his nature. To deepen his convictions, he then directs his thoughts to the strict judgment of God, who looks not to the outward appearance but to the heart. Lastly, he turns his attention to the unique aspects of his case, as one who had enjoyed an extraordinary measure of the gifts of the Spirit and, on that account, deserved the severer punishment.

This spiritual process is one we should all strive to imitate. If we are conscious of having committed any one sin, let it be the means of recalling others to our memory, until we are brought to prostrate ourselves before God in deep self-abasement.

And if it has been our privilege to enjoy the special teaching of the Spirit of God, we ought to feel that our guilt is additionally heavy, having sinned in this case against light and having trampled underfoot the precious gifts with which we were entrusted.