John Calvin Commentary Psalms 51:17

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." — Psalms 51:17 (ASV)

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. He had shown that sacrifices do not have the efficacy for obtaining God's favor that the Jews imagined; and now he declares that he did not need to bring anything at all to God but a contrite and humbled heart. Nothing more is necessary for the sinner than to prostrate himself in prayer for Divine mercy.

The plural number is used in the verse to express more forcefully the truth that the sacrifice of repentance is sufficient in itself, without any other. If he had said no more than that this kind of sacrifice was especially acceptable to God, the Jews might easily have evaded his argument by alleging that this might be true, and yet other sacrifices be equally pleasing to him; just as the Papists in our own day mix the grace of God with their own works, rather than submit to receive a gratuitous pardon for their sins.

To exclude every idea of a pretended satisfaction, David represents contrition of heart as encompassing in itself the whole sum of acceptable sacrifices. And in using the term sacrifices of God, he conveys a tacit reproof to the proud hypocrite, who sets a high value on such sacrifices as are of his own unauthorized invention, when he imagines that by means of them he can propitiate God.

But here a difficulty may be raised. “If the contrite heart,” it may be said, “holds a higher place in God’s estimation than all sacrifices, does it not follow that we acquire pardon by our penitence, and that thus it ceases to be gratuitous?” In reply to this, I might observe that David is not speaking at this time of the meritorious condition by which pardon is obtained, but, on the contrary, asserting our absolute destitution of merit by enjoining humiliation and contrition of spirit, in opposition to any attempt to make compensation to God.

The man of broken spirit is one who has been emptied of all vain-glorious confidence and brought to acknowledge that he is nothing. The contrite heart abjures the idea of merit and does not relate to God on the principle of exchange. Is it objected that faith is a more excellent sacrifice than that which is here commended by the Psalmist, and of greater efficacy for obtaining God’s favor, as it presents to God that Savior who is the true and only propitiation?

I would observe that faith cannot be separated from the humility of which David speaks. This is a humility that is altogether unknown to the wicked. They may tremble in the presence of God, and the obstinacy and rebellion of their hearts may be partially restrained, but they still retain some remnants of inward pride.

When the spirit has been broken, on the other hand, and the heart has become contrite through a felt sense of the anger of the Lord, a man is brought to genuine fear and self-loathing, with a deep conviction that of himself he can do or deserve nothing, and must be unconditionally indebted for salvation to Divine mercy.

It should not surprise us that David represents this as constituting all that God desires in the way of sacrifice. He does not exclude faith; he does not go into any precise division of true penitence into its various parts, but asserts in general that the only way of obtaining God’s favor is by prostrating ourselves with a wounded heart at the feet of His Divine mercy, and imploring His grace with sincere confessions of our own helplessness.