Psalm 51: 1 – 19
A contrite heart
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight—That You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. 6 Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. 9 Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You. 14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, The God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. 15 O Lord open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.16 For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise. 18 Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; Build the walls of Jerusalem.19 Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; Then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.
The key verse I selected for today is verse 17 which reports, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise.”
The contrite or broken-hearted person finds special favor with God, and a humble or contrite spirit is indeed a precursor to forgiveness and spiritual healing. No offering without a sincere, contrite, genuine, and humble heart is acceptable to our Holy God. God values humble and contrite people above all the rest of His creation.
Contrition can be produced from godly sorrow, producing clearing of conscience and zeal to change our character though heartfelt repentance. Biblical contrition is a feeling of regret or sorrow leading to repentance and reconciliation with God.
Although our Creator God Is all-powerful and unlimited in His existence and perfection, He is the most involved and loving of all beings. In reviving the spirit of the humble, He 'makes them alive'. He provides spiritual life and comfort. Spiritually, God is to the contrite what refreshing rains, the warm sun and cool dew are, physically, to a drooping plant. It revives us when we are in that condition.
Some allow bitterness, resentment and anger to be the result in their broken state. Anger can very easily become sinful when it is causeless, excessive, or prolonged. In contrast, genuine contrition does not leave a humble person immobilized, hardened or embittered.
Some of the biblical synonyms used for "contrite" are: penitent, regretful, remorseful, repentant, sorry, apologetic, and ashamed.
We can get a more thorough understanding of contrition by looking at four of these synonyms. These very similar terms help provide a clearer picture of the attitude involved here.
Penitence is sorrow for sins or faults. It implies sad and humble realization of, and regret for, one's misdeeds. The feeling that no sin is beyond forgiveness if it is followed by true penitence.
Regret implies a painful sting of conscience, especially for contemplated wrongdoing. It is the feeling of being sharply bothered by one's own action accompanied with a sense of guilt.
Remorse suggests prolonged and insistent self-reproach and mental anguish for past wrongs, and especially for those whose consequences cannot be remedied. It is the feeling of walking on thorns.
Repentance adds the implication of a resolve to change. It bears good fruit.
In this light, contrition stresses the sorrowful regret that constitutes true penitence. It is the feeling of remorse that brings tears to the eyes and leads to repentance.
In Psalm 51 David's appeal to God, , is a prayer of repentance. After he had gone in to Bathsheba, Nathan the prophet went to confront him—you know the story. When he realized the severity of his own sin and the judgment he was willing to pass on someone who was guilty of a similar, lesser crime, David expressed his overwhelming feeling of regret.
His distraught emotional state made him feel like his gut had been wrenched out of him. This motivated him to plead for forgiveness from God with intense sincerity.
When a person sins, his only hope when crushed with the consciousness of sin is the mercy of God; and that mercy will be earnestly pleaded for deeply and sincerely. This was the emotion flowing from David as he realized his sin.
David knew that the sacrifices God desires and approves; the sacrifices without which no other offering would be acceptable was what was demanded in his case.
He had grievously sinned. The blood of animals offered in sacrifice could not put away his sin, nor could anything remove it unless his heart was repentant and remorseful.
Merely grieving because we have committed a sin at which we have been caught leads to disgrace and shame, not genuine repentance of the sin. This type of sorrow is not 'of God' but is 'of the world.' Only when we see a sin as committed against God and repent of it does it lead to a lasting change in our character.
Godly sorrow produces true repentance, and true repentance demonstrates its sorrow by its deeds. Contrition in this context is sorrowful regret for sins and faults.
The same thing is true now. Even though Jesus Christ gave the most perfect sacrifice in every way acceptable to God for human guilt, it will not benefit us unless we are truly repentant, unless we come before God with a contrite and humble heart.
The humble and contrite can hear God and tremble at his word. A contrite person has a unique access to God. Because God listens to and delights in the prayers of the humble, those who come without ulterior motives or in violation of his explicit commands, are as children to a loving parent.
Let’s go over this wonderful Psalm together.
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.
This Psalm, one of the most famous of the Psalms, was written by David in repentance over his sin with Bathsheba, when he stole Uriah’s wife from him and then arranged for Uriah’s death (2 Samuel 11). It was one of the blackest moments in his career and resulted in great grief for him later on when his sons in one way or another followed his example.
Nevertheless, David’s genuine repentance is clear from the words of the Psalm. But his experience is a reminder that sin always has its consequences for others, even when we have been forgiven.
The Psalm begins with an appeal to God for forgiveness and cleansing. In these verses David throws himself on the mercy of God, in recognition that only in God’s supreme compassion is there any hope for him. He knew that he had committed the sins of adultery and murder, which in earlier times would have resulted in his execution. He knew that for these sins there was no pardon. And yet such is his intense faith that he is convinced that God will pardon him, not because he deserves it, not because of who he is, but because of God’s great compassion and mercy.
1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
The emphasis of David’s plea is not on his own need for forgiveness, but on the greatness of God’s undeserved love and favor. He knows that without that he is undone, for he is a defector. He has rebelled against God and violated His Law.
He is aware that nothing can excuse what he has done. No sacrifice can atone for it, no way of atonement is provided. He had sinned ‘with a high hand’. His only hope lay in what God is as the One Who is ‘a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth, Who keeps mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin’ (Exodus 34.6-7).
As one who is within the covenant he points to God’s Word, His love revealed in the covenant, a sovereign love to those wholly undeserving. He points to the huge number of His tender compassions. And based on this he calls for God to blot out every trace of his acts of rebellion, to thoroughly wash him from his depraved and filthy conduct, and to cleanse him from having turned in the wrong way and missed the mark. He is totally honest. He realizes that it is his only hope. Nothing can make better what he has done. He knows that there are no excuses. No sacrifice can avail. He deserves immediate execution. It is total and heartfelt repentance. He is throwing himself utterly on God’s mercy.
David wants his record made clean, so that nothing stands against his name that can be brought against him in the future. He knows that strictly speaking adultery and murder are not forgivable sins. His only hope is for the record of them to be totally removed.
David tells God that he now knows the truth about himself. He no longer dismisses what he has done as unimportant because he is a king and chief judge, and therefore, as the one finally responsible for the law, and that he is not above the law. For God has brought home to him the depths to which he has fallen. He now recognizes his responsibility towards a greater King and Judge. As he said to Nathan when his sin was made clear to him, ‘I have sinned against YHWH’ (2 Samuel 12.13).
3 For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight—That You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge.
David is emphasizing his inner awareness of his own guiltiness. ‘I know’, that is, I have recognized the situation for what it is and am fully aware of what I have done. I recognize that I have no excuse. ‘My rebellions.’ He has not just done wrong, he has been in rebellion against God, something revealed by his two acts of open rebellion. ‘My sin is ever before me.’
Everyone who has ever come under deep conviction of sin will know what he means. Whatever he tries to do he cannot get away from the heavy weight of guilt that lies upon him. It continually forces itself on his attention. Only God can remove it.
David’s statement ‘Against you, you only have I sinned’ is very interesting to think about. He had, of course, sinned against Uriah, and he had sinned against the nation by bringing it under the wrath of God. But Uriah was dead and could not hold him accountable. And the nation had no jurisdiction over him. Who else could bring the king into account? There was only One other and that was God. He was responsible only to God. Indeed, it was the shame that he had brought on God’s Name that wholly possessed his thoughts. He was a man who truly loved God, and the thought of how he had disgraced his God tore deep into his heart. It blotted out any other thought.
No one had seen his adultery, he had made sure of that. The murder had been cleverly concealed. Only Joab knew of his desire to have Uriah killed. All his attention had been on ensuring that no one else knew. And he had been quite satisfied in his heart that he was in the clear. But now Nathan had brought home to him the fact that God had been watching all the time. God had seen everything that he had done and was appalled by it. He had not only done evil, but he had done it openly before God. His greatest sin was his treating of God as though He would not know and flouting His severest Laws before His eyes. The words echo the words of Nathan in 2 Samuel 12.9, ‘why have you despised the word of YHWH, to do what is evil in His sight?’.
He admitted that God was totally justified in pronouncing judgment against Him, He was after all an eyewitness, and was thus totally in the clear in judging him. No charge could be brought against God of unfairness. He had seen what had been done.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. 6 Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.
In his deep awareness of his sinfulness David now looks back to how it is he can be so depraved. It is because he was the product of sinful parents. It is because man is inherently sinful so that every child born is sinful. He is not excusing his sin, but recognizing his true state, and the true state of every man. There was only One Who was brought forth sinless. And He was not the product of a human father, nor of a human egg. He was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit’s working (Matthew 1.20). Thus, all men, including the smallest child, is sinful before God, although not guilty until a sin is first committed. However, that act of sin is not long in coming. ‘The unrighteous are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they are born speaking lies’ (Psalm 58.3). Lying and deceit is inherent in human nature.
Our Majestic and Holy God, on the other hand, demands truth. He is the very opposite of man. And what He requires of those who love Him, is not an outward response of truth only, but truth in the inward parts. Total honesty within. This requires the mighty working of God within, spoken of in the Old Testament as being ‘circumcised in heart’ and ‘having the law written in the heart’ (Jeremiah 31.33), and in the New Testament as being ‘born from above’ (John 3.3) and ‘newly created’ (2 Corinthians 5.17). For such an experience only comes about when God makes us to know wisdom in our inner lives. David was thus aware that such an experience could only come about by the divine activity of God.
David now turns to the question of how his sins can be removed from him. He recognizes that outward ritual would be irrelevant (‘you do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it’ - verse 16). There was no prescription for murder and adultery within the word of God. It only knew of execution as the way of dealing with them. What David required was the activity of God Himself in removing his sin.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. 9 Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
Hyssop was a common plant that grew on walls and was used as a means of sprinkling water and blood. David, in effect, is calling on God to do the same for him. Let Him, as it were, acting as his priest, purify him through the blood of sprinkling (1 Peter 1.2). In mind may have been the water of purification, water containing sacrificial ashes (Numbers, 19.18). He knew that there was no easy way out for what he had done. He had sinned ‘with a high hand’. All depended on God to act. His sins were such that only the direct action of God could deal with them. It was an unconscious prophecy that one day God would provide a means of cleansing separate from the prescribed ways.
Having been faced up to his sins David became aware that something of the joy and gladness that he had once known had been lost. Outwardly his religious life continued the same, but he was aware that for some time the inward joy and gladness had been missing. So now, in his hope of forgiveness and cleansing, and of the renewing of his spiritual life (verse 10), he prays that his former joy in God might be restored. He wants to hear his inner self rejoicing in God.
The breaking of the bones is not literal. The bones were representing the man within. And that man within had been broken. It had been crushed and had lost the joy of God’s presence. He wanted to be restored to God’s favor. In a self-contradictory way , as he will point out later, the remedy for his broken bones is a broken heart (verse 17).
David goes on to ask God to hide away His face from his sins, in other words not to look on them, to treat them as something that does not come before His gaze.
Genuine repentance seeks not only forgiveness, but transformation of life. It is no good asking for forgiveness if we intend to do it again. So, David wanted not only to be forgiven but also to be restored into the way of obedience in which he had once walked, for then only could his fellowship with God be restored. And he knew that this required the powerful activity of God within him.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
A beautiful verse which we need to memorize is here, ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and make new a steadfast spirit within me.’ The word used for ‘create’ is the one which is regularly used of God’s creative power. It indicates the bringing about of something new. It suggests that he sees his sins as having been so heinous that he needs a new creation to take place within him. His ‘heart’, his mind, will and emotions, needs to be reconstituted because the old has been damaged beyond repair. And only God can do it. This is confirmed by the second verb which means to ‘make new’. He feels that he has failed God so utterly that there must be a wholly new beginning. A ‘clean’ heart is a heart free from all taint of sin, including being free from adultery (Numbers 5.28). It is a heart which knows and obeys God. A steadfast spirit is one that will keep free from succumbing to temptation.
The Law spoke of two kinds of sins. ‘Sins done in ignorance, that is, unwittingly’, for which forgiveness and atonement could be obtained through the offering of sacrifices, and ‘sins with a high hand’ for which the penalty was death. They were acts of open and deliberate defiance of God. Adultery and murder were ‘sins with a high hand’. There was no atonement for them. For those only God acting directly could remit the ultimate penalty.
So, David is calling on God to perform the ultimate miracle, the total transformation of his inner life. His awareness of his guilt is so great that he is convinced that nothing less will do. He knows that in God’s eyes his old self is under sentence of death. He is therefore pleading for a new self.
What is described here is precisely what happens when a person commits himself to Jesus Christ for salvation. He becomes a new creation. Old things pass away, and all becomes new (2 Corinthians 5.17). He receives a ‘clean’ heart and a ‘steadfast spirit’. Thus, from then on he has to put to death the old man, and respond to the new (Romans 6.2-11).
The statement ‘Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your holy Spirit from me’ is speaking of a special enduement of the Spirit for God’s work, not simply of the presence of the Holy Spirit in a believer. David was very conscious of the fact that he enjoyed a unique privilege. God had taken way His Spirit from Saul and had rejected Saul (1 Samuel 16.14) and had put His Spirit on David (1 Samuel 16.13). Now he was very fearful lest God do the same to him as he had done to Saul. To be cast from the king’s presence was an indication of rejection, and an indication that the person was no longer suitable to serve the king. In the same way David had visions of this happening to him before God. He is not talking of ‘loss of salvation’ but of loss of acceptability and usefulness. He does not say, ‘restore to me your salvation’, but ‘restore to me the joy of your salvation’.
Earlier (in verse 8) David had prayed for joy and gladness to be restored to his inner man. Now he repeats his request, ‘Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.’ He had missed the joy of the Lord for so long that he had not realized it. But now it has come home to him with full force, and he prays for it to be restored. The joy was joy in God’s ‘salvation’, the status of being a forgiven sinner. ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered -- in whose spirit there is no guile’ (Psalm 32.1-2).
It is only if he is still acceptable in God’s presence and still His anointed one, that he will be able to use his position and authority to teach others the right way, and to face men up with their rebelliousness and their offences. His own need of restoration has brought home to him the precarious situation of others before God. But he can only help them if he himself has been restored. It is those who are most conscious of what God has done for them, who seek humbly to help others. He is not bargaining with God. He is asserting his intention once he himself has been restored.
Blood-guiltiness is an idea prominent in the Old Testament. When a person slew another person, they were blood-guilty and their lives were seen as forfeit to the ‘avengers of blood’, relatives of the deceased person who sought to take the slayer’s life in return. Indeed, it was incumbent on them to do so. If they slew him no court would find them guilty. It was the only way in which justice could be maintained (there was no police force). That was why ‘cities of refuge’ were provided to which men could flee if they had killed someone accidentally. Once in such a city they were safe. But they could only remain there if they could satisfy the elders of the city that the killing had not been intentional. On the other hand, if the avengers of blood were willing to come to some arrangement (such as compensation) with the killer, then he would go free. Much would depend on the circumstances.
Of course, no one was going to try to kill David. He was too powerful. So, in cases like this the idea was that God would take their lives. They were forfeit to Him, which is why Nathan had to assure David, ‘You will not die’ (2 Samuel 12.13). Thus David, recognizing this, is pleading for clemency. He is asking that God will withhold his sentence of death. We are all under sentence of death because of sin (Romans 6.23). We also therefore constantly require God’s clemency.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, The God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness. 15 O Lord open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
He cries to God to deliver him ‘from blood’. The blood of his victim Uriah cries out to God for vengeance, as did the blood of Abel (Genesis 4.10), and he hopes that like Cain he might, because of God’s compassion and mercy, be saved from the final punishment that his crime deserved, just as God has delivered him in the past. For he was fully aware of how much he owed to God for past deliverances. God was the God of his salvation. He was only there because God had watched over him so constantly. And he hoped that He would deliver him again. Strictly he could claim before men that he had not killed Uriah. Uriah had died in battle. But he knew that that plea would not work before God. It was he who in a cowardly way had pronounced sentence of death on Uriah (2 Samuel 11.15) for no good reason other than to hide his own sinfulness. We can hardly conceive of those words to Joab as being words of David, if they had not been spelled out in black and white. They are an indication of what even the finest Christian man is capable of when trying to hide something of which he is ashamed.
David promises that if he is pardoned he will use his gifts as a psalmist and musician to sing about and proclaim God’s righteousness. He will not take his pardon as indicating that God’s standards have been watered down. He will continually declare God’s righteousness and His righteous requirements, in the same way as he has been faced up with them himself. He will not lower God’s requirements by even the smallest amount. But the paralleling of salvation with righteousness would be a theme of Isaiah, where righteousness paralleled with salvation often signifies righteous deliverance. Thus, we could translate ‘righteousness’ as ‘righteous deliverance’. He would make clear how a righteous God could deliver in mercy.
The king whose power was a byword in his day now addresses God as his Sovereign Lord, ‘O Sovereign Lord, you will open my lips, and my mouth will show forth your praise.’ He is dumb before Him because of his sins. He recognizes that as a rebel he has no right to speak. (In those days a person would not speak in the presence of the king unless given the right to do so by the king. Thus, he tells God as his Sovereign Lord, that when, having pardoned him, He gives him permission to speak (opens his lips), his mouth will show forth His praise. He will humbly (verse 17) proclaim the goodness, righteousness and mercy of God.
16 For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise.
He acknowledges that no offering that he offers, no sacrifice that he sacrifices, will be acceptable to God, because for the sins that he has committed no such sacrifice was provided. If offered in repentance sacrifices could atone for unwitting sins, but they could not atone for the sins of which he was guilty, ‘sins with a high hand’. He had blatantly committed capital crimes for which the only remedy was execution. If he brought sacrifices God would not delight in them (the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to YHWH - Proverbs 15.8). If he brought offerings God would have no pleasure in them. That his situation was in mind comes out in the words ‘or else I would give it’. Both before and after this time he would offer offerings and sacrifices aplenty, but at this stage he recognized that they would simply not be acceptable. He was restrained from offering them because he had put himself beyond their scope.
The only sacrifices that he could offer to God at this stage were the sacrifices of a broken spirit, and a broken and contrite heart. It was all that was open to him but these he was sure God would receive. He would not despise them (as He would offerings and sacrifices from the unrighteous).
A broken spirit and heart are a spirit and heart whose resistance has been ‘broken’ by God’s rebuke and chastening (Proverbs 3.11-12), and which are thus contrite (repentant and grieved). These are what God seeks in all cases of sin.
18 Do good in Your good pleasure to Zion; Build the walls of Jerusalem.19 Then You shall be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; Then they shall offer bulls on Your altar.
The Psalm, along with other Psalms of David, was probably taken over for public worship in the time of David when David expanded pubic worship in the way that the Chronicler describes. It would then become a Psalm of penitence through which the people expressed their penitence to God for their sins. It could well have been at this stage that this verse was added to make the Psalm more expressive of the prayers of the people, or it may be that David was writing the Psalm with public worship in mind from the beginning.
The call is for God to ‘do good’ to Jerusalem and ‘build’ its walls, so that it would prosper and be kept safe from its enemies. It could refer to any period from David onwards. And the aim was the safe and permanent establishment of the cult of YHWH within its walls. Because of that security God would be able to delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offering and whole burnt offering, with bullocks being offered on YHWH’s altar, i.e. the one set up in Jerusalem.
Burnt offerings were offered daily in the Tabernacle and the Temple, and the process would be continual. As one burnt offering was finally consumed, another would replace it. Worship was continual.
May we learn and try to imitate the continual offering up of our praise and worship to the One Who deserves all of our love and appreciation.
