Psalm 32: 1 – 11
Guilty Feelings
A Psalm of David. A Contemplation.
1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit, there is no deceit. 3 When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah 5 I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah 6 For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You in a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not come near him. 7 You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah 8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye. 9 Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you. 10 Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; But he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him. 11 Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous; And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
Guilt can be real or imagined and the results of this emotion can cause some significant problems for us. You were disobedient to your parents. This act as you know is in violation against one of God’s commandments regarding the honoring of our parents. So, to get a guilty feeling is something that is expected. On another occasion you ate a hamburger during lent. This is a rule put in by the church which has later been withdrawn yet you still feel guilty because this was something you remember as a kid. Thus, this emotion is a false guilt.
As a child if we did something wrong we were punished. For some of us we had to undergo a spanking. However, once we received this discipline we felt that our crime was paid, and we then could go on our merry way. But there are many people today who have done some things that they have never let go and guilt consumes them.
Many people turn to counselors or medicine to elevate them. I have not found yet one person who took this route find peace. In fact, I have labeled what these people go through as overriding symptoms. They do not get any better in fact in most cases they get worse both physical and mentally.
Our Great God has a way to eliminate this problem. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has gone through the punishment for us (He took the spanking that we were to get).
So, as we begin to go through the verses in this Psalm I want to point you to a healing verse. It is in the book of 1 John chapter 1, “5 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. “9 If we confess our sins, He Is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
This Psalm was probably written by David some time after his sin with Bathsheba. It describes the agonies of conscience that he went through before finally confessing his sin to God, and the subsequent relief that he experienced once he had done so and had found forgiveness. Intermingled with it are words spoken to him by YHWH promising that He will in future act as his guide if he will be responsive to the reins (verses 8-9). For the principle behind it compare Proverbs 28.13; 1 John 1.7-10.
A Psalm of David. A Contemplation.
Thirteen Psalms are called Maschils, but we do not know precisely why. It could relate to the idea of instruction (compare the use of the cognate verb in 32.8, ‘I will instruct you’) or it could refer to having ‘understanding’ or indicate that it is a meditation (Contemplation). Thus, we may see it as instructing us so that we gain an understanding of God and His ways. Or it may indicate a particularly tricky musical rendering. The fact that some are described as ‘a Maschil of David’ might tend to counter the last suggestion.
This Psalm is a very moving one. It seems to refer to David’s experience when he had sinned with Bathsheba, a sin that caused him deep uneasiness within, so much so that at length he had no alternative but to go to God and have it dealt with. And the result was that he came through to a position of peace and blessing. This then resulted in God beginning to speak to him again, so that in the end he could call on all God’s people to be glad in the Lord and rejoice
The Psalm can be divided up as follows:
1). He praises God for the fact that he has been forgiven and put right with God (1-2).
2). He describes the period when he had been unable to find rest in his heart because God’s hand was on him giving him no peace (3-4).
3). He describes how he came to his senses and acknowledged his sin and thus found forgiveness (5).
4). He expresses his confidence that anyone who is godly can similarly come to Him in times of trouble, and emphasises that God is his hiding place who surrounds him with songs of deliverance (6-7).
5). He hears God’s voice again promising to lead him in the right way, although he must respond to His guiding hand (8-9).
6). He emphasizes the fact that the one who trusts in YHWH will be surrounded with mercy (10).
7). He calls on all the righteous to be glad in YHWH, and for those who are upright in heart to shout for joy.
1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit, there is no deceit.
The Psalmist opens the Psalm with praise to God for the fact that he has been forgiven, his sin has been covered and he has been declared as righteous by God because of the removal of the imputation of his sins. All this was because his sin had been ‘covered’, that is, hidden out of sight.
There are three words used to describe his sins.
1. ‘Transgression’ means ‘to rebel against God’.
2. ‘Sin’ means ‘to miss the mark’.
3. ‘Iniquity’ refers to inward moral distortion and depravity.
He is thus conscious that he has been rebellious, that he has come short of the mark, and that he is sinful within. And as a result, he recognizes three responses from God. The first is forgiveness, the second is the covering of his sin as under a blanket, and the third is the non-imputation of his iniquity. In other words, he is forgiven, he is seen as blameless through the merciful action of God, and he is counted as righteous before God’s throne of judgment. But this is only because he has first come openly to God (he is guileless of heart) and has openly admitted to his awareness of his guilt
3 When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah
All who truly know God will understand this experience. He had sinned, and now he could find no peace in his heart. He tried not facing up to it and keeping silent, but it did not work. He felt as though his bones were wasting away as a result of his groaning, and day and night he was conscious of God’s hand weighing heavily on him, with the result that he felt drained of moisture like a man who was baking in the continually burning sun in the depths of summer.
5 I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
Coming at last to his senses David acknowledged his sin to God, and did not hide anything from Him. In other words, He began again to ‘walk in the light’ (1 John 1.7). He was totally open with God. And once he had genuinely said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to YHWH’, he was conscious that God had forgiven Him his sins. ‘If we walk in the light as He is in the light -- the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin’.
The verb for ‘hide’ is the same as for ‘cover’ in verse 1. It guarantees that if I uncover my sins to God, then He will step in and cover them so that they are remembered no more for ever. The words for transgression, iniquity and sin are also as in verses 1-2.
It has been suggested that the Psalm is lacking because there is no reference to the grace of God, but David was undoubtedly conscious of the fact that for the kind of sins that he had committed his only hope lay in the grace of God. Strictly they warranted immediate judgment. And what he is therefore expressing here is the wonder of God’s grace, freely given on his coming to Him. He was relying totally on the mercy and active compassion of God.
6 For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You in a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not come near him.
The Psalmist now turns his thoughts outwards and asks that all the godly might similarly seek God for the forgiveness of their iniquities. He does not want them to suffer as he has. Nor does he want them to face unnecessary trouble, or final judgment.
‘In a time when you may be found.’ Literally ‘in a time of finding’. This may mean:
. In a time when they find out their sins, or sin finds them out.
. In a time when God can be found (Proverbs 1.28).
. In a time when men are seeking to find the answer to life.
. In a time when God ‘finds out’ men in judgment.
‘Surely when the great waters overflow, they will not reach to him.’ Here he may have in mind Noah’s flood when only Noah and his family were in a place where they could not be reached by the great waters. Or we might compare Isaiah 43.2, ‘when you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overflow you’. In Psalm 144.7 deliverance from great waters involved being delivered from deceitful ‘strangers’ (Jeremiah 51.55). It is sinners who will be overwhelmed by the great waters (Isaiah 28.2; Nahum 1.8).
7 You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah
The thought of verse 6 leads him to apply the idea to himself. YHWH is his refuge and hiding place, He will preserve him from trouble, He will surround him with songs of deliverance. The latter indicates that he is not alone in being delivered.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.
God now speaks to David (it is YHWH who gives David counsel. We have only to recall other mentions of His silence to recognize how much it meant to David to be aware that God was speaking to him. For a while He had been silent as David had refused to acknowledge his sin and failure, but now that reconciliation had been made God can speak to him again.
His promise is that He will instruct him and teach him in His way. We can compare here Deuteronomy 17.18-20 to recognize that this includes the idea that David will receive his guidance through God’s word.
‘I will guide you with my eye.’ The idea in mind here is where the servants of the king are watching him awaiting his instructions, so that he has but to indicate with His eyes and they know exactly what to do. So David had to keep his eye on YHWH and be open to His instruction in the same way. We too, if we wish to walk in His ways must allow Him to guide us with His eye.
Others suggest that it is indicating that God’s eye is upon him, ‘YHWH looks from heaven, He beholds all the sons of men, from the place of His habitation He looks down on all who dwell on earth -- behold the eye of YHWH is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy.’ ‘The eyes of YHWH are towards the righteous, and His ear is open to their cry’ (34.15).
9 Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you.
God then warns him against not responding to Him freely. He does not want him to be like a horse or an ass which because of their lack of understanding must be brought to bridle. Unless such experience the bit and bridle they will avoid their duties. But David is to have understanding, and is to respond freely without bit or bridle, simply in response to God’s eye.
10 Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; But he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him.
David sums up his experience in a simple statement. Those who are wicked, (unresponsive to YHWH as David had been), will experience many sorrows, but those who respond to YHWH in faith and trust, will be surrounded by His lovingkindness and mercy, His covenant love. Here David makes clear his dependence on the grace of God, as well as the dependence of others. It is not by doing good that they will be surrounded by His lovingkindness, but by trusting in Him, but the very word lovingkindness. signifies love within the covenant and thus assumes a covenant response in David.
11 Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous; And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
The Psalm finishes with a joyous call for all who are His to be glad in Him and to rejoice with shouting. Note their description as ‘the righteous’ (covenant-keepers) and ‘upright’. There is no such call to those who are still in their sins.
