Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 51:3
For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin [is] ever before me.
3. For I acknowledge ] Lit., I know. The pronoun is emphatic. His sins have all along been known to God. They are before His eyes (Psa 90:8). But now he has come to know them himself; they are unceasingly present to his conscience. Such consciousness of sin is the first step towards the repentance and confession which are the indispensable conditions of forgiveness. David refused to acknowledge his sin to himself and to God yet not, apparently, without sharp pangs of remorse, see Psa 32:3-4 until Nathan’s message awoke his conscience. Cp. the confession of the nation in Isa 59:12.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
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 Psa 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 (2Sa 12:1 ff); 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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 3. For I acknowledge my transgressions] I know, I feel, I confess that I have sinned.
My sin is ever before me.] A true, deep, and unsophisticated mark of a genuine penitent. Wherever he turns his face, he sees his sin, and through it the eye of an angry God.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I acknowledge, with grief and shame, and abhorrency of myself and of my sins; which hitherto I have dissembled and covered. And being thus truly penitent, I hope and beg that I may find mercy with thee.
My transgressions; for it was not a single, but a complicated wickedness, adultery, murder, injustice, perfidiousness; and frequent repetition of and long and stupid continuance in abominable filthiness, and that with public scandal.
My sin is ever before me; that which I had cast behind my back is now constantly in my view, and fixed in my thoughts and memory.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. For . . . before meConvictionprecedes forgiveness; and, as a gift of God, is a plea for it(2Sa 12:13; Psa 32:5;1Jn 1:9).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For I acknowledge my transgressions,…. Before God and man. Acknowledgment of sin is what the Lord requires, and promises forgiveness upon, and therefore is used here as a plea for it; and moreover the psalmist had done so before, and had succeeded in this way, which must encourage him to take the same course again; see
Ps 32:5;
and my sin [is] ever before me; staring him in the face; gnawing upon his conscience, and filling him with remorse and distress; so that his life was a burden to him: for though God had put away sin out of his own sight, so that he would not condemn him for it, and he should not die; notwithstanding as yet it was not caused to pass from David, or the guilt of it removed from his conscience.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Substantiation of the prayer by the consideration, that his sense of sin is more than superficial, and that he is ready to make a penitential confession. True penitence is not a dead knowledge of sin committed, but a living sensitive consciousness of it (Isa 59:12), to which it is ever present as a matter and ground of unrest and pain. This penitential sorrow, which pervades the whole man, is, it is true, no merit that wins mercy or favour, but it is the condition, without which it is impossible for any manifestation of favour to take place. Such true consciousness of sin contemplates sin, of whatever kind it may be, directly as sin against God, and in its ultimate ground as sin against Him alone ( with of the person sinned against, Isa 42:24; Mic 7:9); for every relation in which man stands to his fellow-men, and to created things in general, is but the manifest form of his fundamental relationship to God; and sin is “that which is evil in the eyes of God” (Isa 65:12; Isa 66:4), it is contradiction to the will of God, the sole and highest Lawgiver and Judge. Thus it is, as David confesses, with regard to his sin, in order that… This must not be weakened by understanding it to refer to the result instead of to the aim or purpose. If, however, it is intended to express intention, it follows close upon the moral relationship of man to God expressed in and , – a relationship, the aim of which is, that God, when He now condemns the sinner, may appear as the just and holy One, who, as the sinner is obliged himself to acknowledge, cannot do otherwise than pronounce a condemnatory decision concerning him. When sin becomes manifest to a man as such, he must himself say Amen to the divine sentence, just as David does to that passed upon him by Nathan. And it is just the nature of penitence so to confess one’s self to be in the wrong in order that God may be in the right and gain His cause. If, however, the sinner’s self-accusation justifies the divine righteousness or justice, just as, on the other hand, all self-justification on the part of the sinner (which, however, sooner or later will be undeceived) accuses God of unrighteousness or injustice (Job 40:8): then all human sin must in the end tend towards the glorifying of God. In this sense Psa 51:6 is applied by Paul (Rom 3:4), inasmuch as he regards what is here written in the Psalter – , (lxx) – as the goal towards which the whole history of Israel tends. Instead of ( infin. like , Gen 38:17, in this instance for the sake of similarity of sound
(Note: Cf. the following forms, chosen on account of their accord: – , Psa 32:1; , Psa 68:3; , Son 3:11; , Isa 22:13; , ib. Psa 25:6; , ib. Psa 25:7.)
instead of the otherwise usual form ), in Thy speaking, the lxx renders = ; instead of , = ( infin. Niph.), provided is intended as passive and not (as in Jer 2:9 lxx, cf. Mat 5:40) as middle. The thought remains essentially unchanged by the side of these deviations; and even the taking of the verb , to be clean, pure, in the Syriac signification , does not alter it. That God may be justified in His decisive speaking and judging; that He, the Judge, may gain His cause in opposition to all human judgment, towards this tends David’s confession of sin, towards this tends all human history, and more especially the history of Israel.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
3. For If know my sins (259) He now discovers his reason for imploring pardon with so much vehemency, and this was the painful disquietude which his sins caused him, and which could only be relieved by his obtaining reconciliation with God. This proves that his prayer did not proceed from dissimulation, as many will be found commending the grace of God in high terms, 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 is subjected by his sin to constant anguish of mind, and that it is this which imparts such an earnestness to his supplications. From his example we may learn who they are that can alone be said to seek reconciliation with God in a proper manner. They are such as have had their consciences wounded with a sense of sin, and who can find no rest until they have obtained assurance of his mercy. We will never seriously apply to God for pardon, until we have obtained such a view of our sins as inspires us with fear. The more easily satisfied we are under our sins, the more do we provoke God to punish them with severity, and if we really desire absolution from his hand, we must do more than confess our guilt in words; we must institute a rigid and formidable scrutiny into the character of our transgressions. David does not simply say that he will confess his sins to man, but declares that he has a deep inward feeling of them, such a feeling of them as filled him with the keenest anguish. His was a very different spirit from that of the hypocrite, who displays a complete indifference upon this subject, or when it intrudes upon him, endeavors to bury the recollection of it. He speaks of his sins in the plural number. His transgression, although it sprung from one root, was complicated, including, besides adultery, treachery and cruelty; nor was it one man only whom he had betrayed, but the whole army which had been summoned to the field in defense of the Church of God. He accordingly recognises many particular sins as wrapt up in it.
(259) As if he had said, “I confess and acknowledge that I have sinned, nor do I say as Cain did, ‘I know not,’ (Gen 4:9.) What I formerly shamefully and foolishly excused and extenuated, I now acknowledge before thee and thy prophet, and the whole Church, in this penitential psalm.” The verb is in the future, I will know or acknowledge, to intimate that he would continue to retain an humble sense of his guilt.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(3) For I.There is an emphatic pronoun in the first clause which we may preserve, at the same time noticing the difference between the violation of the covenant generally in the term transgressions in the first clause, and the offence which made the breach in the second. (See Note Psa. 51:1.) Because I am one who is conscious of my transgressions, and (or, possibly, even) my offence is ever before me.
The thought that he had been unfaithful to the covenant was an accusing conscience to him, keeping his sin always before his eyes, and until, according to his prayer in Psa. 51:1-2, he was received back into conscious relationship again, his offence must weigh upon his mind. This explanation holds, whether an individual or the community speaks.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. In Psa 51:3-5 are brought out more distinctly the psalmist’s clear sense of guilt, and his free confessions.
I acknowledge Literally, I will know. The word is expressive of clear internal perception of sin. The willingness to know sin is the first step towards repentance, and the open expression of this knowledge is the exact idea of acknowledge, confess.
Transgressions He uses the plural here as in Psa 51:1. He had caused the death of Uriah, used deceit, covered his sin, hardened his heart, dishonoured his family, and weakened his kingdom, added to the breach of the seventh commandment. Thus one sin never stands alone, but, as Perowne says, “each single transgression is the mother of many.” Each sin has a malignant and multiform embryonic vitality.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
David Freely And Openly Admits His Total Sinfulness And Guilt ( Psa 51:3-6 ).
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, above the law. For God has brought home to him the depths to which he has fallen. He now recognises 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’ (2Sa 12:13).
Psa 51:3-4
For as for me I know my transgressions,
And my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned,
And done what is evil in your sight,
That you may be justified when you speak,
And be clear when you judge.
In the Hebrew the ‘I’ is emphasised, which we have indicated by the words ‘as for me’. He is emphasising his inner awareness of his own guiltiness. ‘I know’, that is, I have recognised the situation for what it is and am fully aware of what I have done. I recognise 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.’ All who have 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.
‘Against you, you only have I sinned.’ 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.
‘And done what is evil in your sight.’ 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 2Sa 12:9, ‘why have you despised the word of YHWH, to do what is evil in His sight?’.
‘In order that you may be justified when you speak, and be clear when you judge.’ Thus 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.
David does not, of course mean that his sin was committed in order that God might be justified, as though the revelation of God’s justice rested upon his having sinned, thus suggesting that his sin has achieved a good purpose. The reference back is rather to his having done it in His sight. It was because he had done it in His sight that God was justified in passing sentence. He had not, of course intended to do it in God’s sight. But all that we do is in His sight. This is why none of us can avoid our sins, or God’s judgment on them. It is because He is an eyewitness to them. And God has determined that all that we do should be done in His sight in order that He might be justified in calling it into account.
Psa 51:5-6
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin did my mother conceive me.
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 recognising 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 (Mat 1:20; Luk 1:35). 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’ (Psa 58:3). Lying and deceit is inherent in human nature.
‘Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom.’ 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’ (Deu 30:6; compare Deu 10:16; Jer 4:4; Exo 6:30) and ‘having the law written in the heart’ (Jer 31:33), and in the New Testament as being ‘born from above’ (Joh 3:3) and ‘newly created’ (2Co 5:17; Eph 2:10). 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.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Psa 51:3. For I acknowledge my transgressions adang; I know, I am conscious of my transgression. When David saw himself in the parable, and had pronounced his own condemnation, he then saw his sins in their proper aggravations, and his iniquity was ever before him. His own conscience condemned him, and he was in perpetual fear of the effects of the divine displeasure. Dr. Chandler; who, differing in sentiment from Dr. Delaney, thinks that David was greatly insensible of his guilt, and enjoyed the fruits of his crimes without remorse many months after he had committed the sins that he now confesses. No man could call him to account, or had courage enough to put him in mind of his heinous offences; and even God had not yet interposed to awaken his conscience, and bring him to a becoming sense of the guilt that he had contracted; so that he hoped for impunity, and continued easy in the prospect of it, till awakened by Nathan.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 51:3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin [is] ever before me.
Ver. 3. For I acknowledge my transgressions ] And therefore look for pardon, according to thy promise. Homo agnoseit, Deus ignoscit.
And my sin
Is ever before me
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
acknowledge. Confession is ever the condition of forgiveness. See notes on Psa 32:5.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
For I: Psa 32:5, Psa 38:18, Lev 26:40, Lev 26:41, Neh 9:2, Job 33:27, Pro 28:13, Luk 15:18-21
my sin: Psa 40:12, Isa 59:12, Jer 3:25
Reciprocal: Lev 13:45 – Unclean Lev 16:21 – confess over Jos 7:19 – make Psa 65:3 – transgressions Jer 14:20 – We acknowledge Lam 1:20 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 51:3. For I acknowledge my transgressions With grief, and shame, and abhorrence of myself and of my sins, which hitherto I have dissembled and covered. And, being thus truly penitent, I hope and beg that I may find mercy with thee. This David had formerly found to be the only way of obtaining forgiveness and peace of conscience, Psa 32:4-5, and he now hoped to find the same blessings in the same way. And my sin is ever before me That sin, which I had cast behind my back, is now constantly in my view, to humble and mortify, and make me continually to blush and tremble. We see here Davids contrition for his sin was not a slight, sudden passion, but all abiding grief. He was put in mind of his crimes on all occasions; they were continually in his thoughts: and he was willing they should be so for his further abasement. Let us learn from hence, that our acts of repentance, for the same sin, ought to be often repeated, and that it is very expedient, and will be of great use for us, to have our sins ever before us, that by the remembrance of those that are past, we may be armed against temptations for the future, and may be kept humble, quickened to duty, and made patient under the cross.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
51:3 For I {d} acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin [is] ever before me.
(d) My conscience accuses me so, that I can have no rest till I am reconciled.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. Confession of gross sin 51:3-6
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
About a year had passed between David’s sin of adultery and the time when he acknowledged his guilt. We know this because Bathsheba had given birth to the child she had conceived illegitimately when David confessed his sin (cf. 2Sa 12:13-18). David’s sin had been on his mind for many months. Evidently he had hardened his heart and refused to admit that what he had done was sinful. Perhaps he had tried to rationalize it somehow.