Of David. A Contemplation
1. Blest is he whose transgression has been borne,
Whose sin has been covered.
2. Blest is the man to whom Yahweh will not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.
3. When I was silent my bones grew old
In my roaring all the day.
4. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me.
My moisture was changed into the drought of summer. Selah
5. My sin I acknowledged to You,
And my iniquity I did not cover.
I said, "I will confess my transgression to Yahweh,"
and You bore the iniquity of my sin. Selah
6. Because of this every godly one will pray to You
In a time of finding.
Surely in a flood of great water
They will not come near to him.
7. You are a hiding place for me.
From trouble You will preserve me.
With shouts of deliverance You will surround me. Selah
8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.
I will counsel you with my eye.
9. Do not be like a horse, like a mule, without understanding,
With bit and bridle, its trappings, curbed,
Lest it will not come near you.
10. Many sorrows will be to the wicked man,
But he who trusts in Yahweh, lovingkindness will surround him.
11. Be glad in Yahweh and rejoice, you righteous ones,
And shout for joy, all you upright of heart.
Psalm 32 is a confession of sin and therefore can apply to Jesus only in the limited sense that He bore our sins, became sin for us, and suffered our bitter judgment. He had no sins of His own to confess.
But this truth is itself the basis for the certainty of forgiveness proclaimed here. The psalm is one of the Old Testament’s great passages on justification by faith in Christ. Paul says, “David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputed righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin'” (Rom. 4:6–8).
Verses 1–2 use three words for sin—transgression, sin and iniquity—and three terms for forgiveness—borne, covered, not imputed. Verse 5 mirrors them. The same three words for sin appear again though in a different order, and this time we use three words for confession—acknowledge, not hide, confess. The mirroring reflects the completeness both of the confession and of the forgiveness. “You bore the iniquity of my sin” (v. 5d).
The word “bore” is important. It is not the usual Hebrew word for forgiveness. Instead, it is the word Isaiah used in 53:4 (“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”) and that Moses used while interceding for Israel at Mt. Sinai: “Yet now, if You will bear their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book” (Exod 32:32). Moses asked the Lord Himself to bear the sin of His people, or, that being refused, to permit Moses to bear it instead. The Lord has borne it in His Son.
That is the best way to see Christ in this wonderful psalm. He is the One because of whom the Lord does not impute iniquity (v. 2), for whose sake the Lord forgives the iniquity of our sins (v. 5), who is our hiding place (v. 7) and our instructor in the way we should go (v. 8). Because of Him the lovingkindness of the Lord surrounds us. Because of Him we are righteous and upright in heart. In Him we are glad, rejoice and shout for joy. He is our righteousness, and sufficient reason for everlasting songs of deliverance.