EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verses 1, 2.—Transgression. Prevarication. Some understand by it sins of omission and commission.

Sin. Some understand those inward inclinations, lusts, and motions, whereby the soul swerves from the law of God, and which are the immediate cause of external sins.

Iniquity. Notes original sin, the root of all.

Levatus, forgiven, eased, signifies to take away, to bear, to carry away. Two words in Scripture are chiefly used to denote remission, to expiate, to bear or carry away: the one signifies the manner whereby it is done, namely, atonement, the other the effect of this expiation, carrying away; one notes the meritorious cause, the other the consequent.

Covered. Alluding to the covering of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. Menochius thinks it alludes to the manner of writing among the Hebrews, which he thinks to be the same with that of the Romans; as writing with a pencil upon wax spread upon tables, which when they would blot out they made the wax plain, and drawing it over the writing, covered the former letters. And so it is equivalent with that expression of “blotting out sin,” as in the other allusion it is with “casting sin into the depths of the sea.”

Impute. Not charging upon account. As sin is a defection from the law, so it is forgiven; as it is offensive to God’s holiness, so it is covered; as it is a debt involving man in a debt of punishment, so it is not imputed; they all note the certainty, and extent, and perfection of pardon; the three words expressing sin here, being the same that are used by God in the declaration of his name.—Stephen Charnock.

Verses 1, 2, 6, 7.—Who is blessed? Not he who cloaks, conceals, confesses not his sin. As long as David was in this state he was miserable. There was guile in his spirit (2), misery in his heart, his very bones waxed old, his moisture was dried up as the drought in summer (3, 4). Who is blessed? He that is without sin, he who sins not, he who grieves no more by his sin the bosom on which he reclines. This is superlative blessedness, its highest element, the happiness of heaven. To be like God, to yield implicit, ready, full, perfect obedience, the obedience of the heart, of our entire being; this is to be blessed above all blessedness. But among those who live in a world of sin, who are surrounded by sin, who are themselves sinners, who is blessed? “He whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity;” and especially does he feel it to be so, who can, in some degree, enter into the previous state of David’s soul (3, 4). Ah, in what a wretched state was the Psalmist previously to this blessedness! How must sin have darkened and deadened his spiritual faculties, to have guile in the spirit of one who could elsewhere exclaim, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me,” any way of pain or grief, any way of sin which most surely leads to these. Ps. cxxxix. 23, 34. What a mournful condition of soul was his, who while he roared all the day long, yet kept silence before God, had no heart to open his heart unto God, was dumb before him, not in submission to his will, not in accepting the punishment of his iniquity (Lev. xxvi. 46), not in real confession, and honest, upright, and sincere acknowledgment of his iniquity to him against whom he had committed it. “I kept silence,” not merely I was silent, “I kept silence,” resolutely, perseveringly; I kept it notwithstanding all the remembrance of my past mercies, notwithstanding my reproaches of conscience, and my anguish of heart. I kept it notwithstanding “thy hand was heavy upon me day and night,” notwithstanding “my moisture,” all that was spiritual in me, my vital spirit, all that was indicative of spiritual life in my soul, seemed dried up and gone. Yes, Lord, notwithstanding all this, I kept it. But Nathan came, thou didst send him. He was to me a messenger full of reproof, full of faithfulness, but full of love. He came with thy word, and with the word of a King there was power. I acknowledged my sin unto him, and my iniquity did I not hide, but this was little. Against thee, thee only, did I sin, and to thee was my confession made. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, O Lord. I solemnly said that I would do so, and I did it. I confessed my transgression unto the Lord, “and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”

“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven.” Behold the man who is blessed; blessed in the state of his mind, his guileless spirit, his contrite heart, the fruit of the spirit of grace; blessed in the forgiveness of a forgiving God; a forgiveness, perfect, entire, lacking nothing, signified by sin “covered,” “iniquity not imputed” of the Lord; blessed in the blessings which followed it. “Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.” Beneath the hollow of that hand which was once so heavy upon me, I can now repose. Thou art my hiding place, I dread thee no more; nay, I dwell in thee as my habitation, and my high tower, my covert, my safety, my house. Safe in thy love, whatever trouble may be my portion, and by the mouth of Nathan thy servant thou hast declared that trouble shall be my portion, I shall yet be preserved; yea, more, so fully wilt thou deliver me that I believe thou wilt encompass me so with the arms of thy mercy, as to call forth songs of grateful praise for thy gracious interposition.

Behold the blessedness of him whom God forgives! No wonder, then, that the Psalmist adds, “for this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.” As much as if he said, Surely after this thy gracious conduct towards me, all that truly love and fear thee, “every one that is godly,” when he hears of thy dealings with me, “will pray unto thee.” Encouraged by my example, he will not keep silence as I foolishly and sinfully did, but will confess and supplicate before thee, since thou art to be “found,” and hast so wondrously shown that thou art, of all that truly seek thee, since there is the place of finding, as I lay my hand upon the victim, and look through that victim to him the promised Seed; since there is the time of finding, declared in thy word, and manifested by the secret drawing of my heart to thee by thy grace: since the unwillingness is not in thee, but in thy sinning creature to come to thee; “for this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee,” then, however deep the waterfloods may be, however fierce the torrent, and headlong the stream, they shall not even come nigh unto him, much less shall they overwhelm him.—James Harrington Evans, M.A., 1785-1849.

Verse 2.—“Unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” Aben-Ezra paraphrases it, of whose sins God does not think, does not regard them, so as to bring them into judgment, reckoning them as if they were not; οὐ μὴ λογιζεται does not count or calculate them; does not require for them the debt of punishment. To us the remission is entirely free, our Sponsor having taken upon him the whole business of paying the ransom. His suffering is our impunity, his bond our freedom, and his chastisement our peace; and therefore the prophet says, “The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.”—Robert Leighton.

Verse 2.—“In whose spirit there is no guile.” In the saint’s trouble, conscience is full of Scripture sometimes, on which it grounds its verdict, but very ill interpreted. Oh, saith the poor soul, this place is against me! “Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” Here, saith he, is a description of a sincere soul, to be one in whose spirit there is no guile; but I find much guile in me, therefore I am not the sincere one. Now this is a very weak yea, false inference. By a spirit without guile, is not meant a person that hath not the least deceitfulness and hypocrisy remaining in his heart. To be without sin, and to be without guile, in this strict sense are the same—a prerogative here on earth peculiar to the Lord Christ (1 Pet. ii. 22), “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” And therefore when we meet with the same phrase attributed to the saints, as to Levi, Mal. ii. 6: “Iniquity was not found in his lips;” and to Nathanael, John i. 47: “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” we must sense it in an inferior way, that may suit with their imperfect state here below, and not put that which was only Christ’s crown on earth, and is the glorified saint’s robe in heaven, on the weak Christian while militant here on earth, not only with a devil without, but with a body of sin within him. Wipe thine eyes again, poor soul, and then if thou readest such places, wherein the Spirit of God speaks so highly and hyperbolically of his saints’ grace, thou shalt find he doth not assert the perfection of their grace, free from all mixture of sin, but rather to comfort poor drooping souls, and cross their misgiving hearts, which, from the presence of hypocrisy, are ready to overlook their sincerity as none at all, he expresseth his high esteem of their little grace, by speaking of it as if it were perfect, and their hypocrisy none at all.—William Gurnall.

Verse 2. “In whose spirit there is no guile.” When once pardon is realised the believer has courage to be truthful before God: he can afford to have done with “guile” in the spirit. Who would not declare all his debts when they are certain to be discharged by another? Who would not declare his malady when he was sure of a cure? True faith knows not only that “guile” before God is impossible, but also that it is no longer necessary. The believer has nothing to conceal: he sees himself as before God, stripped, and laid open, and bare; and if he has learned to see himself as he is, so also has he learned to see God as he reveals himself. There is no guile in the spirit of one who is justified by faith; because in the act of justification truth has been established in his inward parts. There is no guile in the spirit of him who sees the truth of himself in the light of the truth of God. For the truth of God shows him at once that in Christ he is perfectly righteous before God, and in himself he is the chief of sinners. Such a one knows he is not his own, for he is bought with a price, and therefore he is to glorify God. There is no guile in the spirit of him whose real object is to glorify Christ and not himself. But when a man is not quite true to Christ, and has not quite ceased to magnify self, there may be guile, for he will be more occupied with thoughts about himself than with the honour of Christ. But if the truth, and honour, and glory of Christ be his supreme care, he may leave himself out of the question, and, like Christ, “commit himself to him that judgeth righteously.”—J. W. Reeve, M.A., in “Lectures on the Thirty-second Psalm,” 1860.

Verse 2.—“No guile.” Sincerity is that property to which pardoning mercy is annexed. True, indeed, it is that Christ covers all our sins and failings; but it is only the sincere soul over which he will cast his skirt. “Blessed is he whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” None will doubt this; but which is the man? The next words tell us his name; “And in whose spirit there is no guile.” Christ’s righteousness is the garment which covers the nakedness and shame of our unrighteousness; faith the grace that puts this garment on; but what faith? None but the faith unfeigned, as Paul calls it. 2 Tim. i. 5. “Here is water,” said the eunuch, “what doth hinder me to be baptized?” Acts viii. 36. Now mark Philip’s answer, ver. 37: “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest;” as if he had said, Nothing but an hypocritical heart can hinder thee. It is the false heart only that finds the door of mercy shut.—William Gurnall.

Verse 2.—“Guile.” The guile of the spirit is an inward corruption in the soul of man, whereby he dealeth deceitfully with himself before God in the matter of salvation.—Thomas Taylor.