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From Eternity Past
When I kept silence, my bones waxed old
Through my roaring all the day long.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me:
My moisture was changed as with the drought of
summer.
Psalm 32:3, 4
[526]
And the fifty-first psalm is an expression of David’s repentance,
when the message of reproof came to him from God:
Create in me a clean heart, O God;
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Thy presence;
And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me... .
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
Thou God of my salvation;
And my tongue shall sing aloud of Thy
righteousness.
Psalm 51:10, 11, 14
Thus the king of Israel recounted his sin, his repentance, and his
hope of pardon through the mercy of God. He desired that others
might be instructed by the sad history of his fall.
More Than Pardon
David’s repentance was sincere. There was no effort to palliate
his crime, no desire to escape the judgments threatened. He saw the
defilement of his soul. He loathed his sin. It was not for pardon
only that he prayed, but for purity of heart. In the promise of God to
repentant sinners, he saw the evidence of his pardon and acceptance:
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite
heart, O God, Thou will not despise.”
Psalm 51:17
.
Though David had fallen, the Lord lifted him up. In the joy of
his release he sang, “I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine
iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the
Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”
Psalm 32:5
. David
humbled himself and confessed his sin, while Saul despised reproof
and hardened his heart in impenitence.