Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.
PSALM 51 We learn the cause which led to the composition of this psalm from the title appended to it, and which will immediately come under our consideration. For a long period after his melancholy fall, David would seem to have sunk into a spiritual lethargy; but when roused from it by the expostulation of Nathan, he was filled with self-loathing and humiliation in the...
Commenting on Psalm 51:1-19
Hide thy face from my sins. Do not look at them; be at pains not to see them. They thrust themselves in the way; but, Lord, refuse to behold them, lest if thou consider them, thine anger burn, and I die. Blot out all mine iniquities.
I. See here what David prays for. Many excellent petitions he here puts up, to which if we do but add, "for Christ's sake," they are as evangelical as any other. 1. He prays that God would cleanse him from his sins and the defilement he had contracted by them (Psa 51:7): "Purge me with hyssop; that is, pardon my sins, and let me know...
Commenting on Psalm 51:7-13